Jesus H. Christ

Have you ever wondered what the H stands for? Bored minds sometimes dwell on non-issues, but in the age of the Internet the answers to even stupid questions are at our fingertips. It turns out there are several schools of thought on the origin of the H.

My favorite is that it comes from the Lord's Prayer: "Our father, who art in heaven, Harold be thy name." The espousers of this theory obviously were as bored as I am today.

There is also a serious explanation: The Greek monogram for "Jesus, the savior of men" is variously presented as IHS, IHC, HHS, and JHC. The JHC was taken for his initials by some.

Another interesting thought, at least to me. Christ means annointed, so Jesus Christ means: Jesus, the annointed one. That would be like calling someone, Ed the crazy one. But the interesting thing is that Christ was not his last name, but a title put on him. What was his last name then?

In Jesus time they did not use last names like we do today. Our last names developed from descriptions of us, such as where we were from, what our occupation was, or who our parents were. That's why we have a lot of names ending in son: Johnson, Clarkson, Edson, Williamson, Josephson, Stephenson, etc, and in 'ton': Clinton, Ralston, Fenton, beginning with Mc or Mac or O' which all mean "son of" or "grandson of." In Jesus day the used the word bar for son of. So Jesus might have been called Jesus bar Joseph or Jesus of Nazareth. So, as names have evolved, his name today would be Jesus H. Josephson. Or perhaps, Jesus Godson, Jesus McGod, or Jesus O'God.

Food for thought.