There is not a single authoritative reference source which gives the name Jesus or Iesous as the original name of Yahushúa. All of them admit that the original form of the Name was Jehoshua or Yehoshua to Jesus?
Many Hebrew names of the Old Testament prophets have been "Hellenised" when these names were rewritten in the Greek New Testament. Thus, Isaiah became Isaias, Elisha became Elissaios or Elisseus (Eliseus),and Elijah became Helias in the Greek New Testament. The King James Version ahs retained some of these Hellenised names. Since the King James Version was published, the newer English versions have ignored these Hellenised names of the Greek New Testament, and have preferred , quite correctly, to render them as they are found in the Hebrew Old Testament, namely: Isaiah, Elisha and Elijah. Incidentally, the similarity between the Hellenised Helias (instead of Elijah) and the Greek Sun-deity Helios, gave rise to the well-known assimilation of these two by the Church. Dr. A.B. Cook, in his book, Zeus - A Study in Ancient Religion, vol. I p. 178 - 179, elaborates on this, quoting the comments of a 5th century Christian poet and others, on this. Imagine it, Elijah identified with Helios, the Greek Sun-deity! Returning to our discussion on the reluctance of the translators to persist with all of the Hellenised names in the Greek of the New Testament, one could very well ask: But why did they persist with the Hellenised Iesous of Yahushúa's Name, and its further Latinised form Iesus? It is accepted by all that His Hebrew name was Yahushúa. So why did the translators of the scriptures not restore it, as they did with the names of the Hebrew prophets? It is generally agreed that our successor to Moses, Joshua. But "Joshua" was not the name of the man who led Israel into the Promised Land. The Greeks substituted the Old Testament "Yehoshua" with Iesous, the same word they used for Yahushúa in the New Testament. Subsequently the Latins came and substituted it with Josue (Iosue) in the Old Testament (which became Josua in German and Joshua in English), but used Iesus in the New Testament. In the Hebrew Scriptures we do not find the word "Joshua". In every place it is written: Yehoshua. However, after the Babylonian captivity we find the shortened form "Yeshua" in a few places -shortened, because they then omitted the second and third letters, namely: . Everyone who sees the names Yehoshua and Iesous will agree: there is no resemblance between the names Yehoshua and Iesous or Iesus.
Before we continue with our study of the word Iesous and Iesus, we would like to point out that we have been led to believe that the correct Name is Yahushúa. He said in John 5:43, "I have come in My Father's Name". Again, in John 17:11 He prayed to His Father, "... keep them through Your Name which You have given Me" -according to the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, the United Bible Societies' Third Edition, and the Majority Text - all of which are over-whelmingly accepted today as being far more reliable than the Textus Receptus. Therefore, in John 17:11 Yahushúa states that His Father's Name had been given to Him. Again He repeats this irrefutable fact in the next verse, John 17:12, "...in you Name which You gave Me. And I guarded them (or it)." See the footnote on these two verses in teh Revised Authorised Version. Read also John 17:11-12 in any of the modern English versions. So, we have Yahushúa's clear words, in three tests, that His Father's name was given to Him. Paul also testifies to this in Ephesians 3:14-15. What then is His Father's Name? Although most scholars accept "Yahúweh " and many still cling to the older form "Yehowah" (or Jehovah), we are convinced that the correct form is Yahweh.1,6
Where did Iesous and Iesus come from? In Bux and Schone, Worterbuch der Antike, under "Jesus", we read, "JESUS: really named Jehoshua. Iesous (Greek), Iesus (Latin) is adapted from the Greek,, possibly from the name of a Greek healing goddess Ieso (Iaso)." Like all authoritative sources, this dictionary admits to the real true name of Yahushúa: Jehoshua (more precisely: Yahushúa). It then states, as most others, that the commonly known substitute, non-original, non-real name "Jesus" was adapted from the Greek. We must remember that Yahushúa was born from a Hebrew virgin, not from a Greek one. His stepfather, His half-brothers and half-sisters, in fact all His people, were Hebrews, Jews. Furthermore, this dictionary then traces the substitute name back to the Latin Iesus, and the Greek Iesous. It then traces the origin of the name Iesous back as being possibly adapted from the Greek healing goddess Ieso (Iaso). To the uniformed I would like to point out that Iaso is the usual Greek form, while Ieso is from the Ionic dialect of the Greeks. This startling discovery, the connection between Ieso (Iaso) and Iesous, is also revealed to us by the large unabridged edition of Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, p. 816, under "Iaso". The third witness comes to us in a very scholarly article by Hans Lamer in Philologische Wochenschrift, No. 25, 21 June 1930, pp. 763-765. In this article the author recalls the fact of Ieso being the Ionic Greek goddess of healing. Hans Lamer then postulates, because of all the evidence, that "they changed Ieso into a regular masculine Iesous. This was even more welcome to the Greeks who converted to Christianity." He then continues, "If the above is true, then the name of our Lord which we commonly use goes back to a long lost form of the name of a Greek goddess of healing. But to Greeks who venerated a healing goddess Ieso, a saviour Iesous must have been most acceptable. The Hellenisation was thus rather clever." This then is the evidence of three sourced who, like us, do not hide the fact of the Greek name Iesous being related to the Greek goddess of healing. The Hellenisation of Yahushúa's Name was indeed most cleverly done. To repeat Yahushúa's words of warning in John 5:43, "I have come in My Father's Name and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive." There is no resemblance or identifiability between the Name, Yahushúa, and the Greek substitute for it, Iesous. The Father's Name, Yah- or Yahu-, cannot be seen in the Greek Iesous or in the Latin Iesus, neither in the German Jesus, nor in the English Jesus. President Reagan's name remains the same in all languages. Hitler's name remains the same in all languages. Even Satan has seen to it that all nations know him by his name: Satan. Satan has seen to it that his own name has been left unmolested However, let us further investigate the names Ieso (Iaso) and Iesous. According to ancient Greek religion, Apollo, their great Sun-deity, had a son by t he name of Asclepius, the deity of healing, but also identified with the Sun. This Asclepius had daughters, and one of them was Iaso (Ieso),183 the Greek goddess of healing. Because of her father's and grandfather's identities as Sun-deities, she too is in the same family of Sun-deities. Therefor, the name Iesous, which is possibly derived from Ieso, can be traced back to Sun-worship.
We find other related names, all of them variants of the same name, Iasus, Iasion, Iasius, in ancient Greek religion, as being sons of Zeus.184 Even in India we find a similar name Issa or Issi, as surnames for their deity Shiva.185 Quite a few scholars have remarked on the similarity between the names of the Indian Issa or Issi, the Egyptian Isis and the Greek Iaso.186 In our research on the deity Isis we made two startling discoveries. The one was that the son of Isis was called Isu187 by some. However, the second discovery yielded even further light: The learned scholar of Egyptian religion, Hans Bonnet, reveals to us in his Reallexikon der Agyptischen Religionsgeschichte, p. 326, that the name of Isis appears in the hieroglyphic inscriptions as ESU or ES. No wonder it has been remarked, "Between Isis and Jesus as names confusion could arise."187 This Isis also had a child, which was called Isu by some.187 This Isu and Esu sound exactly like the "Jesu" that we find the Saviour called in the translated Scriptures of many languages, e.g. many African languages. Rev. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 164, also remarked on the similarity of Jesus and Isis, "IHS - Iesus Hominum Salvator - But let a Roman worshipper of Isis (for in the age of the emperors there were innumerable worshippers of Isis in Rome) cast his eyes upon them, and how will he read them, or course, according to his won well-known system of idolatry: Isis, Horus, Seb." He then continues with a similar example of "skilful planning" by "the very same spirit, that converted the festival of the Pagan Oannes is not the feast of the Christians Joannes." (The Hebrew name of the baptizer, and that of the apostle as well, was Yochanan or Yehochanan).
Thus, by supplanting the Name of Yahushúa with that of the Hellenised Iesous (in capitals: IHSOUS), which became the Latinised Iesus, it was easy to make the pagans feel welcome - those pagans who worshipped the Greek Ieso (Iaso), of which he masculine counterpart is Iesous (in capitals: IHSOUS), as well as those who worshipped the Egyptian Esu (Isis). further evidence of syncretism withe the Isis-system is found in A. Kircher, Oedipus Aegypticus, wherein the name of the son of Isis is revealed to us as "Iessus, which signifies Issa, whom they also called Christ in Greek." Another pagan group of worshippers could also be made to feel at home with the introduction of this surrogate name Iesous (IHSOUS) or Iesus, namely the worshippers of Esus. Jan de Vries hold that Esus was a Gallic deity comparable to the Scandinavian Odin.188 Odin, of course, was the Scandinavian Sky-deity. This Gallic or Celtic deity, Esus, has also been identified189 with Mars, and by others with Mercury, and was regarded to by the special deity of Paris.189 Just as Iaso, Ieso, Iesous are derived fro m the Greek word for healing, iasis, we similarly find Isis (more correctly: Esu) and her son Horus (more correctly: Her), regarded as deities of healing as well as cosmic deities,190 or Sun-deities, by others.
In Acts 4:12 we read, "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." This verse clearly tell us that there is only one Name whereby we can be saved - there is none other. It cannot be Yahushúa as well as Jesus, Iesous, Iesus, or Ies (Bacchus). There is no resemblance between the names of Yahushúa and Jesus. The one is correct and the other one a substitute. The one contains our Father's Name and the other one not. Yahushúa has said that He came in His Father's name, John 5:43. In the newer translations of the Scriptures, we read in two places, John 17:11 and 12, that Yahushúa said that His Father's Name was given to Him. If we believe the Scriptures, if we believe our Messiah, if we believe what Peter said in Acts 4:12, we cannot be satisfied with any substitute name. We must believe, accept, and be baptized into the only saving Name: Yahushúa. In the end-time, according to Joel 2:32, calling on the Name of Yahweh will be necessary for salvation and deliverance. By believing on, calling on, and being baptized in the Name of Yahushúa, we do "call on the Name of Yahweh " , through His Son, "Who had His Father's Name given to Him, by His Father. "I have come in My Father's Name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive," John 5:43. The writer of Proverbs challenges us in Prov. 30:4, "What is His Name, and what is His Son's Name, if thou canst tell?" KJV. a very interesting alternate rendering for Psalm 72:17 is given to us in the centre column of the Reference King James Version, speaking about he promised Messiah, "His Name shall be as a Son to continue His Father's Name for ever."