Re: god (was: Re: a word is needed?)

["Rohan Fenwick" <rfenwick18@hotmail.com>]

jatlh Sean:

>Well, 'great lord' doesn't seem much better than 'great god'.  It seems to
>me to mean (for example) an earl who has a bunch of baronets as his 
>vassals.
>He is a great lord compared to them.

Your reasoning is correct. However, let's not forget that <<-'a'>> doesn't 
simply mean "great". AFAIK, <<joH'a'>> was used simply to circumlocute the 
term "Lord" you can find in many Bibles, which, in older texts, is even 
capitalised to make it obvious that we're not talking about "a lord", but 
"the LORD".

>But if I remember correctly, when reading the Torah aloud, early Jews said
>'Adonai' instead of 'Jehovah' when the tetragrammaton (the four-letter
>combination JHVH, or however you want to spell it in Latin letters - vowels
>are not indicated on the earliest Hebrew texts) was encountered, because
>they believed it was not good to say the name of their god aloud.  'Adonai'
>means 'lord' or 'ruler'.  So you would seem to have Jewish tradition on 
>your
>side if you use {joH'a'} for the monotheistic god of the
Jews/Christians/Muslims.

Again, I believe you do remember correctly. As I said earlier, earlier 
Christian tradition also doesn't see it proper to use "God" and substitute 
"LORD". This is another reason why I prefer using this - that and the fact 
that it's what I see most, so I assume it's what other people will easiest 
recognise. I'm not really likely to talk about God except in a religious 
debate, so context would possibly make this clearer as well.

Qapla' 'ej Satlho'

ro'Han

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