Do Jews have a Jewish Name for God?

Question

sorry about the tautology

my teacher says that the levine family - the family of the head rabbi in jerusalem were killed by the romans and the Name of God was taken away from them.

Im a muslim, my teacher was telling us how we have the Quran which is like their Arc of the Covenant- when we read from it- which includes the name of God, we are forgiven... wait, no, we are the arc of the covenant and we then Read the Name and the Words of God- so we are a vessel for God's Words to come forth.

can you clarify the story and importance of God's Name in your faith??

Answer 1

In the Hebrew scriptures (i.e. the Law Torah, plus the Prophets [Nevi-im] and the Holy Writings /Hagiographa [ Kethuvim] the Jewish name of God is considered sacred and, out of deep respect for the name, Jews do not say it.(See Exodus 20:7) The tetragrammaton (Hebrew: יהוה, English: YHVH or YHWH, these Hebrew consonants named, reading right to left: "yod...heh...vahv...heh.") is the name for the group of four Hebrew symbols which represent the name of God. The Tetragrammaton occurs 6,828 times in the Hebrew text printed in Biblia Hebraica and Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Neither vowels nor vowel points were used in ancient Hebrew writings, but are usually taken to be "a", "e", "i", "o" or "u." From the Hebrew tetragrammaton modern Christians have adopted pronunciations such as "Yahweh", "Yahveh" and "Jehovah".

Some claim the pronunciation of YHWH has been lost, other authorities say it has not and that it is pronounced Yahweh. References, such as The New Encyclopædia Britannica, validate the above by offering additional specifics:

Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and claim that this pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was never really lost. Other Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh.

Clement of Alexandria transliterated the tetragrammaton as Ιαου. The above claims were founded upon the understanding that Clement of Alexandria had transliterated YHWH as Ιαουε in Greek, which is pronounced "Yahweh" in English. However, the final -e in the latter form has been shown as having been a later addition.

Answer 2

Actually, there are many names we use for God.  Adonai, HaShem are among them.  When Moses asked God for a name, the answer was Eyeh Asher Eyeh - 'I will be what I will be' or 'I am becoming what I am' or (in its most prosaic layer) 'I am what I am'.  The name which you are perhaps referring to and which others have assumed is YHVH, the tetragrammaton, which was only ever vocalised by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies of the Temple in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur.  Since Hebrew does not normally put in the vowels (which were a later invention in writing), we do not know how it was pronounced and are in any case not wanting to guess at it, because it was a holy name and not to be spoken lightly.  The Yahweh, Jehovah, etc versions used by Christians are a misunderstanding  resulting from the vowels for Adonai being shown by the YHVH in order to remind people to say Adonai when YHVH was written in the liturgy.

The name of God is not so utterly important.  What matters is the understanding of God - the unameable, ineffable divine, that cannot be represented in any way within our human capacity.

Answer 3

answer: that's another attempt by a non-Jewish religion to justify hatred or bigotry against Judaism (or as a way to justify how that person's religion is better than Judaism).  

It's a claim made by Islam quite frequently: either the Tanakh was lost and so it's a corrupt version of what G-d said.  Or this - that the true name of G-d was lost and the Jews have it wrong.

Ridiculous actually.  There are several names for G-d in Judaism and each is used respectfully.  And the Tanakh wasn't lost.  Unlike Islam, which was written AFTER Mohammad's death - the Tanakh was carefully copied and it's forbidden to add or subtract even a letter in it.

Islam teaches that everyone had to wait until 650CE before G-d reveals how Judaism and Christianity got it wrong.  

Not likely.

Islam is a wonderful religion at times, it just drives this historian nuts when Muslims try to rewrite history and facts to make it palatable to others.

Answer 4

Yes, Jews have a name for God, but it is unspeakable. This has also spilled over into Christianity, which is why we all just call Him 'God'.

Answer 5

We have *many* names for God.  Here are only a few:

Divine Names

Shaddai (Almighty)

Ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu (Holy One, Blessed Be He)

Ribono Shel Olam (Master of the Universe)

Ha-Makom (The Place)

Ha-Rahman (The Merciful)

Shekhina (Divine Presence)

En Sof (The Infinite)

Gevurah (The Mighty)

Tsur Yisrael (Rock of Israel)

Shomer Yisrael (Guardian of Israel)

Melekh Malkhe Hamalakhim (Supreme King of Kings)

There is one name written in the Tanakh that we do not pronounce because we no longer know the correct pronunciation.  There are no vowels in Hebrew so we can't know how to pronounce it.  The name is holy for us and we don't try to pronounce it out of respect for God.  We also don't call our President Georgie, nor the Queen Lizzie.  We are extremely respectful of God and all of His children.

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Answer 6

go here: http://www.ummah.net/history/scholars/in...

Answer 7

Many believers will say, "It is impossible for you to prove that God (Allah, Ra, Vishnu, whatever) does not exist. There is no way to prove that something does not exist." This is a silly argument for the following reason.

Imagine that we have a conversation one day and I say to you, "I believe in the gerflagenflopple. You cannot prove that the gerflagenflopple does not exist, therefore it exists." You can see that this is ridiculous. Just because I have invented something out of thin air does not mean that its non-existence is suddenly unprovable. There has to be some evidence that the gerflagenflopple exists in order to assert its existence. Since there is not, it is quite easy to say that the gerflagenflopple is imaginary.  

Answer 8

yaweh, i think is how it's spelled

not a jew, can't really tell you more than that

Answer 9

"YourWay"