Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Awohili AT aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 06/28/2006 8:40:26 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, 
> hholmyard AT ont.com writes:
>
>     1) There is no strong reason to think that God has a name like
>     Ralph to
>     distinguish him from others, since there is only one God.
>
> No, but that is not the only reason to have a name.  A name expresses 
> essence and qualities and purpose, especially a self-given name.  
> There is no evidence in the Scriptures that YHWH is a name that man 
> gave to God.  It appears to be that it is the name that God gave to 
> Himself and revealed to humanity over 6,000 times in the Hebrew text.


HH: Exactly. Yahweh is a name with meaning, not just an empty name. God 
gave it to convey meaning, truth about himself. I am confused. Somebody 
wondered why God couldn't just have a name. I assumed that mean a name 
without a particular meaning. For example, my name is Harold. It is a 
family name, and my parents were not thinking of what the meaning of 
"Harold" was. I simply had it because my grandfather did. I was 
objecting to God having a name like that. If God invents a certain name 
for Himself to convey a quality such as self-existence, that is 
different than what I assumed was being proposed. Of course God has a 
name in that sense. 

>  
> And even though monotheists believe there is only one true God, 
> there have been other entities worshiped throughout human history from 
> which YHWH has to be distinguished.


HH: True, but what I understand as being proposed was that God had a 
name from some other sphere and simply communicated it to mankind. No, I 
believe the name Yahweh is one that he invented in order to convey a 
certain idea of himself to mankind.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard