Possibly the earliest witness to Christianity in Arabia, the Jesus inscription from the Wadi al-Khudari is a memorial inscription, meaning that it commemorates a deceased person. It consists of three parts: It first gives the inscriber’s name (Wahb-El) and genealogy, then adds a commemoration of his deceased uncle, and finally concludes with a unique religious invocation—to Isay, which corresponds to the name given to Jesus in the Quran: “O Īsay (‘sy), help him against those who deny you.” There can be little doubt that the writer (and possibly also his uncle) was Christian.
“The present text is a typical Safaitic composition, but the old gods and prayers are replaced by a Christian invocation. Wahb-El may therefore have been a convert who modified the Safaitic writing tradition to accommodate his new faith, invoking Jesus with the same formulaic structure used to invoke the old gods.” Regarding the circumstances surrounding the inscription and the rise of Christianity in Arabia, Al-Jallad theorizes, “[Wahb-El] may have had close contacts with settled areas, such as Bostra in Syria or the cities of the Decapolis in Transjordan, which appear in other Safaitic texts. On the other hand, it is possible that his inscription reflects the efforts of missionaries to convert the nomads.”
- The Earliest Evidence of Christianity in Arabia? (Biblical Archaeology Society)
One crisis that has recently been averted among the churches of our area has to do with the name of Jesus. Our people group, speaking a Persian-related language and overwhelmingly Islamic in their creed in recent centuries, call Jesus by the name he is given in the Quranic Arabic: ‘Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah, localized as ‘Isa-i Mesih).
In previous decades, the Bible translators chose to keep Jesus’ name as ‘Isa in our Bible translation, rather than to defer to the Arabic evangelical preferred form of Yasu’. The reason for this was straightforward. Someone from our people group reading the new Bible in their language would have no idea who Yasu’ was. But they had inherited at least partial categories for ‘Isa the Messiah. While the Jesus of the Quran is not the same as the Jesus of the Bible, by using the same name, the translators discerned that the seekers and local believers from a Muslim background would be less confused and eventually able to redeem the name and fill it with biblical meaning.
In the years since this decision was made, this has indeed proved to be the case. Local believers have had no issues coming to understand who the true Jesus is, even though the name they use for him is close to the same form as Jesus’ name in the Qur’an.
However, the form used for Jesus’ name among Arabic speaking believers is a really big deal. For centuries, they have used Yesu’ and opposed ‘Isa as an inferior Islamic name for Christ, one that some even claim was chosen as a camel-related insult. As the theory goes, the writer of the Quran intentionally chose a different name for his demoted Jesus who was just a mighty prophet, wasn’t the Son of God, and didn’t die on the cross.
Without getting into the merits of this belief, this linguistic differentiation among Arabic-speaking Christians is one still held to very passionately, and likely why someone from that camp began telling believers among our people group that they were compromising by calling Jesus ‘Isa and not Yasu’. Divisions started to emerge among local churches and leaders. Some of those adopting this new position were the usual suspects, local leaders doing ministry for worldly gain who like to find distinctives like this for the sake of demonstrating their ‘superior’ knowledge. But at least one faithful pastor was also getting quite convictional on this issue, a brother whose church partners very closely with the church we helped to plant in Poet City.
Thankfully, a meeting was held among Bible translators and local believers last year where the matter was, at least for now, put to rest. Everyone present agreed that believers and churches in our language group should be free to use either form of Jesus’ name, according to what they think is best for clear teaching and communication. One key to convincing them of the wisdom of this position was new research that demonstrates that ‘Isa is, in fact, an ancient Christian form of Jesus’ name, one that predated Islam. Research by Rick Brown of SIL has demonstrated that ‘Isa is the Arabic form of the ancient East Syriac ‘Isho, while Yasu’ is the form descended from the ancient West Syriac dialect.
This means that ‘Isa was a Christian Arabic name for Jesus before Islam ever came along. While this doesn’t automatically settle the matter for Arabic speaking Christians, for whom their community may never be able nor want to redeem the name of ‘Isa, it is a significant point in favor of the name’s potential for Christian use in other languages. Other languages and people groups simply don’t have the same options, nor the same baggage, for a hard differentiation of Yasu’ over ‘Isa to make sense as a hard rule. In contrast to a name for the all-powerful creator God, these languages don’t tend to have an indigenous name already for Jesus. So, if one ancient borrowed form of Jesus’ name is the one that is more clear, then they should be free to use that form rather than another foreign one not otherwise present in their language. Islamic Arabic has forced other languages into its mold for long enough. The last thing we need is Christian Arabic doing the same thing.
Islam, in a very real sense, stole this particular form of Jesus’ name 1,400 years ago. And while many native Arabic speakers don’t feel right about using it after centuries of gross misuse, for other languages, stealing it back and making it their own is actually pretty easy. English speakers skeptical of this possibility should beware. Our very term for ‘God’ has its own concerning roots in pagan religious usage, more problematic than Allah with it’s El-related semitic roots, and our Germano-English ‘Jesus’ is just as far away from the Greek ‘Iesous or the Hebrew Yeshua as ‘Isa is. In fact, every time we read our Bibles and go to church in the English language we are demonstrating just how effective this sort of name redemption/adaptation process can be.
However, the ancient case for ‘Isa as a Christian name is even stronger than I had realized. As quoted above, it turns out that ancient Arabic inscriptions from the 300s in the Jordanian desert show that ‘Isay was already being used by Arab nomads to refer to Jesus in that early period. Bear in mind, this is 300 years before Islam came along. The Wadi al-Khudari inscriptions in an older form of written Arabic, called Safaitic, bear this out.
I, for one, hope that the current consensus among our local believers about Jesus’ names holds for the long term. ‘Isa or Yasu’ can both be effectively claimed by the believing community and filled with glorious biblical meaning. Both have good clear roots going back to ancient Christian usage. Of the two of them, ‘Isa is currently far more clear, bringing to mind a man called the Messiah who worked miracles and is coming back to judge the world. But local believers will need to make the ultimate call for their churches and their own newly Christianizing language. The roots of names really do matter, as does their baggage, as does their ability to effectively bring the right person to mind. All of these realities need to be taken seriously in cases like this.
For now, if you ever hear someone claiming that ‘Isa was never a proper Christian name for Jesus, you know otherwise. It was being used for Jesus long before Islam came around, and a full three centuries, at that.
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