Jesus H Christ! If you haven't said it, you've heard it said and thought "Why in the Sam Hill is that darn H in there?" I always thought the H stood for Herald/Harold. You know, a play on words. Wrong-O! Straight from the son of a Biblical scholar...
In the Bible, there are two versions of what was put on the sign above Christ on the cross: In Matthew 27:37, the sign is said to have read "This is Jesus, The King of the Jews". Mark 15:26 says: "King of the Jews." and Luke 23:38, "This is the King of the Jews". John 19:19 says, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews".
To get to the "H" matter, we have to go back to the Latin versions of these inscriptions.
John's sign would read "Iesus Nazarenus (or Nazareni), Rex Iudeaorum". This becomes the initials "INRI" found on some crucifixes and religious paintings.
But, where we read "King of the Jews" in the first three gospels, the Latin reads "Savior of the Hebrews", or "Iesus Hebraorum Salvator". Other sources sometimes say "Iesus Hominum Salvator", Jesus the Savior of Man(kind), but this isn't the biblical quote. In either case, the initials become "IHS" which are found on altars and crucifixes.
Now, imagine the initials "IHS" as a monogram such as we might find embroidered on fancy shirts, ties or evening wear or engraved on your briefcase or laptop case. Those initials would be Jesus' initials. So, "I" (which is the same as "J" in Latin) is for Jesus, and "H" would be his middle initial. The "S" doesn't stand for his family name as it would in modern monograms, so just forget it.
Anyway, "H" becomes Jesus' middle initial in "Jesus H. Christ".
And that's the truth. Really! Amen!
Perhaps the best explanation I've been given of anything, ever.
Btw, the story on "Sam Hill" is much less interesting...
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