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Philippians 2:9 NIV

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,

What exactly did Paul mean when he said that his name was above every name? How do we rationalize calling "Yeshua ben Yosef" as "Jesus" when "Jesus" isn't his name? I understand that "Iesu/Iesus/Iesous/Jesus" is based on a translation concern, but today we know the proper way to pronounce his name.

My concern is using a "name". If names don't matter based on translation / transliteration, as long as we personally know who we're addressing, does it matter if we call him God, Jesus, Yashua, ElRoy, Allah, or Jim? What is in a name?

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    The driving point of this question seems to be about a modern application of the verse (whether we "should" call Jesus "Yeshua ben Yosef"). The question should be adjusted to focus on the text itself, not what we "today" should do because of it.
    – user2910
    Nov 6, 2015 at 16:30
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    In regard to the text, would you say that the occurrence of the name "Jesus" at the top of Time Magazine's analysis of people of historical significance, something of a confirmation?
    – enegue
    Nov 7, 2015 at 9:06
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    Who are you, or anyone else, to say what the "proper way" to say his name is??
    – curiousdannii ♦
    Nov 7, 2015 at 13:21
  • @enegue I would say that being on Time's list has little to do with the topic of the text. Time magazine once voted Bart Simpson as one of the top 100 most influential people of the 20th century (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Simpson). The text is concerned with something that is orders of magnitude higher in terms of eternal significance.
    – Daniel Stowers
    Nov 9, 2015 at 13:59
  • @Daniel You can't have read the text. Jesus is not just on the list, his name is pre-eminent, the name above every other name. The name at the top Google's 2014 most searched "Who is...?", is Jesus. I think such things are precisely what Paul would have expected to happen. Not that he could possibly have imagined the means, of course.
    – enegue
    Nov 9, 2015 at 14:26

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I think a problem comes in assuming that the "name above every name" is "Jesus".

Jesus/Yeshua was a common name at the time (http://www.jesus.org/is-jesus-god/names-of-jesus/jesus-an-ordinary-name.html). Joshua appears to been as common a Jewish name as John is in English. Even today the name Jesus is common in some parts of the world. However, the name/title which sets Jesus apart from everyone else is "Lord".

Luke 20:42 makes it clear that Psalm 110 is talking about Jesus, who as LORD, will have his enemies made a footstool, and will rule from Zion.

42 “For David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, “SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND

Jesus was given the ὄνομα (name) above every ὄνομα, and ὄνομα has variously been translated as name, character, fame, reputation.

It would be most natural to see that name or designation as "Lord", rather than "Jesus."

Regarding using "Jesus" instead of "Yeshua", we do that because the Greek manuscripts refer to him as Jesus, and the Greek texts are usually held by the Christian Church to be divinely inspired.

This is not some kind of conspiracy - because the New Testament writers most often quote from the LXX, all the distinctive names of God from the Hebrew scriptures are replaced by the terms 'God' and Lord'. The Apostles, whom the Church holds as inspired, didn't seem to have a problem with this.

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  • The "name above all names" should be translated "the title above all titles" as it refers to the title KURIOS ("lord"). God highly exalted Jesus to be Lord in his stead because Jesus was obedient all the way to death.
    – Ruminator
    Oct 20, 2018 at 11:34

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