Where did the name 'Isa come from?

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- kephas
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
OP - December 05, 2014, 04:23 AM

hello all. does anyone know where the word "'Isa", the name referring to Jesus in the Quran comes from, and why is it such a "puzzle" to scholars?

I thought that the obvious answer would be that it was used by the Arabs of the time of the Quran, and the author(s) simply used that word. This is what Alphonse Mingana said, in here, that "So far as the word 'Isa (the name given to Jesus in the Kur'an) is concerned, it was apparently in use before Muhammad, and it does not seem probable that it was coined by him. A monastery in South Syria, near the territory of the Christian Ghassanid Arabs, bore in A.D. 571 the name 'Isaniyah, that is to say, "of the followers of Jesus," i.e. of the Christians". But then there's Arthur Jeffery, who states "The form 'Isa, however, does not occur earlier than the Qur'an, whereas <Yasu3> appears to have been used in personal names at an early period. Till further information comes to hand we shall have to content ourselves with regarding it as some form of "konsonanten permutation" due, maybe, to Muhammad himself, and perhaps influenced... by Nestorian pronunciation". strangely enough, he puts a reference to Mingana's quote regarding the Isaniyya monastery when saying that "'Isa" didn't occur earlier than the Quran. Here's a more contemporary account by James Bellamy that "'Isa has no satisfactory derivation and no pre-Koranic history". So which one is right? was there or was there not pre-Quranic use of 'Isa?

Then I would think that perhaps the Quran's author is following some sort of rule in translating foreign words into Arabic. Jeffery then writes, regarding the ayn in front of 'Isa and the disappearing ayn at the end: "It is not unusual to find Arabic using an initial ayin in words borrowed from Aramaic, and the dropping of final ayin is evidenced by the form Yisho of the Manichaean "koktiirkish" fragments from Turfan, and the late Jewish Yeshu for Yeshua'".

If so, then what's so puzzling about the origin of the word "'Isa" that is said by scholars? I feel like I'm missing something here. if the translation of 'Isa is in accordance with the conventions of Arabic, and there were pre-Quranic usage of 'Isa, then how come it's not an open and shut case? why the statements about it being made by Muhammad, or that there is no satisfactory derivation, with theories of it actually being Esau, or that is rhymes with Musa, or it was originally Masiyya, etc?

what is the opinion of current scholarship regarding this word? any illuminations regarding this issue would be appreciated.

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- suki
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #1 - December 05, 2014, 09:33 AM

Can't remember, i read about it eons ago, wasn't it a syriac version of a popular name ? Yehesa, esa for short ? im sure "yeh" is a kind of title used in hebrew names at the time.. Theres many variations, joshua, yeshua, yehesa.. there's some knowledgable people on here who will know the answer.
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #2 - December 05, 2014, 10:12 AM

dont know about scholarship, but i've always thought it was simply one of the errors in the quran. its not supposed to be a translation. it is supposed to be a transliteration, and at minimum, it should start with a y as far as I can tell.
- cosmicdancer
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #3 - December 05, 2014, 10:34 AM

This Christian Arab site says this:

"In Greek there is no difference between يسوع and يشوع and يهوشع they are all one ايسوس Isous Ἰησοῦς. Just as the name of Jesus Ἰησου - إيسو in Greek is pronounced عيشو in the Aramaic used in the Arabian peninsular and in the dialect of eastern Iraq some pronounced it عيسى from where it became also became vocalised in Arabic as عيسى "

http://www.jesus-nazareth.com/forum/showthread.php?6558-%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%89-%D9%83%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%AD-%D9%88%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%89-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%85-%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%B3%D9%89-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A3%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%A1
- dr_sloth
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #4 - December 05, 2014, 10:53 AM

doesn't that suggest that the quran took it from the greek bible, which was transliterating the hebrew the best it could, but not the best Arabic could?
- cosmicdancer
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #5 - December 05, 2014, 11:50 AM

Yep.
- kephas
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #6 - December 05, 2014, 12:19 PM

Quote from: suki on December 05, 2014, 09:33 AM
Can't remember, i read about it eons ago, wasn't it a syriac version of a popular name ? Yehesa, esa for short ? im sure "yeh" is a kind of title used in hebrew names at the time.. Theres many variations, joshua, yeshua, yehesa.. there's some knowledgable people on here who will know the answer.

the syriac version is spelled "yod shin waw ayin" too. regarding the pronounciation, I don't know, and if I'm not mistaken syriac has western and eastern/jacobite vs nestorian dialects so the pronunciation might be different. but the strange thing about 'Isa is that it starts with an 'ayn. whatever the pronunciation for yodh is in syriac, I'm would think that it's strange to be said with a voiced pharyngeal fricative, which is the sound of ayin in semitic languages?

Quote from: dr_sloth on December 05, 2014, 10:12 AM
dont know about scholarship, but i've always thought it was simply one of the errors in the quran. its not supposed to be a translation. it is supposed to be a transliteration, and at minimum, it should start with a y as far as I can tell.

yeah that's what Bellamy said too: "Perhaps the most mysterious textual problem in the Koran is the name 'Isa, which is the name given to Jesus. No one has yet satisfactorily explained why the Koran should call Jesus 'Isa (...) The fact that 'Isa has no satisfactory derivation and no pre-Koranic history should have alerted scholars to the possibility that the word is a mistake"

Quote from: Abu Ali on December 05, 2014, 10:34 AM
This Christian Arab site says this:

"In Greek there is no difference between يسوع and يشوع and يهوشع they are all one ايسوس Isous Ἰησοῦς. Just as the name of Jesus Ἰησου - إيسو in Greek is pronounced عيشو in the Aramaic used in the Arabian peninsular and in the dialect of eastern Iraq some pronounced it عيسى from where it became also became vocalised in Arabic as عيسى "

http://www.jesus-nazareth.com/forum/showthread.php?6558-%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%89-%D9%83%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%AD-%D9%88%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%89-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%85-%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%B3%D9%89-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A3%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%A1

yeah, I thought that maybe it's used by Christians but then we have Arthur Jeffery's statements such as "The form 'Isa does not occur earlier than the Qur'an". but then we have Mingana's statements "the word 'Isa was apparently in use before Muhammad". that's why I don't get why 'Isa is such a puzzle, since if there's an existing word, then the author of the Quran just took it from there, and there would be no need to come up with theories such as "rhyming with Musa" or "it's actually Esau" or "it's actually Masiyya". but since Mingana wrote that in 1927, are his views rejected today? if so why?

"we stand firm calling to allah all the time,
we let them know - bang! bang! - coz it's dawah time!"
- Zaotar
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #7 - December 05, 2014, 03:00 PM

The moving ayin is the real problem, not the "Isa" form.

There have been tons of theories about how and why the ayin moves from the end to the beginning, but it remains baffling.

Compare "yahya," which is a straightforward textual misreading that is easy to explain by comparison.
- kephas
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #8 - December 05, 2014, 04:41 PM

Quote from: Zaotar on December 05, 2014, 03:00 PM
The moving ayin is the real problem, not the "Isa" form.

There have been tons of theories about how and why the ayin moves from the end to the beginning, but it remains baffling.

Compare "yahya," which is a straightforward textual misreading that is easy to explain by comparison.

but how come it's still baffling though? since Mingana claimed that 'Isa exists in pre-Koranic times, why isn't the accepted thought would be that the author of the Quran merely adapted the name that was already in use? Or is the fact that 'Isa existed pre-Quran disputed?

"we stand firm calling to allah all the time,
we let them know - bang! bang! - coz it's dawah time!"
- Zaotar
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Where did the name 'Isa come from?
Reply #9 - December 05, 2014, 05:56 PM

I don't know why other scholars haven't taken up Mingana's point. But I think if Mingana is correct, it actually just deepens the puzzle here, albeit in ways that are perhaps very important for the overall picture of how the Qur'an emerged.

If Mingana is correct that the name 'Isa was in use as a 'Syriac' term within Christian Ghassanid South Syria in 571 AD, then one must explain HOW that name developed within Syriac. In other words, the problem just becomes one of internal Syriac development, rather than Aramaic-Arabic transition. It is actually substantially easier to explain it in the latter way, because there are lots of mechanisms for how the name got butchered over the transition. Within Christian Syriac tradition itself, however, it becomes much harder to explain how the Aramaic name of Jesus became butchered.

Luxenberg has ventured a theory on this subject that has evidently received tentative support in the superb critique of Luxenberg's work by the Syriacist Daniel King. See p. 47 of the following.

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/share/research/centres/clarc/jlarc/contents/King%20A%20Christian%20Qur%27an.pdf

In a nutshell, Luxenberg argues that the Syriac for "Jesus" was *conflated* with the Syriac for "Jessie," the father of King David (obviously a massively important figure, particularly in apocalyptic contexts!). This has been somewhat obscured by the fact that Classical Arabic recitation of the Qur'anic rasm commonly (according to Luxenberg) screws up the Qur'an's original vowelization. Luxenberg's argument is fairly compelling (albeit not decisive) to me when combined with what King calls his 'very important' argument about the Syriac derivation of "hanif," also discussed on p. 47 -- I think on the latter Luxenberg is surely correct, I am less sold on the "Isa" argument, but I think it's at least fairly plausible.

Turning back to Mingana, if his point about the pre-Islamic use of 'Isa is correct, I would emphasize how important that may be: Think about it, this solitary pre-Islamic Syriac use of the term 'Isa exemplifies *precisely where, when, and how I believe much of the ur-Qur'an itself may have been formulated.* Namely, marginal Christian preaching in the Arabic parts of South Syria, using poorly-understood Syriac terminology in a context where dialectal Arabic vernacular was the language everybody actually understood, during the late 6th Century AD. Combined with presumably weak scribal and literate skillsets in this peripheral context, a lack of centralizing control. That is almost to the letter a description of the context where I myself believe much of the ur-Qur'an (including the short 'Meccan' surahs) was originally created, before it was taken up and 'hijazified' in larger compositions over decades by later Arabs in the context of the overall Arabic expansion. If Mingana is right, his point may help substantiate this critical question. And the formulation of the botched Qur'anic versions of 'Isa and Yahya may have emerged in precisely this peripheral Syriac/dialectal Arabic context, and be strongly indicative of how it happened.

In general, I am surprised that more scholars do not seem to consider much of the Qur'an to be very archaic relative to Mohammed's life (partly this reflects the unwarranted and in my view erroneous assumption that the Qur'an was tightly tied to Mohammed's own life). For example, Wansbrough argues that the Qur'an was recompiled over several centuries after Mohammed's death. But that can't be correct. I think the best explanation is that the Qur'an was in fact formed over many decades ... but not after 632 AD! Rather slowly compiled in stages from the mid 6th century all the way to the mid 7th century for the main texts, supplemented by some modifications and additions from the 660s onward. So Wansbrough's description of the process if somewhat correct, but he gets the context and timeline quite wrong, trying to locate it within Abassid Islam, when what we really have is peripheral Syrio-Arabic base texts that were slowly assembled into the Qur'an by early Umayyad-era groups.
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