Well their parents did the naming and maybe as in today's society there were Jews who were secular? Josephus being an example??

Blessings

Seth's response: Maybe, but in order for these men to be at the spiritual aptitude that they were, it probably required a godly upbringing. And, Josephus claimed that he was both of priestly descent and a Pharisee.

The fact that these individuals bore these names, and no indication is made in the Apostolic Scriptures that they had to change them once becoming Believers, is a good cause for us to think that more than meets the eye is at work.

The bigger issue is, in fact, how various Hebrew or Semitic terms seen in the Tanach might bear pagan Ancient Near Eastern "significance." Many of the common nouns used in Hebrew are the names of Canaanite gods, among other things.

Honestly, we’d have to ask their parents.

Another possibility is that Zenas and Apollos may have also been given Hebrew names at birth which have subsequently been lost to history. The two name practice was not uncommon at that time (i.e. Shaul/Paulos) and is practiced by Jewish families even to this day.

But why use the names of pagan deities at all?

Alternatively, I agree with T. Landry, their parents, obviously being Hellenized Jews, were perhaps not really very religious at all in terms of practicing 1st cent. Judaism. Quite the opposite. Their tendency toward syncretism led them to choose the unfortunate names for their sons. However, growing up in Hellenized homes could have motivated Zenas and Apollos to each pursue his Jewish faith all the more zealously, even without their parents involvement, until eventually coming to faith in Yeshua of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel.

Maybe.

I agree that the parents did the naming. And I have no doubt the parents were devout. The reality is though that they bore those names, and one of the only reasons I can think of is, the old saying, "you are a product of your environment"; and this these men were, as well as their parents in their respective societies. Just my two cents. lol I have no idea one way or the other.

Perhaps I am opening a can of worms...

These men are Jewish. Why should we limit ourselves to the viewpoint that they were born Jewish. Perhaps they are proselytes to Judaism. Often first generation believers in a family are known to be more fervent in the faith this possibly explains their advanced scholarship.

Seth's response: That is certainly possible. Yet, I don't think it is likely. Acts of the Apostles 18 says that Apollos was an Alexandrian Jew. Whenever a proselyte is identified in Acts, it almost always calls them a proselyte, not a Jew. As for Zenas, it is possible he was a proselyte. Rabbi Akiva did not make teshuvah or study Torah until he was 40, and became one of the most famous sages in the history of Orthodox Judaism. So it is possible, yet more likely that Zenas was trained from birth in the Scriptures. Also, this is all based on the assumption that Zenas is a Torah scribe, and not a lawyer of Roman law, which also remains a possibility.

The description of Apollos also fits several of the FFOZ teachers. And they may or may not be Jewish. eh? Is this explanation plausible?

Seth's response: Remember that a key difference between our day and the first century is the availability of the Scriptures and oral traditions. In the first century, the scrolls of the Tanakh would be much more difficult to come by, and many of the oral traditions were still oral. In our day, we have multiple translations that line our shelves and we can simply go to a library or even get an electronic version of the millions of books that are out there. We have it easy.

off topic* I have always had a soft spot for Apollos who listened humbly (to other teachers) despite his own obvious talent and oratory skill. Is it likely that he penned Hebrews?

Seth's response: Throughout the history of the church, it has been thought that Apollos was a likely candidate for the authorship of the Letter to the Hebrews. As an Alexandrian, he would have been thoroughly trained in the methods of allegorical and typological interpretation, which Hebrews uses extensively. I think this is likely, but we cannot say for certain. The identity of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews will probably always remain elusive.

I would agree that historically, the practice of giving a Jewish child both a secular name to use in that society, and a Hebrew name, to use in religious society was common and likely also practiced during those times. Could a child be given a name that could be used in the secular society and yet not the name of a pagan god? "Timothy" and "Stephen" don't appear to be forms of pagan gods.

One of the greatest challenges the Hebraic revival/Torah movement faces is to not overwhelm people with change. Certainly one of the most passion evoking concepts is that contemporary familiar terminology such as the name of the Messiah (Jesus) is not appropriate for those who desire to strip away inherited error. I have seen people have huge almost insurmountable difficulty when they are confronted by the reality that his name is Yashua. All our literature and music: all of contemporary Christian culture retains inherited deviance. By the way the definition of deviance is to drift from precision. While I personally agree that for the sake of reaching people we may have to communicate in the vernacular (Biblical prescident for this abounds) I am saddened that FFOZ is so lenient with the use of a Hellenistic term for HaMashiach. When I was a Greek I spake and thought as a Greek. When I became Hebrew (crossed over) I put away Greek things.

This is a little off topic - but I always wondered why names in the NT even other than Jesus were translated they way they were. Names like James, Mary, Joseph, John etc. are not used in the same form they are in the NT. To me it breaks up the continuity of scripture. Why was this method chosen to translate. People not being able to pronounce them is a poor excuse to me. If a person reads Miriam in the OT - why they need to read it as Mary in the NT??? For instance in the book of Acts we still names like Gamaliel...I am quite intrigued by this.

Seth's response: The Anglicized pronunciation of the names in the Bible mostly comes from the Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate. For nearly a thousand years, this was the only version of the Bible in the Western Church. Thus, during the Protestant Reformation when Greek and Hebrew studies were rediscovered and Bibles were translated in the vernacular language, the names simply remained due to familiarity. There have been some changes since then, simply do to the changes in the English alphabet and the English language itself.

Pagan names are also common among Israelies in the Tanakh. The Biblical text itself bears evidence to the changing perspective regarding these names. For example, Jonathan's son is named as Meribaal in I Chr. 8:34, but his name was edited to Mephiboshet in II Sam. 4:4. The word Boshet means shame, and was used as a euphemism for Baal. The whole name Mephiboshet means "from the mouth of shame." Saul also had a son named Ish-Baal whose name was edited in the same manner by the author. Obviously then, there was a considerable degree of syncretism during the monarchic period, and the same was true during the NT period.