Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>]

Why can't both be true?  G-d gave a Name to Himself from the 
beginning, and communicated it to mankind, and inherent in the Name 
is a certain idea of Himself.

I am NOT proselytizing - just informing you that we believe that 
there were many names as G-d engaged in the process of 
self-revelation, that one Name was the holiest and unutterable, that 
each name is used in the Torah to connote some aspect of G-d that is 
operating in that instance.  It is also a belief that the entire 
Torah consists of G-d's names.  And it is the belief of Torat 
HaNistar (hidden information in the Torah) that by permutations of 
the letters of G-d's names, it is possible to tap into Spiritual 
Energy.

Also, can you remind me why Ehyeh asher Ehyeh is translated as I AM 
and not in future?  Every Jewish Commentary, when expounding on it, 
makes the assumption that we all know that the word is used  as 
future tense.

OK I'm done, don't take this post the wrong way, please.

Shoshanna


> 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.