After the Roman General Titus conquered the violent rebellion in Jerusalem and Judea, he devised 4 solutions to prevent it from happening again.
- First, he ordered the Jewish Temple to be levelled to the ground and all of the furnishings inside to be either burned or taken to Rome.
- Second, he banned and burned their Torahs and other scriptures that he found in Judea.
- Third, he ordered the arrest, imprisonment and execution of anyone who spoke the name of the Jewish god.
- Fourth, as a way to enforce his edicts and maintain unity in the Empire, he ordered his soldiers to require all citizens to offer incense to one of the Gods upon random request. If they refused to do so, or if they offered the incense to the Jewish god, they would be arrested, imprisoned and executed.
This final edict covered not only the Jews but also the Christians, who were praying to the Jews’ god as a derivative of Jehovah (Jehovasa, which meant “Jehovah saves” and which was the name mistranslated as “Joshua”).
Except for a few radicals who were promptly executed for their disloyalty to the Gods of the Empire, most Jews and Christians submitted to the new edicts. The Jews decided to call on Jupiter by his name, similar to their god “Jove.” The Christians, most of whom were Greek slaves working for rich Roman families as teachers, chose to honor their supreme God Zeus as the representative of “Jehovah/ Jehovasa”.
So whenever a Roman soldier asked a Jew to honor the Gods, the Jew would say, “Hail Jove!” and the Christian would say, “Hail Zeus!” In this manner, they stayed alive and underground with their beliefs. This is why when you hear Christians say the name “Iesous” in their native language, you will hear “Hey Zeus” “Yay Zeus” or “Yeah Zeus!”
