Jesus (Iesous) is from Greek for Joshua (
Jeshua, Jehoshua). There were two men named Joshua whose lives were forerunners of Jesus Christ. It was under Joshua the
son of Nun that Israel conquered
31 cities in the land of Canaan beginning around
1400 BC. Jesus (
Luke 2:15-21) was given a name which means “
God saves” because he was born to save each one of us (
Matthew 1:20-23). We cannot save ourselves from death, but Jesus can if we let him. Joshua leading Israel into the promised land is symbolic of Jesus leading the saved into eternal life. A lesser known Joshua in the Bible, Joshua the son of Jozadak was the first person named as high priest after Israel returned from national captivity in Babylon (
Haggai 1). Jesus is our high priest who offered himself (
Hebrews 8:3-5).
(References: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen; The Oxford History of the Biblical World. 1998. Oxford University Press; http://www.biblearchaeology.org; http://www.orthodoxytoday.org)
No comments:
Post a Comment