Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

B.H. wrote:Funny story. A woman did not know that was God's personal name in the Bible. Someone critical of the Bible on a call in radio show kept using the name Yahweh saying "Yahweh killed kids, Yahweh destroyed whole towns ect.". This poor woman called in and griped at him saying he needed to read the Bible because the Bible god was called God and the Lord, not Yahweh. The poor radio hosts just laughed it was too much.

Similarly, I read an article about how Rastafarians did not worship the true God, but some so-called deity named "Jah." Then I read this verse from Psalms:

Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him.
--Psalm 68:4 (KJV)

The Rasta religion has plenty of issues, but calling God by a non-biblical name doesn't seem to be one of them. BH, am I right that this would apply equally to the oft-repeated criticism of Islam: they don't worship God; they worship some so-called deity named "Allah"?

Lev

B.H. wrote:

Yahweh

Funny story. A woman did not know that was God's personal name in the Bible. Someone critical of the Bible on a call in radio show kept using the name Yahweh saying "Yahweh killed kids, Yahweh destroyed whole towns ect.". This poor woman called in and griped at him saying he needed to read the Bible because the Bible god was called God and the Lord, not Yahweh. The poor radio hosts just laughed it was too much.

Similarly, I knew a coc preacher say Yahoo once.

illuminator wrote: "Epistle" sounded like an affliction and "brethren" was what you took for it. "I'm Peter, and I have an epistle THIS big, but I take extra-strength brethren for it!"

Hahaha!

Lev wrote:

B.H. wrote:Funny story. A woman did not know that was God's personal name in the Bible. Someone critical of the Bible on a call in radio show kept using the name Yahweh saying "Yahweh killed kids, Yahweh destroyed whole towns ect.". This poor woman called in and griped at him saying he needed to read the Bible because the Bible god was called God and the Lord, not Yahweh. The poor radio hosts just laughed it was too much.

Similarly, I read an article about how Rastafarians did not worship the true God, but some so-called deity named "Jah." Then I read this verse from Psalms:

Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him.
--Psalm 68:4 (KJV)

The Rasta religion has plenty of issues, but calling God by a non-biblical name doesn't seem to be one of them. BH, am I right that this would apply equally to the oft-repeated criticism of Islam: they don't worship God; they worship some so-called deity named "Allah"?

Lev

True. In fact I have read that in Arabic translations of the Bible Allah is used for God.


As for the Rastas I think I'd pick a better god than Haile Sellassie. That son of a [derogatory term] makes me sick. I'm glad they booted him out of Ethiopia.

Just to clarify (and because I know):

'al-lah' actually means, literally: 'god'. Actually it means THE GOD aka 'God'. You know? It isn't a 'name'. In fact, some translations of the Bible into Arabic use 'Allah' or 'God' which is absolutely appropriate since for pete's sake it MEANS 'God'. But Muslims don't like it because it makes it look like Allah of the Qu'ran is in the Bible (what goes around comes around?)

(sorry - took Arabic for a year - also Hebrew and Arabic are both Semitic languages with a lot of cognates - the cognate for 'Allah' in Hebrew is a similar word meaning 'the high one'. You may know it also, it is 'elohim' (the high/elevated ones or 'the highest') which is translated into English in the Bible as - get this: God.

Both words are also related to the Hebrew 'aliyah' meaning 'to go up, to rise' which is ALSO used to mean 'immigrate to Israel' (because by doing so, one 'rises' to a higher spiritual plane).

AFAIK, Islam has no personal name revealed for Allah. The Hebrew Bible does, but it is a 'mysterious' sort of name with a disputed meaning - 'yahweh' is the PROBABLE pronunciation, and was apparently used some for many centuries - you see elements of it (called 'theophoric elements') in many Biblical names (Elijah, Jeremiah - that 'jah' or 'iah' at the end is 'yah') but for something over 2000 years the name of God itself has been viewed as 'too holy to use' or at least too holy to use outside a very sacred space (like inside the Temple).

We don't say 'yahweh' out loud, and oddly enough, I am somewhat uncomfortable writing it down. I am especially uncomfortable when I hear/see NON Jews throw The Name (HaShem) around casually, as if they were good buddies that hang out and watch football, or something. Like hearing someone from Arkansas call Queen Elizabeth 'Betsy' and claiming personal acquaintance.

oh - disputed meaning:
yahweh (no matter how you pronounce it) is a verb form, not a noun - right away, an odd sort of thing for a name. Hebrew isn't written with vowel notation either, so you can read the four letter Name (YHVH or YHWH) in different ways - most of the versions possible or likely have to do with Being and Existence. The usual translation (I am that I am) is okay, but so is 'I will be what I will be' or 'I am becoming' or - well, use your imagination. It could even be 'beingness/existing' for instance.

The word 'Jehovah' comes from the four letter Name, and it comes through German biblical literary/critical studies - Hebrew has no J sound at all (in German, J sounds like Y) and the V/W letter is usually V, but can be W.... and the vowels in THAT version are the vowels of 'Adonai' which is what Jews SAY when they are reading from the Torah and run across the four letter Name. 'Adonai' is 'lord' (a title).

B.H. wrote:As for the Rastas I think I'd pick a better god than Haile Sellassie. That son of a [derogatory term] makes me sick. I'm glad they booted him out of Ethiopia.

I feel like I'm defending the Rasta religion, which I'm not, but just to stay factual I should point out that they don't typically conflate the identities of God ("Jah") and Haile Selassie. As I understand it, it's more of a God-Jesus or maybe God-Mohammed relationship. That may be splitting hairs, I don't know.

Lev

So really the name one uses for God ends up saying more about the person uttering the phrase than it does about the Deity. Whether the usage be in slang, coarse talk, or in reverence. I miss the good old days when a JW would knock on the door and repeatedly ask the supposedly stumping and reveling question "Do you know the name of God?" or "how do you call upon the name of the Lord if you do not know His name?" LOL I have not had a JW stop by in years, maybe there is a rock turned out by the mailbox that tells them to stay away.

zeek wrote: None of these appear in the KJV so they are unacceptable. Remember, we must call Bible things by Bible names to be scriptural. It frightens me to think what a liberal, modernistic congregation you must have been a part of that would allow such language. It is well that you got away from them.

Denomination does not appear in the Bible. Love the consistency. Open your Bibles to the reformation. Irony can be used as a weapon.

Lev wrote:

B.H. wrote:As for the Rastas I think I'd pick a better god than Haile Sellassie. That son of a [derogatory term] makes me sick. I'm glad they booted him out of Ethiopia.

I feel like I'm defending the Rasta religion, which I'm not, but just to stay factual I should point out that they don't typically conflate the identities of God ("Jah") and Haile Selassie. As I understand it, it's more of a God-Jesus or maybe God-Mohammed relationship. That may be splitting hairs, I don't know.

Lev

Maybe so. But I still have no use foe Selassie.

klp wrote:So really the name one uses for God ends up saying more about the person uttering the phrase than it does about the Deity. Whether the usage be in slang, coarse talk, or in reverence. I miss the good old days when a JW would knock on the door and repeatedly ask the supposedly stumping and reveling question "Do you know the name of God?" or "how do you call upon the name of the Lord if you do not know His name?" LOL I have not had a JW stop by in years, maybe there is a rock turned out by the mailbox that tells them to stay away.

Give me your address and I'll stop by with a couple of Qurans and ask you about Islam.