The Name

Of all the peculiarities of English translations of the Bible, none is, in my option, as irreverent as the consistent and purposeful omission of the Divine Name. In fact, the casual reader could be forgiven for thinking it has no biblical basis at all, supposing perhaps that it is a later creation of the Jewish mystics. Quite the opposite in fact - it occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures over 6000 times - and yet in the King James version, and most other translations since, it appears in only four places.

Why this is so is the subject of some speculation. One theory is that the Hebrew word for "blaspheme" is also a word in Aramaic, which was the language used in Babylon during the time of the captivity. However, in Aramaic, it doesn't mean "blaspheme", it means "pronounce". Others contend that the priesthood explicitly forbid the use of the divine name in public during this period for fear that the heathens might learn it and subject it to abuse, although the name was still uttered by the high priest during temple services until the 2nd century AD. There was also a medieval superstition that if anyone pronounced the "true name" of something they would be able to control it - and that if anyone pronounced God's true name, the resulting paradox would destroy the Universe. Whatever the reasons behind the fear, many Jews today not only substitute "Adonai" (meaning, simply, "lord") for the divine name, but have in turn come to fear pronouncing "Adonai" as well, replacing it with something else. Sometimes they even write the English words "God" and "Lord" without the vowels, as "G-d" and "L-rd", just in case.

There are actually several words used for God in the old testament:

El Elyon "God Most High". The word "El" sometimes also takes a variety of other adjectives that describe the divine nature. Used on its own, "el" simply means "god" in the general sense, and is also used when speaking of the gods of other religions. "El" was also the proper name of the father god of the Canaanite pantheon - the very same bearded chap I mentioned before. Despite the name, it is not the same God, as much as some would like to think so.

Elohim literally "Powers" or "Strengths", usually translated in English simply as "God". This word often takes the definite article, which means it's not a proper name as such, although it is used to mean God with a capital G. Interestingly, although the word is grammatically singular, it is morphologically plural, which leads some to conclude that it is proof that Judaism was originally polytheistic. In fact, the only thing it proves is that some people don't know a lot about Hebrew grammar (it's about as sequitur as concluding that "vice" is the plural of "vouse"), although to add confusion to confusion, it is sometimes used as a plural (cf. "sheep", "fish") and also has a singular form "eloah". Eloah is grammatically masculine, yes even though it ends in "h". Some New Age types just want any excuse to believe in a Goddess. Its plural is Elohim. If the H was a feminine ending it would pluralise to Elowoth, silly. (Also consider "Behemoth", which is morphologically feminine plural and yet is most definitely masculine and single.)

YHVH is the proper name of God, also known as the Tetragrammaton (because it's got four letters), and rendered in most English translations simply as "the LORD". The thing about ancient Hebrew is that it was written without any vowels in it. The Hebrew alphabet consists entirely out of consonants (although it contains a couple of "silent" letters for when you want to start a syllable with a vowel, and the semi-vowels Y and W(V)), vowel points not being introduced until the middle ages - and people had long since stopped saying the name by then. Scribes of the time added the vowel points of the word "Adonai", indicating you were actually meant to say "Adonai" whenever you saw "YHVH", which lead early English translators to conclude the pronunciation was "Jehovah". Modern scholars now typically agree that "Yahweh" is more likely, but there's no real way to be sure. Etymology would shed some light on it, but nobody is entirely sure of that either. It looks like the Hebrew verb "to be" (hayah), 3rd person (hoveh), imperfective aspect (yehoveh)... but it might not be, although a lot of Hebrew names are verbs in the 3rd person. (English doesn't have the imperfective aspect, so a literal translation is impossible, but it indicates that an action is ongoing or continuous, so an approximate translation could be "He is [continually] existing" or "The Existing One").

It is therefore quite easy to see how things can get lost in translation. But why am I going on about all this? You might well ask. And it's because I wish to trace the worship of the god of the Christians, the god of the Jews, and the God of the Muslims ("Allah" is from the same root as "El") right back as far as it will go. I hope to show that that is really quite far.

As far as biblical evidence goes, YHVH is the name used in the oldest parts of Genesis (according to the documentary hypothesis) written sometime between 950 B.C. and 750 B.C. The Mesha Stele, a record of a Moabite victory over Israel from 850 B.C., not only confirms the existence of the nation of Israel at that time, but also contains the Tetragrammaton. The Merneptah Stele is the earliest written record of Israel, dating from 1208 B.C., although it indicates that Isreal was not actually a nation at that time, but was nevertheless a social entity worth mentioning. The oldest inscription of the divine name as we would recognise it appears on a 15th century B.C. record of peoples of the Transjordan, in the line "Yhw in the land of the Shasu". "Shasu" was an egyptian word for "wanderers" or "nomads". Some have suggested that the Shasu mentioned here were actually the Israelites, although according to their depiction that seems unlikely. However, the Shasu could possibly be identified with the Edomites, as another egyptian source mentions "shasu-tribes of Edom". According to the Bible, the Edomites were descended from Esau, the brother of Jacob/Israel, son of Isaac. Whether these were real individuals or not, a common origin might account for the two peoples sharing a common name of God. (Muslim and Jewish tradition also maintains that the Arab people were descended from Ishmael, brother of Isaac, son of Abraham.)

Going back any further than that requires a bit of a leap, with analysis from this point being centred around the short form of the divine name, Yah or Yahu, which appears in many Hebrew names (e.g. Isaiah, Elijah). Traditionally, Yah is thought to derive from a shortening of Yahweh, although it might very well be the other way round. Semitic peoples originated in 4th millenium B.C. mesopotamia, and continued there for some time - in fact the semitic Akkadian language became the dominant language of the region, gradually replacing Sumerian during the 2nd millenium (although Sumerian continued as an official and ceremonial language even into the first century AD). There are also clear cultural parallels between Jewish mythology and tradition and that of ancient mesopotamia. I've already mentioned the flood story, but that's just the start of it. I've also mentioned the fact that the Hebrew word for "God" was also the name of the head god of the Ugaritic pantheon. Ugarit, which was in modern-day Syria, went into decline after 1200 B.C. while the Hebrews left Mesopotamia for Egypt sometime between 2000 B.C. and 1700 B.C., and didn't get back until about 1300B.C.. Some have drawn a comparison between Yah and the Ugaritic sea god Yam/Yaw - although there is no evidence for any etymological connection, and the roles of the two gods are very different in the two mythologies, making such an identification difficult to support. However, Yam's pet dragon Lotan appears to have entered Jewish tradition in the form of Leviathan, possibly owing to the phonetic confusion. Another suggested candidate is the Egyptian moon god Iah, although in this case the original pronunciation is thought to be rather different, and Yahweh has never been portrayed as a moon god.

This leaves us with Ea, the Akkadian God of the underground fresh water. Ea is pronounced as two syllables - eyah. Etymologically, it may be derived from a West Semitic root meaning "life" in this case used for "spring", "running water". Temples to Enki typically featured a pool in front, symbolising the freshwater "Abzu" (or Abyss), a feature which remains today as the baptismal font in churches. Baptism is by no means of Christian origin either - remember Jesus himself was baptised in water - it's an old Jewish purity ritual. (The Sikh scripture also frequently compares God to a pool or river, and see also the Zoroastrian Ab-Zohr) And compare how the prophet Jeremiah describes his god:

Jeremiah 17:13 "O YHVH, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken YHVH, the fountain of living water."

(See also Revelation 22, Ezekiel 47)

And here we see that the mythology does, in fact, line up. Ea, or under his sumerian name Enki, was the one who warned the hero of the flood story of the flood to come, telling him to build a boat and to "save that which lives". And for what reason did Enki choose to save this particular person, over anyone else?

According to this somewhat fragmentary tablet:
"In those days Zi-ud-sura the king, the gudug priest, ....... He fashioned ....... The humble, committed, reverent ....... Day by day, standing constantly at ......."

The Atrahasis Epic sheds a bit more light on things:
[i.c45] "Since I have always reverenced Enki, he told me this. I can not live in ... Nor can I set my feet on the earth of Enlil. I will dwell with my god in the depths."

Because Enki was the only god he worshipped!

Ea/Enki is also the creator of mankind, the champion of mankind, a kind and noble god who never breaks his promises. He was one of the best-loved gods out of all the Sumerian pantheon, owing to the somewhat unique property of actually giving a monkeys about anyone. Enki, along with Enlil ("Lord of the Command") and An ("High One" - El Elyon?), are the earliest and most important Sumerian gods in the pantheon. His original cult was based at Eridug, the oldest city in the world (~5000 B.C.), which means Enki was possibly the first cult ever, shortly followed by Enlil's Nippur and An's Uruk. Even though An was thought to be Enki's father, it seems he was made up later for the specific reason of being the father to the other two, and doesn't possess a great deal of character in the mythology, neither does he have any particularly exciting roles. What is also interesting is that Enlil is thought by some to have been originally pronounced Ellil. Elohim? In the flood story it was Enlil who decided to send the flood, whereas in Genesis these two parts are rolled into one - the judgmental and the merciful. So it seems as if the God if the Israelites may well be a syncretism of the earliest known divine Triad. Consider also this passage from the Midrash Exodus Rabba:

"Moses wanted to know God's name, and God tells him, 'I am that I am'; that is to say, 'I am called--or to be called-in accordance with my work in this world.' When I judge mankind I am אלהים Elohim, that being the title or designation for judgment. When I war with the wicked I am known as צבאות Zevooth. When I execute judgment for the sins of man I am known as אלשדי El Shadai, and when I am visiting the world with mercy I am אבני or יהוה Adonoi, the Eternal.--Exod. Rabba 3."

YHVH. The first, and the last.