What's in a Name?

What's in a name?

On the way home from church, a mom asks her first-grader, “How was Sunday school today?” 
Her first grader responded, “Great, we learned God’s name.” 
“They taught you God’s name? What is it?” 
Her son replied, “Howard.” 
“Really,” said mom, “How do you know that?” 
He answered, “Well we all said a prayer to him and it said……. Our father, who art in heaven, Howard be thy name.”

God’s name.
We have all been taught and learned on our own, much about God. Certainly by the time you are in grade school, if you were raised in an active Christian home, you would have learned the basics of our faith and the way to pray. Speaking the name of God, which is not Howard, and invoking the titles of Jesus, would have been among the first lessons. As you grew, it was most likely assumed that you not only knew the names and titles of God, but also what they mean. This is incredibly important because knowing these things dramatically informs prayer. 

Most often in the New Testament, the Greek descriptive title theos, meaning “God,” is used to refer to the Father. Theos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew elohim, which is a general term meaning "deity" or "gods." In both the New and Old testament the Hebrew and Greek words, commonly used otherwise, were appropriated by Hebrews and Christians and capitalized to address only the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. The actual name of God, found in the Book of Exodus, was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai:
Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.  (3:13-15)
 
Now, the journey to Yahweh, God’s name as we know it, is a bit complicated, but in a nutshell:

"Yahweh" is considered to be the pronunciation of the Hebrew name "YHWH" (written with the letters Yod, Heh, Waw, and Heh), which is derived from the Hebrew word "Ehyeh" (meaning "I am") found in Exodus 3:14, where God reveals himself to Moses as "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" (meaning "I am who I am") - essentially, the name "Yahweh" is understood as a verbal form of "to be" based on the root of "Ehyeh". (Center for Hebraic Thought)

Since it was determined that the name of God was too sacred to speak, Elohim (pronounced Eloheem) with a capitol “E” was most, but not exclusively, used.

Elohim then, translated as Theos, was also used nine times in the New Testament to refer to Jesus. John’s Gospel begins with this very term:
 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (Theos), and the Word was God (Theos)."

"In the beginning was the Word”

Davar is Hebrew for word. Davar was used generically in the Old Testament as it referred to a statement or a thing, but it was also used specifically in relation to God. The Word (Davar) of God was often personified as an instrument for the execution of God’s will. Psalm 33:1 accounts, “By the word (Davar) of the Lord the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their lights.”  When Davar was used in this way, the Jewish people would understand that the action of God was synonymous with God’s self. 

Davar is translated as Logos in the Greek. In Greek philosophy, the term Logos was used to describe the intermediate agency by which God created material things and communicated with them. In the Greek world view, the Logos was thought of as a bridge between the transcendent God and the material universe. Greek’s would understand the term Logos as the mediating principle between God and the world.

Through the revelation of the Word, John (and others) spoke of Jesus as the Davar, Logos, Word, by combining and superseding the religious and philosophical principles of both the Hebrew’s and the Greek’s. Jesus himself invited His followers to exercise their faith-filled imagination having been exposed to His divine transcendence. More than the personification of God’s revelation or the mediating principle, Jesus was the perfect revelation of God’s self in the flesh. He was both the Theos and the Logos, as he clarified for Phillip: “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, "Show us the Father"?'"  (John 14:9)

To deepen our prayer life and grow closer to God, next week we will define Emmanuel, El-Shaddai, Adonai, Abba and a few others.  

In Jesus’ Holy Name,
Fr. Bill+



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