tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 16 05:53:49 1996
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Words for "God"
- From: "A.Appleyard" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Words for "God"
- Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 13:53:09 GMT
- Organization: Materials Science Centre
- Priority: normal
Re words for "God", I once tried to translate the Old Testament sentence "He
is who he is" (Hebrew <yahwe man yahwe>) used to explain the old Hebrew Divine
Name. The nearest I could get was {ghaH ghaHbogh ghaH} = "He is `he who is
him'". It seems likeliest to me that the Hebrew name <Yahwe> is a by-form of
the verb form "He who is", "He who exists" (root Y-H-Y, Y-H-W) (distinct from
surrounding nations' heathen gods such as Baal etc which by definition do not
exist), i.e. {<exist>bogh ghaH}, or {<exist>wI'}, or perhaps {<exist>wI''a'} -
if a word for "exist" can be found or provided. But I have seen a guess that
the Hebrew verb form in <Yahwe> is causative: "He who creates".