Names of God: Encyclopedia - Names of God

Names of God

Monotheistic faiths believe that there is a supreme being, who is necessarily unique, and the different names given to that being in different languages could in principle be translated as English God. However, the "real" name of God plays an important role in some cultures.

Names of God - List of Names

• Aten is the earliest name of a God associated with monotheistic thought. See also the Great Hymn to the Aten by Akhenaten.
• Ahuramazda "Lord Wisdom" is the name of the supreme benevolent God in Zoroastrianism.
  • Xwedê is the term used for God in the Yazidi religion and in Kurdish.
  • Abraxas is a god uniting the dualistic concepts in Gnosticism. See also Monad.
• Shang Ti 上帝 (Hanyu Pinyin: shang di) was a supreme God worshipped in ancient China. It is also used to refer to the Christian God in the Standard Mandarin Union Version of the Bible.
• Abrahamic religions
  • In the Hebrew Bible of Judaism, the name of God represents the Jewish conception of the divine nature. The various Jewish names of God represent God, and His divine attributes. The most important name of God is the tetragrammaton (YHWH), and Elohim. See Ēl, Names of God in Judaism.
  • Christianity
    • Jesus Christ is the name of God's son in Christianity. Jesus (Yeshua`, Yeshû` or Yehoshûa`) is a personal name, and Christ means "the anointed" (translating Messiah).
    • Much of Christendom believes in a divine Trinity, i.e. a single God manifest in God the Father, Son of God and Holy Spirit.
    • In the effort to translate the Bible into every language (see SIL), the Christian God has usually been named after a concept that was present in the language before Christianity. God itself is an example of this, the word having earlier referred to Germanic pagan deities. Greek Theos was used for the supreme God even before Christianity, in the Septuagint, translated to Latin Deus by Saint Jerome. Other names of the Christian God that have a history of pagan meanings include Slavic Bog, Finnish Jumala, Japanese Kami 神.
    • The less evangelical branch of the Quakers often refers to God as The Light
  • Allah is the most frequently used name of God in Islam. It originally simply meant "the deity", and is properly translated as "God" in English. As such, contrary to much popular understanding of Allah as a distinct God, it is the word used by Arab Jews and Christians when speaking of God. See also 99 Names of God.
• Dharmic religions
  • Trimurti is the Hindu "Trinity". See Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma. See also Sahasranama.
  • Krishna is held as The Supreme Personality of Godhead, above all others by Hindu Vaishnavas, and as the source of all incarnations of Vishnu.
  • In Sikhism God is One Entity and has no gender. God is referred to as Waheguru, meaning Wonderful Lord; Satnam meaning True Name; On-kar meaning Creator. God according to Guru Nanak is beyond full comprehension by humans and can be called by an infinite number of names.
  • Brahman in Sanskrit, that which is both knowable and unknowable.
  • Om, Om or Aum has been seen as the first manifestation of the unmanifest Brahman (the single Divine Ground of Hinduism) that resulted in the phenomenal universe.
  • Anami Purush (nameless power) and Radha Soami (lord of the soul) are two names used for God in Surat Shabda Yoga.
• Cao Đài is the name of God in Caodaism.
• Haile Selassie is the name of God incarnate in the Rastafari movement. He is also called Jah (an obscure biblical shortening of Jehovah) and Jah Rastafari, which was the name of Ras (prince) Tafari Makonnen before taking the name of Selassie at his coronation.

Names of God - Taboos

Several religions advance taboos related to names of their gods. In some cases, the name may never be spoken, or only spoken by inner-circle initiates, or only spoken at prescribed moments during certain rituals. In other cases, the name may be freely spoken, but when written, taboos apply. It is common to regard the written name of one's god as deserving of respect; it ought not, for instance, be stepped upon or dirtied. It may be permissible to burn the written name when there is no longer a use for it.

Names of God - Judaism

Most observant Jews forbid any method of discarding the written name of God. Once written, the name must be preserved indefinitely. This leads to several noteworthy practices:

• Commonplace materials, such as calendars which include quotations from Torah, are written with an intentionally abbreviated form of the name. For instance, quotations written in English may substitute "G-d" for the name of God. Thus, a calendar or children's Hebrew school workbook may be discarded along with ordinary trash.
• Copies of the Torah are, like most scriptures, heavily used during worship services, and eventually become worn out. Since they may not be disposed of in any way, including by burning, they are removed, traditionally to the synagogue attic. See genizah. There they remain until the building itself is destroyed by the hand of God or gentiles (non-Jews).
• All religious texts that include the name of God are buried.

Names of God - Literature and fiction

• Names of God in Old English poetry
• Aigonz is the word for God in the lingua ignota of Hildegard of Bingen
• Eru Iluvatar, a name of monotheistic God in Quenya, a fictional language invented by J. R. R. Tolkien.
• "The Nine Billion Names of God", a short story by Arthur C. Clarke.

See also

• Goddess
• List of deities
• Names of God in Judaism
• 99 Names of God
• Sahasranama

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Names of God", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki