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Names of God

Published on Tuesday, January 27th 2009. Edited by Gin Poddubpig, Lormont, France.

Conceptions of God can vary widely, but the word God in English and its counterparts in cognate languages are normally used for all of them. Other languages have similar generic names, and a common experience is for the word for “God” in one language to be perceived by speakers of other languages as the name of a specific deity worshipped by speakers of that one language. However some names refer almost exclusively to the supreme being of a single religion.

A “diagram” of the names of God in Athanasius Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–54). The style and form are typical of the mystical tradition, as early theologians began to fuse emerging pre-Enlightenment concepts of classification and organization with religion and alchemy, to shape an artful and perhaps more conceptual view of God.

A “diagram” of the names of God in Athanasius Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–54). The style and form are typical of the mystical tradition, as early theologians began to fuse emerging pre-Enlightenment concepts of classification and organization with religion and alchemy, to shape an artful and perhaps more conceptual view of God.

Abrahamic religions

Judaism

In the Hebrew scriptures (i.e. the Law Torah, plus the Prophets [Nethi-im] and the Holy Writings /Hagiographa [Kethvu-im] the Jewish name of God is considered sacred and, out of deep respect for the name, Jews do not say it.(See Exodus 20:7) The tetragrammaton (Hebrew: יהוה, English: YHVH or YHWH, these Hebrew consonants named, reading right to left: “yod…heh…vahv…heh.”) is the name for the group of four Hebrew symbols which represent the name of God. The Tetragrammaton occurs 6,828 times in the Hebrew text printed in Biblia Hebraica and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Neither vowels nor vowel points were used in ancient Hebrew writings, but are usually taken to be “a”, “e”, “i”, “o” or “u.” From the Hebrew tetragrammaton modern Christians have adopted pronunciations such as “Yahweh”, “Yahveh” and “Jehovah”.

Some claim the pronunciation of YHWH has been lost, other authorities say it has not and that it is pronounced Yahweh. References, such as The New Encyclopædia Britannica, validate the above by offering additional specifics:

Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and claim that this pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was never really lost. Other Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh.

Clement of Alexandria transliterated the tetragrammaton as Ιαου. The above claims were founded upon the understanding that Clement of Alexandria had transliterated YHWH as Ιαουε in Greek, which is pronounced “Yahweh” in English. However, the final -e in the latter form has been shown as having been a later addition. For a more in-depth discussion of this, see the article Yahweh.

Christianity

Yahweh is a common vocalization of God’s personal name based on the Hebrew tetragrammaton (above). Because Jewsish concerns for avoiding blasphemy, the name was often avoided and replaced with “LORD” (equivalent to the Hebrew Adonai).

Jehovah is found in the King James Bible and in other translations based on it. Some may claim Yahweh is less than a totally certain pronunciation, (the tetragrammaton was written in Hebrew without the original vowels), but the article on Yahweh details why Jehovah is certainly in error. Some avoid either because its actual pronunciation may have been lost in antiquity.

Jesus (Iesus, Yeshua, Joshua, or Yehoshûa) is a Hebraic personal name meaning “Yahweh saves/helps/is salvation”, . Christ means “the anointed” in Greek, translating Messiah; while in English the old Anglo-Saxon Messiah-rendering hæland ‘healer’ was practically annihilated by the Latin Christ, some cognates such as heiland in Dutch survive.

In Messianic Judaism, generally regarded as a form of Christianity, YHWH (pre-incarnate) and Yeshua (incarnate) are one and the same, the second Person, with the Father and Ruach haQodesh (the Holy Spirit) being the first and third Persons, respectively, of ha'Elohiym (the Godhead). YHWH is expressed as “haShem,” which means ‘the Name.’

In the effort to translate the Bible into every language (see SIL), the Christian God has usually been named after a pagan or philosophical concept that was present in the language before Christianity.

The word God itself is an example of this, the word having earlier referred to Germanic pagan deities. Greek Theos (Θεός) was used for the supreme God even before Christianity, in the Septuagint. St. Jerome translated the Hebrew word Elohim to Latin as Deus. Other names of the Christian God that have a history of pagan meanings include Slavic Bog, Finnish Jumala, Japanese Kami and Sinhala Deviyo. In the Arabic language, Allah is also used for the Christian God. Chinese names for God involve various translations, one of which, Shangdi, derives from a pre-Christianity deity and is used largely by Protestant Chinese-speakers, and the other Tianzhu is used primarily by Catholic Chinese-speakers.

Another example comes from the initial stages of the predication of the Catholic missionary Francis Xavier in Japan. He was welcomed by the Shingon monks since he used the Buddhist word Dainichi for the Christian God. As Xavier learnt more about the religious nuances of the word, he changed to Deusu from the Latin and Portuguese Deus. The monks also realized that Xavier was preaching a rival religion.

The less evangelical branch of the Quakers often refers to God as The Light. Another term used is ‘King of Kings’ or ‘Lord of Lords’ and Lord of the Hosts. Other names used by Christians include Ancient of Days, Father/Abba, ‘Most High’ and the Hebrew names Elohim, El-Shaddai, and Adonai. Principle, Mind, Soul, Life, Truth, Love, and Spirit are names for God in Christian Science. These names are considered synonymous and indicative of God’s wholeness. The name, “Abba/Father” is the most common term used for the creator within Christianity, because it was the name Jesus Christ (Yeshua Messiah) himself used to refer to God.

For the Russian Orthodox group Imiaslavie (“Name glorification”), the name of the God is God himself and can produce miracles.

See also: Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament.

Islam

Allah is the most frequently used name of God in Islam when speaking Arabic. It refers to the God without any other beside him. It originally simply meant “the God” in Arabic, and was used in pre-Islamic times to refer to a divinity worshipped in Mecca. It is properly translated as “God” in English, and seen by Muslims as the same God as of Christianity and Judaism (referred to as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”). The Arabic word Allah is a linguistic cognate of the Hebrew word Eloah and a translation of the English word “god”, although there are some Christian sects which claim that there is a distinction between their deity and the deity or deities worshipped in either Judaism or Islam. Nevertheless, Allah is the same word in Arabic used by Arab Jews, Druze and Christians when speaking of God.

In the Islamic point of view, Allah is the only Omnipotent and has the Most Beautiful Names. So anyone can call him by the most beautiful names he may call. (e.g. as stated in 18/110, 20/8, 59/24, 7/180 in Quran.). A well established Islamic tradition enumerates 99 Names of God, which are his attributes.

Besides those names of Qur'anic origin, Muslims of non-Arabic peoples may also sometimes use some other names in their own language which refers to God, e.g. the Ottoman anachronism Tanrı (originally the pagan Turks' celestial chief god, corresponding to the Ancient Turkish Tengri), or Khoda in Persian language which has the same indo-European root as god.

Rastafari

Bahá'í Faith

Bahá'ís refer to God using the local word for God in whatever language is being spoken. Bahá'ís often, in prayers, refer to God to by titles and attributes, such as the Mighty, the All-Powerful, the Merciful, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous, the All-Wise, the Incomparable, the Gracious, the Helper, the All-Glorious, the Omniscient. Since the languages in which the Bahá'í Faith was first authored were Arabic and Persian, the term Allah and other “names” are used in some specific contexts, even by non-Arabic speakers. The above-mentioned attributes are sometimes referred to in their Arabic form – for instance Bahá'ís refer to “Bahá” (meaning Glory or Splendour) or any derivation thereof (ex. Al-Abhá, or The Most Glorious) as The Greatest Name of God.

Chinese religions

Religions of India

Hinduism

Radha and Krishna – Venerated within many traditions of Hinduism as the Supreme God, or as manifestations therof

Radha and Krishna – Venerated within many traditions of Hinduism as the Supreme God, or as manifestations therof

Sikhism

Some of the popular names for God in Sikhism are:

God according to Guru Nanak is beyond full comprehension by humans; has endless number of virtues; takes on innumerable forms; and can be called by an infinite number of names thus “Your Names are so many, and Your Forms are endless. No one can tell how many Glorious Virtues You have.” (Guru Granth Sahib page 358)

Jainism

There are no direct names of God in Jainism. However, Mahavir and other ‘prophets’ or ‘perfected beings’ are known as Tirthankar (literally ‘Fordmaker’) or Jina.

Buddhism

Buddhism is generally viewed as a religion or philosophy without a supreme being in the sense of a universal creator or a creator of the human race. The historical Buddha, also known as Siddhartha Gautama or Gautama Buddha is sometimes viewed as an example of a human who has achieved the primal, eternal, sustaining essence within all beings and phenomena. While in the Theravada tradition the Buddha is not thought of as divine, in many Mahayana schools the Buddha is conceived as the eternal, imperishable essence of all phenomena.

The Pure Land schools of Buddhism in China and Japan revere the Nembutsu, the formulaic name of Amida Buddha (Namu Amida Butsu), as the sole method in this latter age of “degenerate Dharma” (mappo) for birth in the Pure Land after earthly death. Shinran, the founder of the Japanese Pure Land sect of Jodo Shinshu, went so far as to declare the Name as the same as Amida and his characteristics (Infinite Light and Infinite Life).

Religions in classical antiquity

Pharaonic Egypt

Roman religion

While some of the older deities have names long pre-dating the Latin people the Romans belong to, and even more were adopted with their autochthonous names (or Latinized in a recognizable way), many minor divinities were named simply as personifications of various minor aspects of daily life. Latin also prominently used an abstract word for god, deus (hence deity and, from its adjective divinus, divinity), from Proto-Indo-European root deiwos, also the root of words for “sky” and “day” – the god-sense is originally “shining,” but “whether as originally sun-god or as lightener” is not now clear; the epithet Deus Optimus Maximus, DOM “Best and Greatest God”, coined for Jupiter, the pater familias of the Roman pantheon, was later adopted in Christianity, as well as Deus.

Mithras

The name of this Persian god of light, one of the earliest Indic words we possess, being found in clay tablets from Anatolia dating to about 1500 B.C, reported in English only since 1551, is from Latin, derived from the Greek Mithras. This was in turn derived from Avestan Mithra-, possibly from an Indo-Iranian root mitram “contract,” whence mitras “contractual partner, friend,” conceptualized as a god, or, according to Kent, first the epithet of a divinity and eventually his name; from proto-Indo-Germanic root base mei- “to bind”; related to Sanskrit Mitra, a Vedic deity associated with Varuna.

Other traditions

Zoroastrianism

Deism and Pantheism

In Deism and Pantheism, and in variations of these like Pandeism and Panentheism, God is sometimes referred to as Deus (pronounced Day-us), the Latin word for god, which gave rise to the word Deism. Believers in Pantheistic or Pandeistic systems equate God with the Universe, and may refer to God by that term (sometimes using the definite article and referring to God as “the Deus”).

Taboos

Several religions advance taboos related to names of their gods. In some cases, the name may never be spoken, or only spoken by inner-circle initiates, or only spoken at prescribed moments during certain rituals. In other cases, the name may be freely spoken, but when written, taboos apply. It is common to regard the written name of one’s god as deserving of respect; it ought not, for instance, be stepped upon or dirtied. It may be permissible to burn the written name when there is no longer a use for it.

Judaism

Most observant Jews forbid discarding holy objects, including any document with a name of God written on it. Once written, the name must be preserved indefinitely. This leads to several noteworthy practices:

Islam

Christianity

Phrases and alternatives

Tabuism or glorification are usually reasons not to refer to a deity directly by name.

In addition to capitalized pronouns (e.g. He, Him), this can be split into two types: Phrases (such as King of Kings) and alternatives (such as G*d or HaShem). Generally, phrases are used to extol, and alternatives are more direct replacements for words.

Literature and fiction

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God”



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