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by Anonymous on January 31st, 2005

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Does God have a name? If so, what is it?

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  • by Thom64 on August 4th, 2005

    Thom64

    This is an interesting question. If there is a God, and that being, as in the Bible, created the universe (the traditional position of Jews and Christians), He would be outside of time and space. Sound and spoken language are dependent on mouths, vocal chords and air to vibrate. If God has a proper name, it exists outside creation and so is not limited to alphabets or pronounciation. Perhaps God has many proper names, perhaps none.

    From a biblical perspective:

    What is generally called God's name by Jews and Christians is found where Moses asks who to say is sending him and God reponds with something that translates approximately "tell them I AM sent you" and the "I AM" is what Moses records in Hebrew as the tetragrammaton. Most agree this is some form of the Hebrew verb of being.

    There is honest disagreement about whether this word should be translated (meaning conversion) or transliterated (phonetic conversion) into different languages. If God meant His name is a verb of being, it should be translated. If it really meant "I want to be called something that sounds like a Hebrew verb" then it should be transliterated. The word really can't be transliterated because the Jews, for centuries, refused to pronounce it for fear of violating the command not to take God's name in vain and the original gives no certain direction as to what vowel sounds should be used, so the original pronounciation is lost. (All ancient Hebrew writing omitted vowels, apparently since everybody knew how the words were pronounced and they did not need them.) There are competing theories about how it might have been pronounced, none is universally accepted.

    I am certain that either position - translation or transliteration - can be either reverent or irreverent depending on the attitude of the user.

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