"Name" -- Part One: The Meaning of the Greek Word

The ancient world used the word translated as "name" differently than we do. Jesus uses the word in a variety of Greek phrases, all of which have different meanings. Many of these phrases are translated into the same English phrase, “in the name of,” which gets its meaning today from its Biblical use. I will use “in the name” in this article because it matches our English translations. Future articles will discuss specific phrases and the general problem with Biblical translations of people’s names, but here we start with the foundation of those articles: how the meaning of the “name” was different back then.

The Greek Word

The Greek word, onoma, (ὄνομα) is translated as "name." Jesus used the word in forty-seven verses. The word almost always appears in preposition phrases. Onoma has a strong sense of our word, "fame." This is the way we use “name” when we say, “she’s making a name for herself.” Onoma was understood to capture only the reputation of a person. Onoma can also mean a "false name," or "a pretense." This is like we say, "this is a marriage in name only." Someone might have been called “Lazy John” because they were very energetic.

Since we live in a more anonymous society today, our idea of a “name” is more like an identification number. People can know our names even when they know nothing else about us. To them, we are only the name on a piece of paper. Our name is much more widespread than our “fame,” that is, our reputations.

In smaller societies, where the individuals are known to their community, a "name" is someone’s reputation, a label people use to capture all they know about a person, especially their standing in the community. We can describe this as the “position” they held in the minds of others (the central topic of my Substack articles on strategy). In ancient times, even if you didn't have a personal relationship with an individual in your community, you knew his or her, onoma, that is, reputation, accurate or not. This type of knowing is still common in small towns today.

People’s names were often not the names they were given at birth. A person’s name could actually become a description of them, where they were from and what they did. We will discuss many examples of this in a future article about the mistranslation of the names in the Bible.

A person's reputation was socially important. It determined how people treated them, especially those who might do business with them or pay them for work. Having a "bad name" meant being a social outcast. Traveling to communities in which you were not known automatically made you a suspicious character. People couldn’t judge or trust you because they didn’t know your “name.”

Name and Authority

Even though we are anonymous in many aspects of our lives today, we still "make a name" for ourselves where we work, within our families, and among our acquaintances. However, this reputation is more limited than the onomas of Jesus’s time. People at work often don’t know our reputation within our families. Our families often don’t know our standing among our fellow workers except for what we tell them. Some "important" pieces of information about us, such as our bank balances, no one may know. All of this type of information was more widely spread in the time of Jesus when people talked more and wrote down less. Most of the “news” of the day was gossip about others in the community. People repeated what they heard others. So, your onoma came to include your standing in your family, what you did for a living, and what you owned.

For people who were important outside of their community, like rulers, generals, and so on, what was known about them was their position in the social order (an idea translated as “world” in the Bible, see this article). Because of this, an onoma also means a person's authority. We use the word "fame" to describe someone who is known broadly today. In ancient times, people would simply say that their onoma was known, for better or worse.

When it came to positions of authority, a ruler's onoma implied his power over others. A ruler extended his authority by authorizing other acting “in his name.” It didn’t matter if that empowered subordinate was a prince or a slave. Acting in someone's name means using their power. Doing this falsely was a much more serious crime than today’s fraud. Anyone could justly kill others who falsely acted in their onoma. But this wasn’t only true to those acting falsely. People were killed for mistakes that damaged the reputations of their masters, even when they were acting legitimately. The power to act in the onoma of a powerful person was a dangerous burden. This very much applies to the idea of acting in the name of the Divine.

Ancient people also judged others much more by their family’s “name.” This was the concept of belonging to a "house," which was so important that I explain it in another article about its use in Jesus’s words. Damaging your house’s onoma through your actions was a serious offense. This fear of family public shame was a major source of social order.

“Glorifying” a Name

Since an onoma was the reputation that someone had, it was closely tied to the idea of “recognition.” The Greek word for recognition is doxa, a word that is mistranslated as “glory” in the Bible. The word usually translated as "glorify" is the verb form, doxazo, which means “to recognize” and “to make recognized.” These words were not reserved for the Divine or emperors. They were applied to regular people as commonly as our words for “reputation” and “recognize” are today.

Jesus describes his role as "to glorify [God's] name" (John 17:6), in other words, “to spread recognition of his reputation.” The point is to promote the onoma of the Divine (John 17:4). Jesus could not do this alone. Spreading a name required people talking about it, carrying “the good news” through gossip. Jesus uses a fun Greek word, boringly translated as “say,” like many different Greek verbs. However, this special verb means, among similar ideas, to “repeat gossip.”

Jesus says that the Father must make Jesus famous, that is, recognize him, so Jesus can make the Father famous (John 17:1). Jesus demonstrated Divine abilities because he acted in the “name” of the Father. Jesus is reluctant to say this to powerful people (Mark 11:33), even though he states it openly to his followers. In today's terms, we might say Jesus and his follower’s job was marketing and promoting a new idea of the Divine. His life and words were meant "go viral," as we say today.

Jesus’s Purpose (or One of Them)

This brings us to the larger question of the onoma of God that Jesus is publicizing. What is the reputation that Jesus wants people to have of the Divine? How should the Divine be recognized? Much of what Jesus teaches is related to this question. The answer is best summarized in the Lord's Prayer, by the phrase, "our Father, in the skies." The Greek word translated as "father" includes every generation like we use the word, “forefathers.” So, the Divine is not only the highest of fathers, but the father of all fathers.

This onoma was built on the Jewish understanding of the Divine as "I am that am," that is, the "Being of Existence." However, this concept is new. The Divine is described as “father” in the Old Testament, but never as “the Father in the skies.” This onoma changes the position of the Divine. The word “skies” means “the universe,” that is, everything that is not “earthly” (see this article). So, this name implies a universal Father who is also “the highest” that we can imagine. This onoma also elevates us because it positions us as his children, a member of His “house.”