Editing Yeshua (section)

===Rabbinical commentary on the difference Yeshuʿ/Yeshuaʿ===
In general rabbinical sources, the name Yeshuʿ is used, and this is the form to which some named references to [[Jesus in the Talmud]] as Yeshu occur in some manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud, though some scholars, such as [[Johann Maier (talmudic scholar)|Maier]] (1978) have argued that the presence of the name Yeshuʿ in these texts is a late interpolation. Some of the Hebrew sources referencing Yeshu include the {{Transliteration|he|[[Toledot Yeshu]]}}, ''[[The Book of Nestor the Priest]]'', Jacob ben Reuben's {{Transliteration|he|[[Milhamoth ha-Shem]]}}, {{Transliteration|he|[[Sefer Nizzahon Yashan]]}}, {{Transliteration|he|[[Sefer Joseph Hamekane]]}}, the works of [[ibn Shaprut]], [[Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas]], and [[Hasdai Crescas]].{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}

The name Yeshu is unknown in archeological sources and inscriptions, except for one ossuary found in Israel which has an inscription where someone has started to write first "Yeshu.." and then written "Yeshuaʿ bar Yehosef" beneath it.<ref name="Witherington & Schanks"/> There are 24 other ossuaries to various Yeshuas and Yehoshuas. None of the others have Yeshu. All other "Joshuas" in the Talmud, rabbinical writings, modern Hebrew, are always Yeshua or Yehoshua. There are no undisputed examples of any Aramaic or Hebrew text where Yeshu refers to anyone else than Jesus.<ref>Jesus outside the New Testament p124 Robert E. Van Voorst – 2000 "This is likely an inference from the Talmud and other Jewish usage, where Jesus is called Yeshu, and other Jews with the same name are called by the fuller name Yehoshua, "Joshua" (e.g., b Sanh. 107b on p. "</ref>

Some of rabbinical sources comment on the reasons for the missing {{Transliteration|he|ʿayn}} from Yeshu, as opposed to the Hebrew Bible Yeshuaʿ and Yehoshuaʿ. [[Leon Modena]] argues that it was Jesus himself who made his disciples remove the {{Transliteration|he|ʿayn}}, and that therefore they cannot now restore it. (Modena was a 17th-century polemicist and does not have reliable linguistic evidence for the claim.) A tradition states that the shortening to Yeshu relates to the Y-SH-U of the {{Transliteration|he|[[yimach shemo]]}}, "may his name be obliterated."<ref>Michael H. Cohen A Friend of All Faiths – Page 42  – 2004 "In Hebrew school, one of my teachers had explained that Yeshu (Hebrew for Jesus), rather than meaning "Saviour," in fact was an acronym that stood for yimach shemo ve-zichrono: "may his name and memory be erased "</ref><ref>Proceedings: Volume 4 Aḳademyah ha-le'umit ha-Yiśre'elit le-mada'im – 1969 "Perhaps the most significant of these is the passage where instead of the printed 'that certain man' we find 'Jesus the Nazarene — may his name be obliterated' (thus also in a Genizah MS, British Museum, Or. 91842). "</ref> Against this [[David Flusser]] suggested that the name ''Yeshu'' itself was "in no way abusive," but "almost certainly" a Galilean dialect form of Yeshua.<ref>New Testament theology [[Joachim Jeremias]] – 1977 "... deliberate truncation made for anti-Christian motives; rather, it is 'almost certainly' (Flusser, Jesus, 13) the Galilean pronunciation of the name; the swallowing of the ''ʿayin'' was typical of the Galilean dialect (Billerbeck I 156f.</ref> But E.Y. Kutscher showed that the {{Transliteration|he|ʿayn}} was still pronounced in Galilee, refuting a thesis by Paul Kahle.<ref>E.Y. Kutscher, Studies in Galilean Aramaic, 1976.</ref>