Submitted Name Revision History

Hellenized form of a masculine given name of which the meaning and origin is (so far) uncertain. This name is best known for being the name of Elymas, a Jewish sorcerer (who is also known as Bar-Jesus) who is mentioned in chapter 13 of Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. Given that the sorcerer was Jewish, it is likely (but not certain) that his original name is of Semitic origin, which means that it came from one of the Semitic languages that were in use during his lifetime (in the 1st century AD), such as (for example): Aramaic, Classical Hebrew, Old Arabic and Punic.

Interestingly, his name is given as Ἐτοίμας (Etoimas) or (Hetoimas) in the 5th-century Codex Bezae, which some sources say might possibly indicate that he is the same person as Ἄτομος (Atomos), a Jewish Cypriot sorcerer mentioned in chapter 7 of volume 20 of Antiquities of the Jews written by the Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (1st century AD). His name is theorized to be derived from either the Greek adjective ἄτομος (atomos) meaning "uncut, indivisible" or from Aramaic תָּאוֹמָא (ta'oma') meaning "twin". In the latter case, his name would essentially be a variant of Thomas.