THE NAMES OF THE ONLY GOD...the GOD of Abraham

Those who say that there is no God believe so totally by faith. There is no evidence proving that there is no God. The Bible says that God's creation itself gives testimony that He exists; and believers see that evidence quite easily...because they are willing to see & acknowledge it.  But, even when willing, mankind has interpreted from happenings of nature and mankind a "higher Power" as God or god(s) in extremely different ways based primarily on the fundamental operation of the ancient-to-modern-times suzerainty-concept treaty between unequals (presumed covenant between mankind and god[s]):

1. The Greeks: gods were fickle, jealous, and often vindictive & treating of humans with malice.
   
2. The Norse: gods were violent & angry.
   
3. The Canaanites: gods were bloodthirsty, demanding killings of first-born.
   

Jews, Christians, and Muslims have the blessing of having identified and related to the only true God. Disturbingly, even within these faiths, the characteristics of God seem different:

1. Islam: The Islamic writings & highly publicized modern practices of a numerous (many say) minority seem to describe a god...Allah...with attributes which are unlike those of the God of Abraham). Allah seems angry and desirous that followers brutalize errant believers as well as unbelievers.
   
2. Judaism: The Jewish view is of YHWH who calls out for right relationships which seem to be bound up in strict rule and ritual following.
   
3. Christianity: The Christian view of God is so divided in defensiveness of precise definitions and beliefs that it takes over 30,000 denominations with churches whose member-defenders squabble endlessly over what interpretation of Scripture is correct.
   
4. The God revealed by Jesus: since mere mortals so quickly confuse and blur the truth of Who God is, He sent Jesus to set the record straight. And Jesus taught the apostles the truth which then was set down by men under Divine inspiration in the New Testament.
   
5. Other gods: As with the examples above, all other "gods" than the One described by Jesus are figments and creations within the minds of man. In fact, mankind knowingly and inadvertently creates and "worships" countless gods such as power, sex, money, work, etc.
   

This one true God revealed Himself to Abraham and chose the children (descendants...became the Israelites, the Jews) of Abraham as His own. The subsequent first Christians were Jews, and Gentile Christians came thereafter into the fold. As noted below, God Himself declared that His proper name was Yahweh. Being an ancient Jewish capitol offense to misuse the name of God, Yahweh became [ by the time...460BC... of the return from the Babylonian exile] a non-utterable name (Zechariah 24:16) which was denoted in writings as YHWH (old Hebrew has no vowels); and, when this tetragrammaton was read in Hebrew, it was spoken as Adonai.

While we moderns have traditionally used the spoken name Jehovah in place of YHWH, more recent studies indicate that Yahweh is the correct name. The name Yahweh has been found to be unique to Israel and has not been verified as the name of any other deity outside of Israel.

As to Jehovah, beginning at 70 AD with the fall of Jerusalem followed by the Bar-Kochba Revolt of 135 AD and the dispersion of the Jews from The Promised Land away out to the four corners of the world, the speaking of Hebrew fell away except as to religious matters. By the Middle Ages, to aid those not fluent in the reading of Hebrew, the Masoretes (scribes) began to introduce a system of vowel markings to aid in making correct vowel sounds in a language (Hebrew) which did not classically contain vowels. To remind that YHWH was pronounced Adonai, they initially scribed "YaHoWaH", the aoa helping to remember Adonai. Since the "Ya" created some controversy over fear that the initial pronunciation would resemble Yahweh...the unutterable name..., eoa began to substitute for aoa: JeHoWaH. This later became Jehovah.

A small, helpful book for more insight is Names of God, Nathan Stone, Moody Press, 1944. And The New Unger's Bible Dictionary, Merrill F. Unger, 1988, Moody Press, was a resource. And the teacher notes from Focus On The Family's wonderful faith lessons video tape series (1995, 1996), "That The World May Know", featuring teacher and historian, Ray Vander Laan, was a resource.

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[posted 30 August 1998; 1st addition 19 March, 2nd on 18 July 1999; 3rd, 13 Nov. 2000; latest addition/update 12 April 2012]