jmd86004 said:
What is the Judeo-Christian history of the use of the name of God? The OT regularly uses God's name but I am not sure if it was used in the same manner during Christ's time and in the history of the Christian church. So, the first question is history of how His name was used. The second question is why do we not use it now and what are the implications of our use of the generic word god spelled with a capital letter G?
×××× is translated as "LORD" (all in caps) in most Biblical translations. It is the personal name of God as we see in Isaiah 42:8:
I am ××××, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to engraved images.
When Moses saw the burning bush in Exodus 3:14 we see:
God said to Moses, â×××× ×שר ××××,â and he said, âYou shall tell the children of Israel this: â×××× has sent me to you.â
Pronounced in Hebrew, he said to Moses first "Ehyeh asher ehyeh." ×××× /ehyeh/ is the future 1st person singular of the verb "to be" in Hebrew (×××), and ×שר /asher/ means "that" or "who" and is like the Aramaic genitive particle ×Ö¼ dolath when applied as a prefix to a verb. So God literally said to Moses:
"I will be who I will be."
In other words, "I am who I am" is a sloppy mistranslation.
God then says to Moses, âYou shall tell the children of Israel this: â×××× has sent me to you.â
Now ××××s a conundrum. There is no Hebrew verb form that matches it. It comes close to the future 3rd person singular ×××× /yehyoh/, but the third consonant is a × not a ×.
I have a theory that ×××× is actually Aramaic, or an Aramaic dialect of Hebrew, not true Hebrew, as it is
identical to the future 3rd person singular of the Old Aramaic verb "to be" ××× (hwâ), taking into account the ×/× rule between Aramaic and Hebrew (Hebrew uses terminal ×'s where Aramaic uses terminal ×'s): ×××× vs ×××× both of which are pronounced identically.
This would make ×××× out to mean "He will be" which makes perfect sense.
"I will be who I will be, so tell them that 'He will be' sent you."
There are many speculations as to how it is pronounced, but all seem to fall short due to the fact that we just don't know.
If it follows the Aramaic pronunciation, there would be an "eh" sound after the first × and a deep "ah" sound after the ×.
But then again, that's just a theory
God also has many titles which are usually translated as "God.":
××××× - /'elohim/ or "Mighty Ones"
×××× - /'eloah/ or "Mighty One"
×× - /'el/ or "Mighty" or "Mighty One"
And then there are compound titles (I've translated the three above as "God"):
×× ×©×¢×× - /'el sha`dai/ or "God Most High"
×××× ×¦×××ת - /YHWH tsva'ot/ or "YHWH of Hosts" (but Hosts in the sense of army ranks)
etc.
But, ×××× YHWH is his personal name.
In New Testament times, there was a Jewish convention to prevent pronouncing this name, and any of the titles properly due to the paranoia of taking it in vain. We then get such words as:
××©× - /hashem/ or "The Name" in reference to the tetragrammation.
×××*× - /'adonai/ or "My Lord"
And combinations to mix syllables up:
×××©× - /'adoshem/ a combination of ×××*× and ×ש×
××××× - /'elakim/ a combination of ××××× and I have no idea
Jesus was very fond of using the Aramaic ×××× /'alâhâ'/ (the equivalent of ××××× /elohim/) and one that was less used only in prayer: ××× /'abâ'/ or "father" but more in the sense of "dad" (you'd usually call your father ×××¨× /gavrâ'/ or "man/sir" as a sign of respect).
There are also some theories concerning the use of the Aramaic words ××¨× /mârâ'/ and ×ר×× /mârya'/ which both mean "Lord," but some argue that ×ר×× /mârya'/ is short for ×ר ×××× /mâr YHWH/ or "Lord YHWH".
Unfortunately, in the Greek texts, all we have for God's name are two words: Î¸ÎµÎ¿Ï /theos/ and κÏ
ÏÎ¹Î¿Ï /kurios/ which mean "God" and "Lord" respectively. Both references to ×××× /YHWH/ and ×××*× /'adonai/ fall translated as κÏ
ÏÎ¹Î¿Ï /kurios/, so there is no way to tell them apart in the Greek texts.
Hope this helps!
ש×××
-Steve-o