What is god's name?

Quote: Nareed

In Yiddish history class, he ws called "Yeshu ha Notzri," which manes Jesus the Nazarene (not Jesus of Nazareth).

There is no difference, but the King James Version just didn't use it. They always say "Jesus of Nazareth". It may simply have been a style convention.

The King James Version of the Bible is only the best known translation. Tyndale was one of the first to translate the Bible into English, and was tried on a charge of heresy in 1536 and condemned to be burned to death. They had some mercy and strangled him before setting his body on fire.

Tyndale Bible (ca. 1525-1536)
Great Bible (1539)
Coverdale Bible (1550)
Matthew’s Bible (1551)
Taverner's Bible (1551)
The Bishops' Bible (Folio edition, 1568)
The Bishops' Bible (Quarto edition, 1576)
Rheims New Testament (1582)
Geneva Bible (Quarto edition, 1594)
Douai Old Testament (1609-10)

Quote: Nareed

Curiously, the only other time I've heard him called that is in the Serrat song about the "saeta" we discussed elsewhere. There's a spoken line at the beginning which goes, if I can trust my memory:
"¿Quién me presta una escalera para subir al madero, para quitarle los clavos a Jesús el Nazareno?"

Surnames did not come into wide use for almost a thousand years after Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth would have been just a common appellation signifying nothing at the time. Jesus, the Christ or Jesus, the Messiah or Son of Man or Son of God would all have meant someone who was extraordinary.

Have you ever thought how much trouble billions of people will find themselves in once they reach the afterlife if God's name happens to be Osiris? ;)

I'm resurrecting <w> this old thread to pose a question:

Why would God have or need a name?

A name serves to identify and differentiate people and things. Names can be implicit or explicit, too.

Consider a chair. To begin with "chair" is the name we give to a concept denoting a particular range of objects whish serve to sit on. But there are other concepts for other objects we sit on: bench, seat, stool, etc. Next consider sub-names, so to speak, like office chair, living rom chair, stiffed chair, dining room chair, etc.

As for people, names provide a unique identity.

God is supposed to be unique. This would differ from our daily experience in that while a person is unique, they are similar to billions of other people. So why would a uniquely unique being need a name?

For the reason you'd expect: to identify and differentiate him from other similar beings.

This means the people who wrote the Old Testament considered their god one of many. the big one, the top one, the exclusive one, but just one of many.

There's nothing shocking or surprising about this. Early Jewish religious practices were very much like everyone else's: sacrifices were made to Jehovah at his temples. Why wouldn't their beliefs be similar in nature? We even see this illustrated in the story of Moses, when Pharaoh's magicians (or priests?) can work miracles through their gods.

BTW early on in the Imperial period of Rome, dead emperors were deified after death. A small cult grew around them. More significantly, the sitting Roman emperor demanded his subjects, citizens or not, make sacrifices to the Caesars. The Jews of the time side-stepped their prohibition on this matter by offering sacrifices to Jehovah in the name of Augustus, Trajan, Nerva, etc.

Few really thought of the dead emperors as real gods, but worshipping them was seen as a sign of loyalty to Rome and the current emperor.

God reveals His name because He wants to enter into a relationship with us. You can't converse or truly know someone if you don't know their name.

Quote: FrGamble

God reveals His name because He wants to enter into a relationship with us. You can't converse or truly know someone if you don't know their name.

By now you now what I'd reply to this, so I won't.

I'm talking about nomenclature. I'm not suggesting other gods are real, any more than I'd suggest Jehovah is real.

For instance, the world has a name in most languages. In Western ones it's a variant of "Earth" as in "soil." But the Sun and Moon have no name. In ancient cultures people worshipped god's associated with the Sun and Moon, but usually not the Sun or Moon themselves.

Why? Because to the naked eye the Sun and Moon are unique. Stars, of which there are plenty, were named. So were planets.