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    144 Names of God

    144 Names of God in the Hebrew Bible: A Journey to the Center of GodSpeak in Ancient Israel


    http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2007/09/144...

    The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters. A number of ancient Hebrew poems have an acrostic structure. The first line or set of lines of the poem begins with an alef, the second with a bet, the third with a gimel, and so on.

    This section of the 144 names has an acrostic structure. The opening section of the list is introduced here. The series itself is introduced here.

    Descriptive phrases for God are numerous and varied in the Hebrew Bible. It is possible to organize a subset of them in an acrostic pattern. A tight thematic unity is not attainable, but the associations that “fall out” in the process are nevertheless food for thought.

    The list of names I offer is designed for memorization. Why would anyone want to memorize a text of any length? Isn’t “learning by rote” passé?

    I suppose that’s true. The first time I was asked to memorize a text of any length was for a class on Homer’s Iliad at the UW-Madison. Students were required to memorize the epic poem’s first 100 lines and recite it in class. I learned a lot of Greek and even a little prosody in the process. Ever since I’ve been convinced that committing extended text to memory is an excellent way to get a language into one’s bones.

    I was not asked to memorize extended text through grade school, middle school, and high school. In college the request was rare. It is as if a whole method of learning and knowing has been banned.

    Are music and drama students in a class by themselves, a different subspecies of the human race? They learn long things by heart. Why can’t the rest of us?

    Here are 22 names of God organized acrostically, with a scriptural preface. The text with vowels along with comment will be provided in an upcoming post.

    If you can read the unvocalized text correctly and without difficulty, you have a strong working knowledge of ancient Hebrew. If you cannot, but you would like to be able to, stay with me. By committing these names to memory, you will take a giant step in the direction of being able to read the Hebrew of the Bible without the aid of vowels and without consulting a dictionary and a grammar at every turn.

    Saving a treasured trove, ever so slowly

    Ancient manuscripts from Mt. Sinai move into the digital age with the help of a Bedouin camel driver's son.

    By Suzanne Muchnic, Times Staff Writer
    February 5, 2007

    SINAI, EGYPT — On a refreshingly cool morning, before the sun drenches every exposed grain of sand in this vast desert, Hemeid Sobhy sets out on foot from the Bedouin village where he lives with his parents and sisters. Neatly dressed in jeans, sport shirt and sturdy sandals, he walks 40 minutes to the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine.

    He passes through a narrow door in the monastery's thick walls and makes his way past an ancient church and a warren of buildings, clustered along winding pathways. A stairway takes him to the third floor of a relatively modern structure along the monastery's south wall, where he enters the library, greets a monk in a long black robe and gets to work.

    His office is an 8-foot-square, 8-foot-tall tent of clear plastic sheeting stretched over a metal frame. A filtering system keeps the air free from dust. Erected in a small room at the end of the cavernous library, the tent is equipped with a computer, a large-format digital camera, two flash units on tripods and a metal cradle designed to hold fragile manuscripts safely in place while they are photographed.

    The setup could hardly seem more out of place at the oldest continuously operating monastery in Christendom. But St. Catherine's is entering the Age of Technology — with the help of Father Justin Sinaites, a 57-year-old American monk from El Paso, and Hemeid, the 23-year-old son of a Bedouin camel driver. They are implementing a digital photography project that will make high-resolution images of the library's closely guarded manuscripts available to scholars all over the world.

    Consisting of 3,300 manuscripts in 11 languages — many of them richly illuminated in gold leaf and bright, jewel-like colors — the library's collection is second in number and importance only to the trove at the Vatican. With manuscripts made as early as the 6th century, the Sinai cache consists mainly of scriptures, sermons and texts for religious services, but it includes classical Greek literature and a few medical texts with herbal remedies for various afflictions.

    Today the object awaiting its close-up is a rare Arabic manuscript of Christian gospels, written on parchment in 897. A vacuum hose attached to the cradle gently pulls back the open page. A narrow piece of bone placed on the front of the page, near the binding, helps to flatten the rumpled parchment.

    Hemeid scrutinizes a video preview of the page on the computer screen, centers the image, adjusts the focus and clicks the mouse. The flash units, covered with diffusers to remove harmful ultraviolet light, pop four times as the camera takes four pictures, each in a slightly different position. Hemeid clicks a command that enables the computer to merge the four exposures into a single high-resolution digital photograph.

    One more page down; hundreds of thousands to go.

    "If you do the math, it's discouraging," says Father Justin, who oversees the library. "There are 1.8 million pages, not to mention the manuscript fragments discovered in 1975, known as the New Finds; the scrolls and the collection of early printed books — all in overwhelming numbers. But each manuscript is the work of a patient scribe working with difficult materials, recording a text of importance. Each manuscript is unique, and each is yet another facet of the library of Sinai, contributing to our understanding of the spiritual heritage that has been preserved here."



    Protection in isolation

    Lodged in a fortress-like complex at the foot of precipitous mountains on a forbidding desert, St. Catherine's has survived partly because of its isolated location. The difficulty of getting here, even now that paved roads bring busloads of tourists, has protected the monastery and its spectacular collections of manuscripts and Byzantine icons, examples of which are on view through March 4 in a landmark exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

    But remotely situated as it is, the monastery is a Greek Orthodox oasis in Muslim territory. St. Catherine's resides in a community that is also adjusting to modernity.

    When Byzantine Emperor Justinian built the monastery, in the 6th century, he moved about 200 families of Bedouin slaves from Alexandria and the northern shore of Anatolia to guard and care for it. Today their descendants, the Jebeliya tribe of Sinai Bedouins, who are Muslims, offer camel rides to visitors making the trek up Mt. Sinai and provide the monastery with an essential workforce. As the resident population of monks at St. Catherine's has dwindled to 25, Bedouins have continued to serve as guards, cooks, gardeners, restaurant managers, storeroom supervisors and shopkeepers. Their wages are low but so are living expenses in Sinai, Father Justin says.

    Hemeid's father, Sobhy Hemeid, worked at the monastery's pharmacy until 1986, when he became a camel driver. The young man's grandfather was employed at St. Catherine's for 50 years, and many of his relatives still tend the bookshop, but he headed off to college in Cairo. Overwhelmed by the city's noise, confusion and pollution, he transferred to a university in much quieter Ismailiya, where he studied accounting, economics, management and computer science, and graduated in June 2005.

    "When I was studying at the university, the archbishop said I could work at the monastery," Hemeid says in carefully considered English. He had thought he might work in a bank, but when he didn't find a situation that suited him, he went home and presented himself to Archbishop Damianos. As abbot of St. Catherine's community of monks, the archbishop is responsible for day-to-day operations and outreach as well spiritual traditions.

    Hemeid's timing was impeccable. Father Justin, who arrived at the monastery in 1996, needed help. Born into a Baptist family that published religious books, he became fascinated with Byzantine history as a student at the University of Texas and joined the Greek Orthodox church. He entered a monastery in Brookline, Mass., and took charge of its publishing projects.

    At St. Catherine's, he started making digital images of the manuscripts when he was second in command at the library. Saint Catherine Foundation, a London-based charitable organization devoted to supporting the library, had allotted $10,000 to the project. Larger grants from other sources had paid for necessary equipment. The Flora Family Foundation in Menlo Park, Calif., gave $150,000; Italian publishing heir Leonardo Mondadori donated $35,000.

    But after photographing some of the most important manuscripts, Father Justin was promoted. New responsibilities left little time to continue the project. He had to facilitate plans to renovate the library and conserve its collections. On the rare occasions when manuscripts from the collection are allowed to travel, he accompanies them. And he is in demand as a speaker. He will present a seminar on one of the manuscripts in the Los Angeles exhibition Tuesday at the Getty Center. (getty.edu/art/exhibitions/icons_sinai/events.html)

    "When I asked for a helper, the monks' first instinct was to bring people from Greece because they know them, they trust them, they share the same culture," says Father Justin, adding that he and a British colleague are the only monks at the monastery who are not Greek. "But then you have the expense of transportation, wages, room and board. And how long can you expect the person to be here? So I told them, 'Get me a Bedouin who is instinctively careful and I can teach him the computer part.' They live here, we have known all their relatives for generations, and there is no thought about how long they can stay here."

    When Hemeid applied for work at the monastery, he knew nothing about the library.

    "I did not decide to work there," he says. "The Archbishop chose that place for me."

    A quiet trailblazer who spends his spare time listening to Arabic music while working on his home computer, Hemeid has the dreams of many young men. He wants to get married and have a child. He hopes to have a car. But he is the first person in his community to graduate from a university and the first Bedouin to secure such a rarefied position at the monastery.

    By all accounts, he caught on quickly because of his experience with computers.

    "He is a tremendous help," Father Justin says. "He is very careful. When he sees something that is not quite right, he asks me, instead of just charging ahead. That's exactly what I want. Each manuscript is unique and presents its own demands. But there is a certain repetition once things are set up. I compare it to driving. You have to be alert, but there's a routine to it. I think it takes a certain temperament. I think Hemeid has it."

    Six months into his job, Hemeid seems to have found a niche. He has no plans to leave the monastery or his village.

    "I am so happy to have this job," he says. "I feel that I have important work. I love it so much that I never get bored."

    He isn't likely to run out of work, even if the project is narrowed down considerably.

    "Photographing the whole library is not a realistic goal," Father Justin says. "But, as with all collections, 90% of the users are interested in 10% of the collection. The 10% that is of the greatest interest is quite a reasonable goal."


    suzanne.muchnic@latimes.com

    It's a multimedia generation

    OCT. 24, 2005

    TEENS
    OMG: It's a multimedia generation

    Teenagers and college-age young adults know all kinds of things others don't: Cool, unheralded musical artists. Fascinating web sites. Scintillating new books. How? They are so wired into one another - through cell phones, email and instant messaging - that they seem to absorb information through their pores. And it's clear many are looking for spiritual meaning outside their parents' tradition.

    The new buzzword for reaching out religiously to this group is multimedia - using music, videos, the web, print and more, often all at the same time. The feel is energetic and edgy. The theology ranges from conservative to liberal. Will these efforts help ground this generation in age-old faiths? Will it help them form their own traditions? Time will tell.

    Why it matters

    Young people may not want information so much as meaning. In most cities, congregations are using multimedia, lights and sound to appeal to "Generation Net." And ministries and outreach programs using cutting-edge technology are proliferating.

    Questions for reporters

    • What are congregations in your area doing to attract teenagers and college students? What is edgy and new? What's working?
    • Is religion flavored with hip-hop a trend in your region? What about geek-tinged hipsterism? Or alternative rock, or straight-out pop?
    • What religious web sites, webzines, blogs and other multimedia are teens favoring?
    • How does the presentation change the message?

    Click the map for interview sources
    in your state and region
    Northwest West Northwest Midwest Southwest Southeast South East Northeast

    National sources

    CHRISTIAN
    • Cameron Strang is president and founder of Relevant Media Group of Orlando, Fla., which targets 18- to 34-year-old Christians across denominations. He publishes RELEVANT magazine, a daily web site and Relevant Books. Read a June 23, 2004, USA Today story. Contact 407-660-1411, Cameron@relevantmediagroup.com.
    • Pastor Rob Bell is featured in the NOOMA series of 10- to 14-minute films on DVD with spiritual teachings aimed at teenagers and college-age adults. Bell's Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., meets in a former shopping mall that can seat 3,500. Bell wrote Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Zondervan, 2005); Zondervan also is distributing the films. Contact Karen Campbell, 616-698-3246, Karen.campbell@zondervan.com.
    • Tommy Kyllonen, who also goes by Urban D., is a hip-hop artist and lead pastor at the Tampa, Fla., Crossover Community Church. The church's ministry is the hip-hop culture, and worship combines music, dance, visual arts and other media. He has recorded five albums, performs concerts and is writing his first book, about hip-hop and the church. Contact 813-935-8887, urband@flavoralliance.com.
    • The Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush, an American Baptist minister, is associate dean for religious life at Princeton University. He is the author of Teen Spirit: One World, Many Paths (HCI Teens, 2004) and writes a teen spirituality advice column on Beliefnet.com - "Ask Pastor Paul" - in which he answers teens' questions on subjects from the spiritual implications of tattooing to abstinence to interfaith dating. Contact 609-258-6245, praushen@princeton.edu.
    • The Rev. Kenda Creasy Dean is assistant professor of youth, church and culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. A United Methodist minister and parent of two teenagers, she served on the research team for the National Study of Youth and Religion. She is the author of several books on youth and the church, including Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church (Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004) and co-author, with Ron Foster, of The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul-Tending for Youth Ministry (Upper Room Books, 1998). Contact kenda.dean@ptsem.edu.
    Chap Clark is an associate professor of youth, family and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and directs the seminary's youth ministry programs. Clark immersed himself in the life of a public high school in Los Angeles County, working as a substitute teacher and conducting ethnographic research there, and convened discussion groups with teenagers around the country for his book Hurt: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers (Baker Academic, 2004). Contact 626-584-5608, cclark@fuller.edu.
    T. Suzanne Eller of Muskogee, Okla., an author and speaker with a ministry to teens and college students, has a blog and a web site. Contact tseller@daretobelieve.org.
    Laurie Whaley Roe is vice president of Thomas Nelson's Nelson Bibles, which publishes youth-oriented BibleZines, including REVOLVE, the complete New Testament for teenage girls in a magazine format, and REAL, a similar product for the hip-hop crowd. Contact Cameron Conant, 615-902-1284, cconant@thomasnelson.com.
    Jennifer Swanson is spokeswoman for LIFE TEEN INC., an international Catholic youth ministry that produces videos and a web site. Contact 480-820-7001, jswanson@lifeteen.com.

    JEWISH
    Jewish rocker Rick Recht of St. Louis considers himself an educator as well as a musician. He plays more than 125 concerts a year, has recorded four Jewish albums and one secular one, and is at work on a movie and web sites. Contact 314-991-0909, rick@rickrecht.com.
    Yosef I. Abramowitz is publisher of JVibe, a new magazine for Jewish youth that is produced by Jewish Family & Life Media. Abramowitz is founder and CEO of JFL. Contact 617-581-6804, yabramowitz@jflmedia.com, or Michelle Cove, editor, mcove@jflmedia.com.
    Amy L. Sales is associate director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. She has studied Jewish life on college campuses and the experience of teenagers at Jewish summer camps. She is co-author of How Goodly Are Thy Tents: Summer Camps as Jewish Socializing Experiences (University Press of New England, 2003), for which she visited 20 summer camps in 2000. Contact 781-736-2066, sales@brandeis.edu.
    Rabbi Hayim Herring is director of STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal), an organization based in Minneapolis that works to renew the American Jewish community through congregational innovation and leadership development. He helped conduct a study called "Shema: Listening to Jewish Youth," examining the attitudes of Jewish teens in the Minneapolis area toward Judaism. Contact 612-381-8840, hherring@starsynagogue.org.

    MUSLIM
    Abdul Malik Mujahid is founder and president of Soundvision.com, a web-based resource for Muslims with a teen section and multimedia products. Read a 2000 Dallas Morning News article posted by Soundvision. Contact 708-430-1255 ext. 405.
    Amir Hussain is a professor in the religious studies department at California State University, Northridge, but during the 2005-06 academic year will be teaching in the theological studies department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Hussain has taught courses about contemporary Islam and about religion and film, and can speak about the role that faith plays in the lives of Muslim young people. Contact 818-677-2741, amir.hussain@csun.edu.
    Ted Swedenburg is a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Arkansas. He has done research on popular music, including Islamic and Middle Eastern influences on rap and hip-hop music, and he hosts a world music show on the radio. He can speak about the impact that Muslim young people are having in the world of music. Contact 479-575-6624, tsweden@uark.edu.
    Visit the web site for the Muslim Students Association, which lists chapters on college campuses across the country.

    BUDDHIST
    Diana Winston of Berkeley, Calif., teaches meditation at Buddhist retreat centers and to classes of teenagers. She also leads retreats for Buddhist teenagers and young adults and is the author of Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens (Perigree Books, 2003). Contact 510-527-4729, info@wide-awake.org, or through Adrienne Biggs, 415-453-4474, Adrienne@biggspublicity.com.
    Buddhist Gateway has a teen area. Contact Press-Ads@Faith.com.

    HINDU
    Hindu Gateway has a teen area. Contact Press-Ads@Faith.com.
    Visit the web site for the Hindu Students Council, which links to chapters at colleges across the country.

    NEW AGE/NEOPAGAN
    Sarah M. Pike is an associate professor of religious studies at California State University in Chico. She has written about New Age and neopagan religions and is working on a project about teens on the margins of American culture. Contact 530-898-6341, spike@csuchico.edu.

    ACADEMICS
    • Lynn Schofield Clark is an assistant research professor in the school of journalism and mass communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder and directs the Teens and the New Media@Home Project, which studies how young people use new media technologies. She also is the author of From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media and the Supernatural (Oxford University Press, 2003), which is based on extensive interviews with U.S. teens and considers how presentations of the supernatural in the media help shape the religious views of teenagers. Contact 303-735-5632, Lynn.Clark@Colorado.edu.
    • Christian Smith is a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-principal investigator for the Youth and Religion Project. He is the author, with Melinda Lundquist Denton, of a new book summarizing major findings from that study called Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press, 2005). Contact 919-962-4524, cssmith@email.unc.edu.

    Background

    WEBZINES, ETC.
    Focus on the Family publishes Brio for teenage girls and Breakaway for teenage guys, and broadcasts a live call-in radio show, Life on the Edge.
    Christianity Today publishes Campus Life, which is available by email subscription.
    Beliefnet hosts teen discussion boards about a range of faiths.

    POLLS AND SURVEYS
    See summaries of research findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion, funded by the Lilly Endowment and based at the University of North Carolina. From July 2002 to March 2003, the researchers conducted a random nationwide telephone survey of 3,370 teenagers ages 13 to 17 and their parents, and followed that up with 267 in-depth interviews with teenagers in 45 states. Among the findings: Teenagers seemed remarkably conventional in their religious views, and there wasn't much evidence of "spiritual seeking" or exploration. But even teenagers who considered religion important were not very articulate in talking about their faith - they have a hard time explaining what they believe.
    Read the preliminary results of a national study of spirituality in higher education. A pilot survey released in 2004 found strong interest in spiritual matters among third-year college students. It is part of a broader, longer-term study funded by the John Templeton Foundation. The survey, conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles, included the responses of 3,680 undergraduates at 46 diverse colleges and universities from around the country.
    • "OMG! How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era" -- a survey of almost 1,400 youth ages 18 to 25 that included Christian, Muslim and Jewish youth and a mix of races and ethnicities - explored attitudes about faith, politics and volunteer service. It found a "strong and intimate" connection between religious faith and volunteerism. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed volunteered in their community in the last year, but only 14 percent did so regularly. The 2004 survey was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

    WEB SITES
    A 2003 ReligionLink tip on teens and the Internet includes national and regional interview sources.
    Learn about a road trip that a group of reporters ages 11 to 16 took in 2002 to talk to teenagers across the country about spirituality - interviewing, among others, Maggie, a Buddhist teen in Texas, about reincarnation; Vidisha, an 11-year-old in Nashville, about Hindu prayer; and Alexis, a 15-year-old Baptist-turned-Catholic from New Orleans who was the only person in her family who went to church. The trip was organized by Children's PressLine, a media organization in New York City that trains young reporters.
    The Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, based at San Francisco Theological Seminary and funded by the Lilly Endowment, worked with more than a dozen Christian congregations - Baptist, Catholic, Mennonite, Lutheran and others - as well as youth ministry leaders to explore contemplative practices such as centering prayer and walking labyrinths in working with teenagers.
    The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding is a nonprofit group that tries to help parents and other adults better understand youth culture.

    ARTICLES
    Read a 2004 Religion News Service story explaining some of the research findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion. It's posted by Beliefnet.
    Read a Sept. 3, 2004, Associated Press story about Seventeen magazine starting a new section on faith. It's posted by TheFashionSpot.com.
    Read a Sept. 26, 2004, Indianapolis Star story (posted by ReligionNewsBlog.com) about techniques congregations are using - from basketball to fire pits - to try to draw more teenagers to worship.
    Read an Associated Press story about the religious views of the "millennial generation" (born starting in 1982). It's posted by Beliefnet.com.
    Read a June 2002 story from AsianWeek.com about Generation M, an annual interfaith conference organized by Muslim youth that uses hip-hop music and poetry to teach people about Islam and tolerance.
    Read an account of a Hindu Global Youth Conference held in Washington, D.C., in 2000 and interviews with teenagers who attended a Hindu summer camp outside Chicago.

    Christianity Today: Article Naming GOD


    Books & Culture, January/February 2007
    http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/001/1.8.html
    Naming God
    How should we address him?
    by Virginia Stem Owens

    At night, when I get down on my knees beside my bed and lean my head on my folded hands in the posture of prayer I was taught as a child, there's always a moment's hesitation while I fumble for the first word to launch into the cosmos, a name that will find the infinite mystery I want my words to reach.

    Doubtless my attention to the question of what to call God has been heightened by the violent clash between partisans from the world's three major monotheistic religions. Muslims call upon Allah, ideally, five times a day. The Qur'an lists the ninety-nine names of God, e. g., "He is Allah, the Creator, the Originator, the Fashioner, the Exalted in Might, the Wise." The name Allah itself is the Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew Eloah (cf. Elohim, one of God's names in the Hebrew scriptures) or Aramaic Elah , meaning "Mighty One" or "One Worthy of Praise." But the Qur'an also says that Allah has names that he keeps to himself, an option I find strangely appealing.

    Jewish prayers most often address God as "King of the Universe." Rabbi Yochanan, who salvaged the Torah when Jerusalem was destroyed in ad 70, instructed his fellow exiles, "Any blessing which does not include mention of [God's] sovereignty is not a blessing." During my nightly hesitation over what to call God, I often envy Jews that substantial prescription. On the other hand, while it seems appropriate for an acclamation, it lacks the kind of intimacy my Christian ears seek in prayer.

    So what are my choices? Do I address myself to Father? If so, should it be preceded with Our or My? Should I say Lord, perhaps with a prefatory Dear, like the greeting of a letter? What about Jesus, Holy Spirit, or just plain God? If I say Father, is it because I am a child, seeking comfort and certain assurance? Do I say Lord because I feel strong enough to approach as an adult, yet humble enough to acknowledge servanthood? Can I, this night, transcend the barriers of time to experience the personal presence of the resurrected Jesus, the one who has "borne our griefs and carried our sorrows"? Should I appeal to the Holy Spirit, feeling the need for firing up by that life-giving but elusive essence? Or do I take the easy way out and just say God, the generic term for whatever is infinitely bigger and better than I am?

    Then there's Yahweh, that most open-ended of all divine names, written in Hebrew today using only the windy consonants Y or H. Perhaps the name that God revealed to Moses was chosen especially for its exhalation. It is the very breath of God breathed into our ears. By omitting the open vowels in the written name, the Jewish scribes signaled their readers that the name of God is too holy to have on their unclean lips. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the unspeakable name revealed to Moses is variously translated as "I am who I am" or "I will be who I will be" or even "I am becoming who I will become."

    It has been left to the foolhardy Christians to stick in the vowels and dare to pronounce aloud, albeit with a certain awkwardness, the name Yahweh. Even so, we speak this name most often when reading aloud certain contemporary translations of Scripture or in a few praise songs.

    But unless I want to spend all night dithering, eventually I have to get on with my prayer, hoping the Great Unpronounceable will understand my struggle. So I plunge in to address him.

    The name I often plunge in with these days is Father. Father is what Jesus called God. In fact, the Aramaic word he actually used, "Abba," is more akin to our homely English equivalents—Daddy or Papa, simple two-syllable names ending in open vowels easy for toddlers to pronounce.

    But why would someone such as myself, a 64-year-old grandmother, suddenly want a father? Maybe because a child is what I often feel like these days. Fearful and impotent, and in need of comfort. I'm not ashamed of slipping into the persona of child when I kneel there at my bedside. I want a Parent. I need a Parent. Someone who cares for me as unfailingly as the mother I lost two years ago.

    As for my father, World War II kept me from meeting him until I was four years old. Unfortunately, this meant we never formed a close natural bond. Moreover, at 88, my father has become the child while I have taken on the role of parent in caring for him.

    In some ways this blank spot in my psyche has been beneficial. Many women have trouble with God because they identify him with an oppressive earthly father. For them, patriarchal oppression is a problem. But calling God Father at this point in my life doesn't put my ideological nose out of joint. I don't spurn or suspect any fatherly consolation he's likely to offer. In fact, crawling into God's lap and going to sleep in his arms seems about the best ending to a day—or a life—I can imagine.

    Still, to be honest, Father has to be a conscious choice. "Lord" is the mode of address that automatically springs unbidden to my lips. In my experience, it is also the name most often used among Christians to speak about the lump-sum Trinity.

    Why is Lord so routinely spoken? After all, it is an archaic word, one we never use outside of a religious context unless we're British. Such a word doesn't fit in our contemporary culture, except in certain kinds of science fiction and fantasy (The Lord of the Rings, for example). Like Father, Lord puts us in a position of dependence. But Lord implies even more. Not only do I depend on this Great Unknowable for my very breath, but with that word I acknowledge a kind of feudal relationship in which I play peasant to his patron.

    Yet I've never been in such a relationship. Our word "boss" is about as close as we commonly come to Lord, but the ties between employer and employee in our capitalist democracy are not nearly so close or strong as those between Lord and liegeman. So should I call God Boss? It would be our own Americanized way of acknowledging God's sovereignty, or at least his right to be in control.

    But Boss carries its own baggage, not all of it good. There's a whiff of irony, even sarcasm about the name. Boss means, "Okay, you're in charge here. Do it your way. Just don't blame me when it doesn't work out." Calling God Boss shuffles all the responsibility for my flaws to him. Which I'm already all too tempted to do.

    So I'm back to Lord. Even though it isn't native to our times or tongues, it leaps unbidden to our praying lips. It's the name which most of us have heard most frequently, both in and out of prayer, whether talking to or about God. Because Lord, either in lower- or all uppercase letters, stands in for several Hebrew divine monikers, it appears more often in Scripture than any other name. We often use Lord in offhand colloquial expressions such as, "The good Lord willing and the creek don't rise." We take our troubles "to the Lord in prayer." And I use such exclamatory phrases as "Good Lord" with no hesitation whereas I would shrink from using God in the same mode.

    One synonym for Lord is Master. This hits me on a deeper level. Slaves have masters. Trained animals have masters. Disciples of whatever craft or discipline have masters. Much more than Lord, calling on my Master puts me in a place I know instantly and instinctively. My personal history connects with that name as it must for anyone who grew up in the segregated South. The history of the slave-master relationship sets up internal seismic shock waves.

    I recognize instantly the tone of the Syro-Phoenician woman's retort to Jesus when he turns aside her request to heal her child: "even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." She is abasing herself by acknowledging, bitterly perhaps, her despised position while also acknowledging his power. Jesus himself often names the most powerful character in his parables "the master." Sometimes this is a kindly figure; at other times the master in the parable can seem arbitrary and capricious. In other places in the New Testament, master refers to a slaveowner, and not just metaphorically. Several of the pastoral letters admonish both slaves and masters to treat one another well. Master is also what his disciples often called Jesus.

    Yet Master is not a name one hears addressed to anyone often these days. Nor, despite its emotional freight, do I call upon it often. Its demands scare me. Whether we're talking about slaves or wild animals or students or disciples, obeying seems to be the operative ingredient in the relationship.

    But when his disciples call Jesus Master, they are not groveling before him. They use the Greek word for teacher (didaskalos) to address him. They are showing him the respect due a teacher by recognizing his superiority of knowledge or skill. Those fascinated with God, whatever manifestation of faith they find themselves in, have historically called their spiritual teacher Master. Who better to call Master than Jesus?

    I have an elderly cousin who sometimes addresses her prayers directly to Jesus, adding the shockingly familiar accolade, "You're just so precious!" This woman has been throughout her long life a better Christian than I'll ever be, yet I cringe when she says it, picturing her tweaking Jesus' cheek.

    On the other end of the spectrum, I once heard a radio preacher claim that we are not to pray to Jesus but rather, following his divine example, we should address our prayers to his father in heaven. I wonder what that preacher has to say about the Kyrie, one of the church's oldest prayers. Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

    Which brings me to the way the names Jesus and Christ are frequently linked. Christ, of course, is the translated equivalent of Messiah. Or at least it started out that way. Children, however, often take it for his last name. And scholars debate the nuances, some suggesting that Jesus was only his earthly name and Christ his heavenly designation.

    I rarely open up my heart with Jesus' name—no doubt a sad loss to my spiritual life. Of such seemingly minor distractions are stumbling blocks compounded, a fact that should make us all wary of our words. There is more than one way to take the Lord's name in vain.

    As for the generic term, god, talk about God can get by with that designation, but addressing God directly seems to require something more. Prayer bonds us to God with a peculiar intimacy. It is what brings us to the point of actually needing to name this Person in whose image we are made.

    If God is no more than concept or, as some theologians like to say, construct, then there is little point in naming him. One does not cry out to a concept or a construct. One may respect or admire it, even preach about it or advertise it, trying to attract converts to its cause. But one does not expect an answer if one were to address it or try to communicate with it. Only a person can do that. Calling God's name in the expectation or maybe just the hope that he hears, the supplicant recognizes God, if only fleetingly or even unwittingly, as a person, a person who can respond.

    Getting that initial address right seems important to me, not because I imagine I can really capture this source of all being in a verbal container. But the name I call to God with determines the guise in which I come to this task, duty, privilege of prayer. In naming God, I am in some way—far beyond my incomplete understanding—determining my own identity. Naming God ends up defining not him, but me.

    Virginia Stem Owens lives and writes in Texas. Her book And the Trees Clap Their Hands: Faith, Perception, and the New Physics was recently reissued by Wipf & Stock.

    Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Books & Culture magazine.
    Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.

    January/February 2007, Vol. 13, No. 1, Page 8

    Word of the Month: Syncretism

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism

    Syncretism in Christianity

    Nascent Christianity appears to have incorporated many European Pagan cultural elements, "baptizing" or "Christianizing" them to conform with Christian belief and principles, at least partially, through discarding theologically or morally incompatible elements. One example of this is the strong connection between the thought of St. Augustine and Neoplatonic thought, and St. Thomas Aquinas' many citations of "The Philosopher" by Aristotle. Many scholars agree to this syncretism in principle, though any specific example is likely to be labeled "controversial". Open Theists (a subset of Protestant Evangelicals) assert that Christianity by the 3rd and 4th centuries had incorporated Greek Philosophy into its understanding of God.

    "Syncretism" was not on the table when Christianity split into eastern and western rites during the Great Schism. It was invoked however with the rifts of the Protestant Reformation, with Desiderius Erasmus's readings of Plutarch. In 1615 David Pareus of Heidelberg urged Christians to a "pious syncretism"[citation needed] in opposing the Antichrist, but few 17th century Protestants discussed the compromises that might affect a reconciliation with the Catholic Church: the Lutheran Georg Calisen "Calixtus" (1586-1656) of Helmstedt School was opposed by Johann Hülsemann, Johann Georg Dorsche and Abraham Calovius (1612-1685) for his "syncretism".[1] (See: Syncretistic Strife)

    The modern celebrations of Christmas (as celebrated in the northern European tradition, originating from Pagan Yule holidays), Easter and Halloween are examples of relatively late Christian syncretism. Earlier, the elevation of Christmas as an important holiday largely grew out of a need to replace the Saturnalia, a popular December festival of the Roman Empire. Roman Catholicism in Central and South America has also integrated a number of elements derived from indigenous and slave cultures in those areas (see the Caribbean and modern sections); while many African Initiated Churches demonstrate an integration of Christian and traditional African beliefs. In Asia the revolutionary movements of Taiping (19th-century China) and God's Army (Karen in the 1990s) have blended Christianity and traditional beliefs.

    Syncretism can be contrasted with contextualization or inculturation, the practice of making Christianity relevant to a culture.

     


    Design and Religion

    Design and ReligionDesign and Religion

    Industry News

    *The cover of I.D.'s March/April 2006 "Design and Religion" issue, featuring a crucifix-shaped iPod, received second prize in a competition for Best Cover Concept of the Year sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors and Magazine Publishers of America. Determined by a jury of renowned editors and designers, the award was announced on October 24. www.asme.magazine.org.

     

     

    http://www.howdesign.com/store/idmagdisplay.asp?id=1760
    $9.00 order

    March/April 2006: A Question of Faith
    God=Details. This issue, I.D. explores the intersection of design and religion: Q+A with Michel Peissel on Tibet's sacred spaces....A sports stadium turned megachurch....Singapore's friendly new mosque....Surrender to the Xbox 360....The dirty truth behind the priest's collar.


    Ordered Yahveh book

    Just ordered this book, wonder what it's all about...? 

    HOLY TO YAHVEH
    Author Terrye Goldblum Seedman
    This book is a beautiful tapestry composed of Old and New Testament truths woven together to create a vivid portrait of Yahveh, the Most High God and Yahshua the Messiah. Throughout this book the plumb line of scriptural truth reveals many crooked places, faulty doctrines, and traditions that have permeated religious systems to this day. By His Spirit, Yahveh is calling Jewish and Gentile people alike to read this life changing book. For the Jewish people, the day has come to meet their Messiah; for the Gentiles it is now time to embrace the holy Hebrew roots of their faith and its scriptural mandates. For both Jews and Gentiles the hour has come for all anti-Christian and anti-Semitic walls of division to be exposed and shattered. Holy to Yahveh is a spiritual banqueting table presented before all who hunger and thirst for their Creator and His uncompromised truths. http://www.yahveh.com


    Hebrew Names of GOD YHVH

    http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/names_of_g-d.html

     

     

    Hebrew Names of God -

     
     

    Shemot HaElohim

     
     
       

    Almighty God graciously chose to reveal His Name (i.e., His character and presence by means of His acts and deeds) to the world through the Jewish people. Through the ancient Hebrew Patriarchs, through the great deliverance God effected by means of His servant Moses, through the eloquent oracles and admonitions of the Hebrew prophets, and most especially through the manifestation of the Mashiach Yeshua: in all these ways God has revealed His Name. In fact, the Scriptures make it clear that the name of Yeshua is so vital to our correct apprehension of reality that without it we are literally lost, since we are told “there is no other name by means of which it is necessary for us to be saved” (Acts 4:12).

         
        Proverbs 18:10 (BHS)  
         
         
         
       
         
       

    Of the various Names of God found in the Tanakh, the one which occurs most
    frequently (6,823 times) is the Tetragrammaton, YHVH, though the other Names
    are significant and provide additional light on the nature and character of God.

    1. YHVH
    2. Elohim
    3. El
    4. Eloah
    5. Elah
    6. Yah
    7. Adonai
    8. Hakadosh
    9. Savior
    10. Redeemer
    11. Messiah
    12. Spirit of God
    13. Other Names
    14. Esoteric Names
    15. Shem Hameforash
         
         

     

     


    The Sacred Name

    http://us.geocities.com/changes1611/name2.html

     


    FOX FAITH Targets Christian Markets

    Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Launches New Distribution Label, FOXFAITH; Studio Creates Consumer and Retail Brand Targeting Christian Market http://www.foxfaith.com

    CENTURY CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 20, 2006-- As the leading supplier of high quality entertainment product for the faithbased marketplace, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (TCFHE) unveils FOXFAITH, a new branded distribution label to house its growing portfolio of faithbased programming. Established for Christian retailers and churches/ministry organizations as a collection of inspirational films they can recommend and promote among their congregations, this new consumer and retail brand will be comprised of filmed entertainment with a clear Christian message or based on material by a Christian author. FOXFAITH will be a home entertainment distribution label as well as the marketing engine for limited theatrical releases of films specifically made for and targeted to the Christian audience as well as those seeking quality, inspirational and spiritual entertainment.

    "We're in the business of entertainment, not proselytizing," commented Jeff Yordy, Vice President, Marketing, FOXFAITH. "We simply recognized that there was a hugely underserved audience and seized the opportunity to provide them with highquality entertainment that reflects their values. And, as a result, we've seen explosive growth in this marketplace over the past few years, which only proves to us that we're successfully tapping into our core constituency."

    Continued Yordy, "We work very closely with the Christian retail community as well as a variety of Church and thought leaders across the country and they have fully embraced what we're doing with FOXFAITH and the banner has truly come to represent relevant and compelling programming that our consumers and retailers know they can trust."

    RETAIL ACTIVITIES: The studio recognized the need for a Christian label in 2002 as it realized there was an underserved market of millions of Christian households that were hungry for quality entertainment that reflected their values. Since that time, the Studio has been releasing appropriate products to the Christian Bookseller's Association (CBA) retail stores and in 2005 launched the website www.foxfaith.com as a "go to" resource for retailers, consumers, church leaders and other interested parties. To date, the studio has sold more than 30 million Faithbased DVDs, and in CBA has dedicated FOXFAITH sections in more than 1100 stores and the entire FOXFAITH business has become a $200 million retail business.

    In fact, the studio now dominates the sales charts at Christian retail outlets. Among the many titles released to CBA stores under the FOXFAITH banner are: "Be Still," "Mother Teresa," "The End Of The Spear," "The Passion Of The Christ," "The Visitation," "Love Comes Softly," "Love's Enduring Promise," "Woman Thou Art Loosed," "Billy Graham Presents" and the awardwinning documentary, "Beyond The Gates Of Splendor," plus many others. However, FOXFAITH releases are not the only titles from Fox sold in these retail outlets, many of the studio's wholesome family classics are also available including "Sound of Music," "Because of WinnDixie," "Dr. Dolittle" with Rex Harrison, "Cheaper By The Dozen," "Garfield The Movie," "My Friend Flicka" and many others.

    FORMAL, NATIONAL BRAND LAUNCH:

    GRASSROOTS OUTREACH: As part of the FOXFAITH initiative, the studio has built a network of churches/ministries that have "opted in" to receive regular information about entertainment releases that will appeal to their ministries and congregations. The program has been so successful that now more than 90,000 congregations are receiving information on upcoming FOXFAITH releases every quarter. In a direct marketing effort to further build FOXFAITH as a consumer brand, the studio has created a database of more than 14 million Christian households that regularly receive information.

    LIMITED THEATRICAL RELEASES: Beginning October 6 with "Love's Abiding Joy," a fourth filmed installment in the popular "Love Comes Softly" series based on the Janette Oke books, selected FOXFAITH films will be released to theaters, in concert with releasing company The Bigger Picture, for limited theatrical runs. Written and Directed by Michael Landon Jr., "Love's Abiding Joy" continues the inspirational and heartwarming story of a more innocent time following Missie and Willie LaHaye and they work to overcome the challenges that face them settling in the wild west.

    Plans call for a minimum of six FOXFAITH films to be theatrical releases per year, each of which will be supported by a comprehensive marketing campaign valued at nearly $5 million and targeting the core audience through television, newspaper, direct mail and other grassroots marketing, publicity and promotional activities. Covering approximately 40% of the United States, these FOXFAITH theatrical releases will be available in selected markets through Carmike Theaters, AMC and other regional theater chains.

    FOXFAITH is a distribution label of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC. FOXFAITH was created to provide compelling entertainment to the Christian audience as well as those seeking quality, inspirational and spiritual entertainment. Additional information about specific titles and programs can be found at www.foxfaith.com and www.foxfaithmovies.com.

    A recognized global industry leader, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC is the worldwide marketing, sales and distribution company for all Fox film and television programming on VHS and DVD as well as video acquisitions and original productions. Each year the Company introduces hundreds of new and newly enhanced products, which it services to retail outletsfrom mass merchants and warehouse clubs to specialty stores and ecommercethroughout the world. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC is a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, a News Corporation company.

    http://www.smartbrief.com/news/NATPE/industryBW-detail.jsp?id=31C1E23F-C...
    Contact Information

    Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
    Steven Feldstein

    The name of Deity How to handle GOD's Sacred Name HaShem

    » How will you handle the name of G-d
    By James Tabor | Published 05/20/2005 | Translation Notes |
     

    Names of Deity

    Most modern/font translations in keeping with traditional prohibitions against pronouncing the name of God have adopted a complicated and confusing system of translating the names and designations for Deity in the Hebrew Bible. The Tetragrammaton (Yahweh) is thus translated LORD in all capital letters. The problem with this practice is that it then creates confusion with the Hebrew term Adonai which does mean Lord. Accordingly most modern translations distinguish this without the capital letters. This is fine until you have the terms used together: YHVH Adonai which would then become the nonsensical LORD Lord. To address this redundancy the translators in such cases opt for GOD (all caps) for YHVH. But here another problem is createdthe normal terms for God (El Eloah and Elohim) are also rendered God throughout with no distinction so that you can end up with GOD being redundant with God if Adonai is also used. The simple solution is to reflect in every case the Hebrew terms actually used without attempting translations that only further confuse. So in the TEB you will find written in all CAPS these special names or terms for Deity:

    YHVH (Yahweh or Yehovah)brYAH (shortened form of YHVH)
    ADON (Master or Lord)brADONAI (plural of ADON)
    EL ELOAH and its plural ELOHIM (the terms for God)
    ELYON (Most High)
    SHADDAI (Breasts or Protector/Destroyer)

    The TEB has also included notes on the 134 places where it is said that the scribes (Sopherim) removed the name YHVH for theological reasons altering it to ADONAI in the standard Masoretic text (MT). For example in Genesis 18:3 27 30 and 32 where Abraham is speaking to Yahweh the traditional text has Adonai or Lord to avoid what was considered an extreme anthropomorphism. The TEB notes the 18 emendations of the Sopherim for example see Genesis 18:22.  http://www.originalbible.com/articles/7/1/How-will-you-handle-the-name-o...

     


    Tetragrammaton

     

    YEHOWAH

    I am so thrilled to know Him
    The God of Jesus Christ
    The Father of our Savior
    The Awesome God of Might

    God's Name just gives me feelings
    that make me feel complete
    the joyous thought of knowing it
    so soothing and replete

    I feel it's quite an honor
    to speak His Glorious Name
    to share my thoughts about Him
    to tell of His great fame

    For Jehovah has a people
    Six million going strong
    Who He has placed His Name upon
    I doubt that they are wrong

    While scattered other persons
    insist He's called Yahweh
    surely God would tell them
    if it was right - that way

    For why would God Jehovah
    place his seal upon
    A people called by His Name
    If the name they used was wrong ?

    And numerous famous scholars
    have searched this subject deep
    of how to say his glorious name
    pronounced by his true sheep

    The Father of our Jesus
    Was revealed in Jewish thought
    with Hebrew written letters
    in synagogues was taught

    In time the Jewish Tetragram
    was forbidden and despised
    because their faith grew tranished
    and they preferred the lies

    How Satan stole the glory
    by superstitious strife
    attempting to remove it
    from the Bible and its Light

    This Jewish false tradition
    spread to evil Rome
    and onto fallen Christendom
    whose voice began to drone

    Now many say we know not how
    to correctly say God's Name
    they argue and debate a lot
    and often try to blame

    Jehovah's people for their part
    in making God's Name known
    for cultivating a thirst for Him
    and for the seeds they've sown

    What really is important
    in this time of the end
    is not the way we say God's Name
    but to truly be His friend

    All our friends have vital names
    that identify their face
    and they feel truly honored when
    their name has found a place

    Within our hearts and memory
    and we speak their name a loud
    to identify them specifically
    from others in the crowd

    Jehovah too, loves it when
    we single him from those
    who claim to be a godly one
    that have a name they chose

    For many gods and many lords
    abound the world and seas
    for mankind has a numerous lot
    to whom they bend their knees

    Just think of William as a name
    while some might call him Bill
    Still others might refer to him
    as Billy, Bob, or Will.

    No matter what the moniker
    we use to call each one
    a compliment and courtesy
    is what we've really done

    Yes, our love and caring too
    are shown by true attempts
    to remember and call him by
    the name He's always kept

    So rather than avoid God's name
    or replace it with mere "LORD"
    we do well to make it known
    and use it even More.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Many "Lords" and Many "gods"

    First of all "GOD" and "LORD" are not names -
    but only titles.

    These titles may even be used in idol worship
    or devil worship. The Bible itself refers to Satan
    as 'the god of this world . . .'
    -(2 Cor. 4:4)(1 John 5:1)

    The Bible tells us :

    ".....indeed there are many "gods"
    and many "lords
    "......"
    (1Corinthians 8:5,6) (NIV) -BibleGateway



    Jehovah -
    The GOD of all gods
    and The LORD of all Lords

    JEHOVAH IS IDENTIFIED
    AS THE GOD OF ALL GODS
    AND THE LORD OF ALL LORDS

    "For Jehovah your God,
    he is God of gods,
    and Lord of lords,
    the great God, the mighty..."
    (Deuteronomy 10:17)(ASV)-BibleGateway


    Pronunciation

    "Yehovah - pronounced {yeh-ho-vaw'} -
    is the correct Hebrew rendering. "
    -Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible

    Though the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) does not appear
    in the vast majority of the English translations
    in use today, most of these do emphasize the word
    "LORD" or "GOD" (all letters capitalized),
    to indicate where the sacred name was originally used.

    Strong's Exhaustive Concordance tells us:

    "Jesus in Greek, is of Hebrew origin
    and is taken from the name Yehoshua,
    which in English is translated as Joshua.
    Yehoshua, in Hebrew means "Yehovah Saves". "
    -Strong's Exhaustive Concordance

    Indeed Jesus was the means by which Jehovah
    chose - to save the world of mankind.


    Jehovah's Seal of Approval

    HIS "MARK" OF APPROVAL -
    HIS NAME


    The Divine Name of God
    as shown in scripture -
    YHWH - Yehowah (Hebrew)
    Jehovah (English)

    Jehovah has put his "MARK" of approval
    upon his chosen people - by putting his name
    upon them too.

    The meaning of the word "name" in scripture.
    "Name" comes from the Hebrew word "Shem".
    Here is a definition of this word in the Strong's Lexicon:


    "Strong's # 8034 Shem; a primitive word position;
    an appellation, as a "MARK" or memorial of individuality;
    by implication honor, authority, character: fame[-ous],
    name, renown, report."

    As we can see from the above definition, God's name
    not only represents His "character" but His Name is
    also "His mark".



    Jehovah Himself,
    Declares His Own Name


    "I am Jehovah,
    and there is none else;
    besides me there is no God."
    (Isaiah 45:5) (ASV) -BibleGateway

    "I am Jehovah,
    that is my name;
    and my glory will I not give to another,
    neither my praise unto graven images."
    (Isaiah 42:8)(ASV)-BibleGateway


    "Jehovah, the God of your fathers...
    this is my name forever,
    and this is my memorial unto all generations."
    (Exodus 3:15)(ASV)-BibleGateway

    "...The Sacred Name Yahovah
    was revealed to man by Yahovah Himself
    and is not a man-given name."
    -(see II Apol., 10, 13; Trypho, 126, 127).



    Jehovah's Name
    Will Never Change

    "Thy name, O Jehovah,
    endureth for ever;
    Thy memorial name, O Jehovah,
    throughout all generations."
    (Psalm 135:13)(ASV)-BibleGateway

     

    The Importance of A NAME

    "If you want to win friends,
    make it a point to remember them.
    If you remember my name,
    you pay me a subtle compliment;
    you indicate that I have made an impression on you.
    Remember my name
    and you add to my feeling of importance."
    ---Dale Carnegie

    "The spelling and the pronunciation are
    not highly important. What is highly
    important is to keep it clear that this
    is a personal name...and cannot be properly
    understood if we translate this name by a
    common noun like 'Lord' or 'God'."
    -Steven T. Byington,
    translator of The Bible in Living English


    "That they [the Jews] now allege
    the name Jehovah to be unpronounceable,
    they do not know what they are talking
    about...If it can be written with pen
    and ink, why should it not be spoken ?
    --1543- Martin Luther
    Founder of Protestantism

    "This name Jehovah...
    belongs exclusively to the true God."
    --1526 - A sermon on Jeremiah 23:1-8
    delivered by Martin Luther


    "Iehovah is God's name . . .
    Moreover as oft as thou seist LORD
    in great letters...it is in Hebrew - Iehovah."
    -- Preface of English Bible 1530 -
    William Tyndale



    Pronunciation - in Favor of Jehovah
    Some Scholarly Comments

    "The oldest archeological testimony favors the
    pronunciation Jehovah.
    A short inscription dated
    of the time of Amenophis III (circa 1400 BCE)
    has been found at Soleb..."
    -M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar,
    specialist of the Tetragram; president of the
    Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits

    "According to postings on various forums, it has been
    stated that both Emanuel and Nehemiah Gordon believe
    that the Name of God is closer to Yehowah, which is
    similar to Jehovah in English. Nehemiah Gordon...
    defends Yehovah after extensive study of the Masoretic
    Text manuscripts. Nehemiah's view...based on studying
    the actual manuscripts under Emanuel Tov, is that...
    the earlier Masoretic manuscripts all have a Yehowah
    or Yehovah pronounciation..."
    - Seek God Association (Michael John Rood:
    Messianic Karaite Rabbi)

    "The great name YHWH is vocalized "Yehowah" in Hebrew...
    In the same way, as there were theophoric names
    elaborated from the great name, that is names beginning
    with Yehô- or its shortened form Y(eh)ô-, ...
    The Hebrews took care of making either their names begin
    with Yehô- or Yô-, or to end their names with -yah,
    theophoric names like: Joshua, Jonathan, Jesus, John, etc."
    For example, the name YHWHNN (John) is vocalized
    Yehôha-nan in Hebrew."
    - M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar,
    specialist of the Tetragram; president of the
    Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits

    "Yehova, which was in agreement with the beginning
    of all the theophoric names, was the authentic pronunciation..."
    - Paul Drach;
    De l'harmonie entre l'église et la synagogue
    (Of the Harmony between the Church and the Synagogue)
    published in 1842

    To determine the correct pronounciation of the
    Divine Name of God, using the Hebrew Tetragram,
    "Carr used a computer to sift through all the relevant
    vowel/consonant combinations found in Hebrew scripture.
    The computer eventually narrowed the list to 'e' 'o'
    and 'a' or YeHoWaH (Jehovah in English)."
    --The Daily Breeze

    "The tetragrammaton, YHWH, is therefore read
    I-eH-U-A (Iehoua), the equivalent of "YeHoWaH"
    in Masoretic punctuation. This means that the name
    is to be pronounced as it is written, or according
    to its letters."
    - (Won W. Lee professor at the Calvin College)
    published in the Religious Studies Review
    Volume 29 Number 3 July 2003 page 285.

    "Numerous linguists have postulated that...this name
    was pronounced Yehowah in the first century..."
    -M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar,
    specialist of the Tetragram; president of the
    Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits

    "As a follower of Christ,
    Peter used Gods name, Jehovah.
    When Peters speech was put on record
    the Tetragrammaton (YHWH / Jehovah) was here used
    according to the practice during the first
    century B.C.E. and the first century C.E."
    - Paul Kahle; Studia Evangelica, edited by Kurt Aland,
    F. L. Cross, Jean Danielou, Harald Riesenfeld
    and W. C. van Unnik, Berlin, 1959, p. 614
    (See App 1C §1.)


    "Jehovah is simply the form that conforms to normal
    English usage with respect to Hebrew names in the Bible.
    For example, in Hebrew, the name “Isaiah” was probably
    pronounced “Yeshayahu.” Similarly the English “Jerusalem”
    was, in Hebrew, pronounced “Yerushalaim.” “Jesus” was
    pronounced “Yeshua” or “Yehohshua”. The names Isaiah,
    Jerusalem and Jesus, were not the original Hebrew or
    Greek pronunciations. It is normal and proper for names
    to take on different pronunciations when they are
    transferred into another language. In Hebrew, God’s name
    was likely pronounced “Yehowah,” in Spanish it is Jehová
    (pronounced: ‘he-o-vá’), in English we say “Jehovah.”
    -The Divine Name of God;
    Pursuit of Scriptural Truth
    Home Christians.net

    "non-superstitious Jewish translators always favored
    the name Jehovah in their translations of the Bible.
    On the other hand one can note that there is NO Jewish
    translation of the Bible with Yahweh."
    -M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar,
    specialist of the Tetragram; president of the
    Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits

    See the chart below for examples
    of some of these Jewish Translations :

    NAME OF VERSION
    (JEWISH)
    TONGUE PUBLISHED
    IN:
    DIVINE NAME
    RENDERED
    Immanuel Tremellius Latin 1579 Jehova
    Baruch Spinoza Latin 1670 Jehova*
    Samuel Cahen French 1836 Iehovah
    Alexander Harkavy English 1936 Jehovah**
    Joseph Magil (see below) English 1910 Jehovah
    Rabbi L. Golschmidt (see below) German 1921 Yehovah


    "That mystic name which is called
    the Tetragrammaton, by which alone
    they who had access to the Holy of Holies
    were protected, is pronounced JEHOVAH
    (Iehovah), which means,
    Who is, and who shall be."
    -Nicetas, Bishop of Heraclea, 2nd century,
    From The Catena On The Pentateuch,
    Published In Latin
    By Francis Zephyrus, P 146

    "The Jewish scholars known as Massoretes
    introduced a system of vowels and accents...
    In this way the Tetragrammaton became Ye-Ho-VaH
    and later on, in Western languages, Jehovah..."
    - B.9.2: The Biblical Background;
    Gilles C H Nullens



    Theophoric Names

    Many biblical names Started with the Tetragram,
    and give insite as to how we would pronounce
    The Great Divine Name of God.

    These names are called "theophoric".

    The following Chart by :
    Christian Ginsburg, Introduction To
    the Massoretico-Critical Edition
    Of The Hebrew Bible, p 369.

    Shows us these Examples :

    (remember - the Hebrew reads right to left)



    Thus we see by the chart above
    that the beginning letters of the tetragram
    are pronounced in english as JEHO -

    Thus, it is clear how the ancient Jews
    viewed the correct pronunciation of the
    Tetragrammaton, for without exception
    the first two syllables in the above names
    are identical in pronunciation to the traditional
    pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton - which
    is as shown above - JEHO.



    Scholarly Opinion Against
    "Yahweh" - pronunciation


    "The form Yahweh is thus an incorrect
    hybrid with an early 'w' and a late 'eh'. "
    -The Law and the Prophets,
    ed. by John H. Skilton,
    Milton C. Fisher, and Leslie W. Sloat

    "...there is NO Jewish translation
    of the Bible with Yahweh."
    -M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar,
    specialist of the Tetragram; president of the
    Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits

    "Actually, there is a problem with the
    pronunciation Yahweh. It is a strange
    combination of old and late elements."
    -Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
    (TWOT)

    "The pronunciation of yhwh as Yahweh
    is a scholarly guess."
    -Anchor Bible Dictionary, VI-1011.


    "What should be obvious in all this
    is that the pronunciation of YHWH
    is an academic matter and the God of Israel
    is more interested in our personal relationship
    to Him rather than the pronunciation of his name.
    In fact, from the evidence now available,
    it may be argued that Yahweh is incorrect
    and Jahoweh might be the true pronunciation"
    -(The Law and the Prophets,pp. 215-224,
    edited by John H. Skilton, Milton C. Fisher,
    and Leslie W. Sloat).


    "YAHWEH is NOT a Hebrew name."
    --The Law and the Prophets,
    ed. by John H. Skilton,
    Milton C. Fisher, and Leslie W. Sloat

    "...the form "Yahweh" is
    an incorrect hybrid form...."
    -Laird Harris;
    The Pronunciation of the Tetragram,
    in The Law and the Prophets:
    Old Testament Studies
    Prepared in Honor of Oswald Thompson Allis,
    ed. John H. Skilton
    (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian
    and Reformed Publishing, 1974), pgs 218-224

    "Concerted effort has been underway for the past
    several generations to alter the pronunciation of
    the Divine Name, known as the Tetragrammaton,
    from Jehovah into the Egyptian slur, Yahweh.
    In spite of these efforts, there is compelling evidence
    to stick with the traditional pronunciation of Jehovah."
    --LambLion; by Scott Jones


    Two Syllables or Three ?

    YAHWEH = (2 syllables)
    YEHOWAH = (3 syllables)


    "The original form of the divine name
    was almost certainly three syllables,
    and NOT two. The accumulated data points
    heavily in the direction of a "three"
    syllable word."
    - George W. Buchanan,
    "Some Unfinished Business
    With the Dead Sea Scrolls,"
    RevQ 13.49-52 (1988), 416


    "When the Tetragrammaton was pronounced...
    it was pronounced in "three" syllables
    and it would have been 'Yahowah' "
    - George W. Buchanan,
    "How God's Name Was Pronounced,"
    BAR 21.2 (March-April 1995), 31-32


    "Samaritan poetry employs the Tetragrammaton
    and then rhymes it with words having the same
    sound as Yah-oo-ay (three syllables)."
    -(Journal of Biblical Literature, 25, p.50
    and Jewish Encyclopedia, vol.9, p.161).

    "in the syllable division of the divine name
    it would have ended up as Jahoweh,
    a form...remarkably like the...form Jehovah"
    -Laird Harris;
    The Pronunciation of the Tetragram,
    in The Law and the Prophets:
    Old Testament Studies

    "Many scholars believe...that it is more likely that
    the Divine name was originally pronounced
    in a three syllable form, ‘Yeh×o×wah.’ -
    ‘Jehovah’ is the English form of the divine name."
    -The Divine Name of God;
    Pursuit of Scriptural Truth
    Home Christians.net


    As Christians

    Regardless of how we pronounce Jehovah's Name,
    As Christians we should follow Our Leader,
    Jesus Christ, who told us to honor his Father's Name.

    "One of Jesus Christ's missions was
    to reveal the name of the Almighty God.
    Precisely, he taught in his prayer to
    Hallow or keep His Father's name Holy.
    How can we perform obedience to his word
    if we don't know His real personal name? "
    - B.9.2: The Biblical Background;
    Gilles C H Nullens

    "Our Father in heaven,
    help us to honor your name."
    (Matthew 6:9)(CEV)-BibleGateway

    ``````````````````````

     


    How to Pronounce God's Name?

    http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=PronouncingTheName&tab=weblogs&uid=3...

     

    THE KEY TO PRONOUNCING GOD'S NAME

    the Tetragrammaton is composed of four
    Hebrew consonants - YHVH or YHWH ().

    Hebrew is read from right to left.

    When the vowel points are added to these four
    consonants, the word is pronounced literally as Yehovah,
    or the Anglicized form, Jehovah. This is the straightforward
    pronunciation with the vowels.



    To determine the correct pronounciation of the
    Divine Name of God, using the Hebrew Tetragram,
    "Carr used a computer to sift through all the relevant
    vowel/consonant combinations found in Hebrew scripture.
    The computer eventually narrowed the list to 'e' 'o'
    and 'a' or YeHoWaH (Jehovah in English)."
    --The Daily Breeze

    Many biblical names Started with the Tetragram,
    and give insite as to how we would pronounce
    The Great Divine Name of God.

    The following Chart shows us some of these examples
    :

    Chart provided by :
    Christian Ginsburg, Introduction To
    the Massoretico-Critical Edition
    Of The Hebrew Bible, p 369.

    Thus we see by the chart above
    that the beginning letters of the tetragram
    are pronounced in english as JEHO -

    Thus, it is clear how the ancient Jews viewed
    the correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton,
    for without exception the first two syllables in the
    above names are identical in pronunciation to the
    traditional pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.

    We thus find in Hebrew : "Yehovah" and in English : "Jehovah"

    "Yehova, which was in agreement with
    the beginning of all the theophoric names,
    was the authentic pronunciation..."
    (
    Yehovah in Hebrew = Jehovah in English)
    - Paul Drach;
    De l'harmonie entre l'église et la synagogue
    (Of the Harmony between the Church and the Synagogue)
    published in 1842

    Thus, the Hebrew
    "ye-ru-sha-LA-yim"
    became "Jerusalem";
    "ye-ri-HO"
    became "Jericho";
    and "yar-DEN" become "Jordan".
    Hebrew personal names such as
    "yo-NA" became "Jonah",
    "yi-SHAI" became "Jesse"
    and "ye-SHU-a" became "Jesus".

    Likewise
    "Yehowah" became "Jehovah" in english.

    DO YOU SEE THE PATTERN ?

    "Jehovah is simply the form that conforms to normal
    English usage with respect to Hebrew names in the Bible.

    For example, in Hebrew, the name “Isaiah” was probably
    pronounced “Yeshayahu.” Similarly the English “Jerusalem”
    was, in Hebrew, pronounced “Yerushalaim.” “Jesus” was
    pronounced “Yeshua” or “Yehohshua”. The names Isaiah,
    Jerusalem and Jesus, were not the original Hebrew or
    Greek pronunciations. It is normal and proper for names
    to take on different pronunciations when they are
    transferred into another language. In Hebrew, God’s name
    was likely pronounced “Yehowah,” in Spanish it is Jehová
    (pronounced: ‘he-o-vá’), in English we say “Jehovah.”
    -The Divine Name of God;
    Pursuit of Scriptural Truth
    Home Christians.net


    WHAT DO THE SCHOLARS SAY
    ABOUT THE PRONOUNCIATION
    OF GOD'S NAME ?


    "That mystic name which is called
    the Tetragrammaton...is pronounced JEHOVAH
    (Iehovah), which means, Who is, and who shall be."
    -Nicetas, Bishop of Heraclea, 2nd century,
    From The Catena On The Pentateuch,
    Published In Latin
    By Francis Zephyrus, P 146

    "The oldest archeological testimony
    favors the pronunciation Jehovah.

    A short inscription dated of the time of
    Amenophis III (circa 1400 BCE)
    has been found at Soleb..."
    -M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar,
    specialist of the Tetragram;
    president of the Association Biblique
    de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits

    "According to postings on various forums, it has been
    stated that both Emanuel and Nehemiah Gordon believe
    that the Name of God is closer to Yehowah, which is
    similar to Jehovah in English. Nehemiah Gordon...
    defends Yehovah after extensive study of the Masoretic
    Text manuscripts. Nehemiah's view...based on studying
    the actual manuscripts under Emanuel Tov, is that...
    the earlier Masoretic manuscripts all have a Yehowah
    or Yehovah pronounciation..."
    - Seek God Association
    (Michael John Rood: Messianic Karaite Rabbi)

    "As a follower of Christ,
    Peter used Gods name, Jehovah
    .
    When Peters speech was put on record
    the Tetragrammaton (YHWH / Jehovah) was here used
    according to the practice during the first
    century B.C.E. and the first century C.E."
    - Paul Kahle; Studia Evangelica, edited by Kurt Aland,
    F. L. Cross, Jean Danielou, Harald Riesenfeld
    and W. C. van Unnik, Berlin, 1959, p. 614
    (See App 1C §1.)

    YEHOVAH FAVORED OVER YAHWEH


    "non-superstitious Jewish translators always favored
    the name Jehovah in their translations of the Bible.

    On the other hand one can note that there is NO Jewish
    translation of the Bible with Yahweh."
    -M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar,
    specialist of the Tetragram; president of the
    Association Biblique de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits

    "Concerted effort has been underway for the past
    several generations to alter the pronunciation of
    the Divine Name, known as the Tetragrammaton,
    from Jehovah into the Egyptian slur, Yahweh.
    In spite of these efforts, there is compelling evidence
    to stick with the traditional pronunciation."
    --LambLion; by Scott Jones

    "Actually, there is a problem with the
    pronunciation Yahweh
    . It is a strange
    combination of old and late elements."
    -Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
    (TWOT)

    "The pronunciation of yhwh as Yahweh
    is a scholarly guess."
    -Anchor Bible Dictionary, VI-1011.


    "The great name YHWH is vocalized
    as "Yehowah" in Hebrew
    ...(Jehovah in English)
    In the same way, as there were theophoric names
    elaborated from the great name, that is names
    beginning with Yehô- or its shortened form Y(eh)ô-, ...
    The Hebrews took care of making either their names begin
    with Yehô- or Yô-, or to end their names with -yah,
    theophoric names like: Joshua, Jonathan, Jesus, John, etc."
    For example, the name YHWHNN (John) is vocalized
    Yehôha-nan in Hebrew."
    - M. Gérard GERTOUX; a Hebrew scholar,
    specialist of the Tetragram;
    president of the Association Biblique
    de Recherche d'Anciens Manuscrits