So….I totally never thought about this. I’m sure very few of you have. I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit disturbed…
Wow. Food for thought. I’m sure there’s an answer though.
Their names were translated/Anglicized after going from Greek to English.
The names of the Apostles are of Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew origins. The Hebrew, Aramaic and “Greek” named Apostles were: Shim’on = Simon (Hebrew origin). Y’hochanan = John (Hebrew origin). Mattithyahu = Matthew (Hebrew origin). Ya’aqov = James (Hebrew origin meaning Jacob). Bar-Tôlmay = Bartholomew (Aramaic, which is related to Hebrew). Judah = Jude / Saint Jude (not to be confused with Judas Iscariot, Hebrew origin). Yehuda = Judas Iscariot (Hebrew origin, Betrayed Yeshua/Yehosua the Messiah). Cephas / Kephas = Peter (Hebrew / Aramaic origin meaning “Rock”). Tau’ma = Thomas (Aramaic origin). Andrew = Andrew (Greek origin. Is the brother of Cephas / Kephas). Phillip = Phillip (Greek origin). You will note that there are only 11 names, that is because there were 2 Apostles named Ya’aqov (James), which brings the total to 12 apostles.
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To expand on this, Jesus’s name is Anglicized in this way as well. We get Jesus from the Latin form of the Greek “Ἰησοῦς”(Iēsous), which is derived from the Herbrew “ישוע”(Yeshu’a, which meant “YHWH is Salvaion”, YHWH, or Yahweh being the name of God). When another form of that name, ” יְהוֹשֻׁעַ”(Yeoshu’a) was allowed to Anglicize through a different set of corruptions, it entered the English Language through Reformist Protestants as the name “Joshua”. Yes. Jesus’s actual name is Joshua.
