Western Names in the New Testament

[Stravinsk]

So I watched a video recently from a person I follow regularly, as usually their content is excellent. This particular video, however, was a pretty big stretch for me to watch, while the information was interesting, as a person with a Christian background, now Deist, even I found it eye-raising. TBH, I haven't made up my mind about it, but Christians and Jews would hate it, that I know.

O k ...on to one of the points it brings up, that I feel comfortable asking here.

Many of the main characters in the New Testament had very *western* names. Paul, Peter, John, Andrew, Simon, Matthew, Mark etc.

The events of the New Testament take place in a non-western part of the world, where these types of names would not be common.

Does that strike you as perhaps a little odd?

 

[1689Dave]

So I watched a video recently from a person I follow regularly, as usually their content is excellent. This particular video, however, was a pretty big stretch for me to watch, while the information was interesting, as a person with a Christian background, now Deist, even I found it eye-raising. TBH, I haven't made up my mind about it, but Christians and Jews would hate it, that I know.

O k ...on to one of the points it brings up, that I feel comfortable asking here.

Many of the main characters in the New Testament had very *western* names. Paul, Peter, John, Andrew, Simon, Matthew, Mark etc.

The events of the New Testament take place in a non-western part of the world, where these types of names would not be common.

Does that strike you as perhaps a little odd?

They translated the names from Greek to Engrish so you could understand them

 

[tango]

Interesting point.

My first thought was that the name rendered "Jesus" is often quoted as Yeshua, Yashua, Yehushua etc so it's possible that actual names have been converted into a Western equivalent. That said, if that was done in the NT it would seem reasonable to ask why it wasn't also done with the OT so we wouldn't have to deal with names like Zerubbabel, Nebuchadnezzar etc.

 

[MoreCoffee]

*western* names. Paul, Peter, John, Andrew, Simon, Matthew, Mark etc.

All of those names are Jewish, or Greek spellings for Hebrew or Aramaic names. None of them is western. Western names are names like Charles, Eric, Octavian, Plato, Harold, and so forth.