Parashat Sh'lach L'cha, 5774/2014 edition--regarding individuals with multiple names

Here are links to my previous Sh'lach L'cha posts:

~ Sh'lach L'Cha: HaShem rubs their noses in their sin (Sunday, June 21, 2009)

~ Oo, a neat post about tzitzit! (Friday, June 26, 2009)

~ Parshat Sh'lach L'cha (Wednesday, June 15, 2011)

~ Parshat Sh'lach L'cha, take 2 (Tuesday, June 21, 2011)


Numbers Chapter 13 בְּמִדְבַּר


ח לְמַטֵּה אֶפְרָיִם, הוֹשֵׁעַ בִּן-נוּן. 8 Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun.

. . .  
טז אֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת הָאֲנָשִׁים, אֲשֶׁר-שָׁלַח מֹשֶׁה לָתוּר אֶת-הָאָרֶץ; וַיִּקְרָא מֹשֶׁה לְהוֹשֵׁעַ בִּן-נוּן, יְהוֹשֻׁעַ. 16 These are the names of the men that Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua.

Excuse me, but we've known Yehoshua/Joshua since Sefer Sh'mot/the Book of Exodus, and he's never been called Hoshea before.  Is this the same guy, or have two different oral traditions been conflated/combined into one text and person?   For that matter, how many names does Moshe's/Moses' father-in-law have?  Is Yitro(Jethro)/Reuel/etc. all the same person, a composite, and/or a reflection of several oral traditions?

~ Conservadox is not crazy about the interpretation of this parashah in the chumash that he's currently using--he's concerned that "lack of halachic literacy (or attempts to go too far in dumbing down your literacy for others) leads to oversimplification, and that oversimplification is just as likely to lead to too much stringency as to too much leniency."

~ Rav Shai Held finds it important for us to have faith that HaShem will provide possibilities, just as HaShem had faith that B'nei Yisrael/The Children of Israel would eventually make the best of the possibilities provided by HaShem.

~ Rav Dov Linzer:  "Tzitzit, then, come to serve as a corrective to the sin of the spies, encouraging us to see through the lens of the Torah."