Scientist reveals where the ‘H’ in Jesus H. Christ comes from

“Jesus H. Christ” is an expletive that people often express in surprise, disappointment, disgust, or amazement. But where does the ‘H’ come from?

Dr. Daniel McClellan, an honorary fellow at the University of Birmingham, has finally revealed the backstory of Jesus’ supposed ‘middle name’.

In a TikTok video, Dr. McClellan explains that, contrary to popular belief, the “H” doesn’t stand for anything at all.

Instead, this letter has its origins in an ancient Greek symbol called a ‘Christogram’.

According to the expert, the nickname originated from a long-forgotten joke about the initials of Jesus.

Dr. McClellan says, “The most widely accepted theory is that it arises from a specific Christogram.

‘A Christogram is an abbreviation of one, two or three letters used as a symbol to represent the name Jesus, the titled Christ or the name Jesus Christ.’

However, over hundreds of years, one of these symbols became distorted through translation, leaving the supposed initials JHC.

In the early history of the church, Christians began creating symbols that abbreviated the name of Jesus.

An example you may be using without realizing it is the abbreviation of Christmas to “X-mas.”

Dr. McClellan says, “The

Likewise, in the Roman Catholic faith, you might see a symbol that looks like an ‘X’ with a high ‘P’ sticking out of it.

This symbol is a combination of the ancient Greek letters ‘Chi’ and ‘Rho’, which in Greek form the first two letters of ‘Christ’.

According to Christian beliefs, this was precisely the symbol that Emperor Constantine saw in a vision before he converted the Roman Empire to Christianity.

Although the story of Constantine’s sudden conversion has become more dramatic over time, the so-called ‘Chi-Rho’ Christogram soon became his personal symbol.

The Chi-Rho has since been found everywhere, from coins and Roman milestones in Britain to a 1,300-year-old tattoo in Sudan.

“Another Christogram used the first three letters of Jesus in Greek: Iota, eta, sigma,” says Dr. McClellan.

‘And soon that was used in Latin transliterations that look like ‘IHS’. But there is another way to write the “S”, the “lunate sigma”, which looks a lot like a C.

“So the first three letters of Jesus’ name, transliterated into Latin, could look like ‘IHC’.”

Although it may seem strange that the name ‘Jesus’ is spelled with an ‘I’, this is because the letter ‘J’ had not yet been invented.

Before the 16th century, written texts did not distinguish between the letters ‘i’ and ‘j’, even though they were pronounced differently.

It is believed that the first person to make this distinction was an Italian grammarian named Gian Giorgio Trissino in 1524.

However, after the letter ‘J’ became common in the 17th century, the IHC Christogram began to be written as ‘JHC’.

Dr. McClellan says: ‘These still represent only the first three letters of the name that Jesus spelled in Greek, transliterated into Latin.

“But it looks a bit like his initials: ‘J’ for Jesus, ‘C’ for Christ, and then the ‘H’ must be his middle initial.

“And so people started saying ‘Jesus H. Christ’ as a joke.”

In reality, most Bible experts say that “Jesus” wasn’t even Jesus’ real name.

Jesus lived in a part of the world where the language was Aramaic, a language that originated in Syria, and so would not have used a Greek name.

One of the earliest versions of Jesus’ name is the Hebrew name “Yeshua,” which is the equivalent of the modern English name Joshua.

However, when the New Testament was written in Greek, the Hebrew name was translated into an approximation of Jesus.

By the time the Greek versions of the New Testament were translated into English, that error stuck and “Jesus” became “Jesus.”

Meanwhile, “Christ” is not a name at all, but a title meaning “Messiah” or “God’s Anointed.”