Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Saturday 27 September 2003 16:12, Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 27/09/2003 14:47, Liz Fried wrote:
> >.  If I
> >
> >>>may be forgiven for waxing theological for a moment, God doesn't
> >>
> >>care what
> >>
> >>>you call Him; all He cares is that He hears from you once in a while!
> >>> ;-)
> >>
> >>Agreed!
> >
> >Dear Peter and Dave, et. al.
> >This is something that I absolutely do not agree with!
> >My daughter married a Hindu, and said to me that there
> >is only one god, therefore, what does it matter if you call
> >him Shiva or Yahweh? Nope.
> >These are different gods. You can tell that they are
> >different gods. One way you can tell is that they have different names.
> >Names are important.
> >Best,
> >Liz
>
> Don't confuse the form of the name with the identity of the addressee. I
> might use the same name to address Dave Washburn and David Donnelly, but
> that doesn't imply that I think they are the same person. When yet
> another David addressed 'ELOHIM in some of the psalms, he was not
> addressing Baal or Chemosh, but others might have used the same words in
> address to the latter two. When I pray "Dear God,...", I am not
> addressing Shiva, but your son-in-law might address Shiva with the same
> words. I'm sure YHWH, and Shiva if he exists, know which of them is
> being addressed without us having to use different names.

Precisely.  My point was that referent is everything.  If Peter points at me 
and calls me "Hey, you," what matters is to whom he is calling, not what he 
calls me.

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"God does a lot of things in the Psalms
that He can't get away with in systematic theology."