G-D or God?

[HAZARD]

Just wondering. Why do some people write G-D instead of God on some forums?

[ayin jade]

It is customary among Jews and some Messianics. It is respectful of the Lord.

[HAZARD]

2 minutes ago, ayin jade said:

It is customary among Jews and some Messianics. It is respectful of the Lord.

Thank you anyin jade. How can it be respectful leaving out a letter  when writing someone's name, especially God's?

[grumix8]

respectful to him and we must write G-d. Because we must destroy any paper with his name or write his name in vain !

[Omegaman 3.0]

2 hours ago, HAZARD said:

How can it be respectful leaving out a letter  when writing someone's name, especially God's?

It is just a custom, not good nor bad, people should deal with it according to conscience.

However, God  or G_d, or even god, is not His name. God is a just a noun, not a proper noun. We (in English speaking countries) as a rule capitalize proper nouns. If I refer to you as Hazard, it is because I am using the noun hazard (are you one?) as if it was a proper noun, your name. According to custom, we refer to the only true God by using what he is (god) as if it were His name. We do the same with pronouns, we refer to Him as He, instead of Him as he. We do that, because was want to show Him respect as holy (unique) to differentiate Him for things which are by nature, not God - like idols an false god, we will refer to as gods. We might say "Hey Boss, when do you need that report" or bring this report to the boss" There is nothing is scripture (except in our translations which utilize our customs) to demand or call for Him to be referred to as God (instead of god) it is just a custom. Respect does not come from petty things like obsessing over grammar, but it paying Him respect in our actions. Want to be disrespectful? When we disobey Him we are being disrespectful. How do we respect or disrespect our earthy parents? Do the same with your Heavenly Father, and you know what respect, or lack of it, is!

When we speak of God as our buddy, like He is our equal, and nothing more (Someone deserving of the worship and obedience, and understanding of His unique holiness) then we are not paying proper reverence.

Leaving a letter out, a vowel, is similar to the case of the first letter, it is merely a custom. If you think that is disrespectful, then when you do it, it is a sin, and that IS disrespectful. When others do it, you do not have a clue, because you do not know their hearts. It is possible for a person to have the highest regard for God, and spell it "god"!

The vowel thing though has a different history. In original Hebrew and Aramaic, there were no vowels. consider this sentence, and read it in your mind or out loud, how it sounds:

Y shld rd th bbl n th mrnng!

If you are like most people, to know what that said, and you would have no trouble pronouncing the words, even though they do not have vowels.

The "name" of G_d, has a somewhat different story. in Exodus 3:13 and 3:14 it reads (in modern English):

"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.”

Notice a few things there:

• Moses said to God
• The God of your fathers has sent me to you
• What is his name?
• God said to Moses
• I AM WHO I AM

That is Moses said to הָֽאֱלֹהִ֗ים  = the elohim = masculine plural of god

The אֱלֹהֵ֥י of your fathers has sent me to you = god - masculine plural of god, this time without the definite article "the"

What is his שְּׁמ֔וֹ = shem  = masculine singular third person for name (shem will come up later in the post)

אֱלֹהִים֙ said to Moses - the elohim = masculine plural of god again, with the definite article "the god"

הוהי who יהוה = we try to make is in English, and if falls a little short. we say "I am who I am" or "I am that I am" or "I am what I am".

This has become what we think of as His name, but it is not a personal name, like "call Me Bob". If anything, it is a denial of having a name, after all, who was there to name God in the beginning, He had no parents, He had no beginning. It is a statement of His eternal presence, like "I have always existed, I continue to exist, and I shall always exist. It is hard to express this in English, because we live in time, so we do not have verbs of continuance. Why, because we live in time while God exists apart from time, time is only a creation of His.

So, when Greek speaking Jews translated the Hebrew into Greek, they uses phrases like "I am the being" or "I am the existing one". This was helpful in Jesus time, for when people asked Him who He was, he used what the writers of the new testament translated to "ego eimi" = I am. He was claiming to be the God who spoke to Moses, and existed before Moses. They understood what he meant, and tried to stone Him for claiming to be God.

This is the origin of how we got to leaving out vowels. Hebrew had no written vowels, but originally, people knew how to speak without vowels, just as you probably were able to in that vowelless sentence I created earlier.

In modern times we call this word in Exodus, the Tetragrammaton, it is a word of four consonants and no vowels. In the Mishnah, oral traditions of Jewish rabis ( primarily after the destruction of the second temple in 70 A.D.)  forbid the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. It is out of deep reverence, and out of fear that the will not say the "divine name". Fair enough, because there is no certainty on how it originally sounded, the modern use of vowel points in Hebrew, is a later innovation. In fact, our word Jehovah, was an attempt to insert the vowels from the word "adonai" (lord) into the consonants of the Tetragrammaton in order to make it pronounceable.

When and observant Jew comes across the Tetragrammaton, he does not say "Yahweh" because we do not know if that is how it was originally pronounced. Instead, he or she says "ha'shem" (the name).

The leaving out of the vowel "o" in the word "God" traces back to this uncertainly about the vowels in the Tetragrammaton. So, in keeping with the spirit of not having vowels, if became G_d' Why the underlined space instead of "Gd", I do not know.

[HAZARD]

29 minutes ago, grumix8 said:

respectful to him and we must write G-d. Because we must destroy any paper with his name or write his name in vain !

Thats crazy. Here is how the Word of God was given to man and it was given in such a way, only a Divine author could have done this!  No where, not in one verse is it even suggested not to write the word God.

Over forty different authors wrote the sixty six books of the Bible during a period of 1,800 years; and they all had one theme. The creation and redemption of the human race by God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

These books of the Bible were written by men from all walks of life such as Kings, Priests, Judges, lawyers, Princes, Shepherds, Soldiers, Courtiers, Statesmen, Musicians, Inventors, Singers, Poets, Preachers, Prophets, Fishermen, Farmers, Tentmakers, Publicans, Physicians, Rich men and Poor men.

They were written in various lands of three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

They were written in different ages and by many men, some who never ever saw each other, knew each other, or had the slightest idea of what the others wrote on the same subjects, yet when all their writings were assembled into one book, there is not one contradiction among them.

Lets suppose forty medical men, each in a different land and age, would write just forty books on how to cure any disease, what kind of cure would such a collection make?

How much unity would one find among their writings?
Collect together forty books of any men on any subject and one will find many contradictions and controversies among the authors.

 

 Who but a divine author could produce such a work, the Word of God, the Bible, through men? Only God!

[Marathoner]

Translators continued that tradition, using LORD to represent YHWH just as His name was written in the Hebrew scriptures.

That's equivalent to the Jewish custom of "G-d." None of this matters enough to fuss about. So what?

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Marathoner

[ayin jade]

1 hour ago, HAZARD said:

Thank you anyin jade. How can it be respectful leaving out a letter  when writing someone's name, especially God's?

YHWH has no vowels so for some they use G-d. Like marathoner said. 

[HAZARD]

35 minutes ago, Marathoner said:

Translators continued that tradition, using LORD to represent YHWH just as His name was written in the Hebrew scriptures.

That's equivalent to the Jewish custom of "G-d." None of this matters enough to fuss about. So what?

 

I'm not fussing, I just wanted to know why.

[Marathoner]

5 minutes ago, HAZARD said:

I'm not fussing, I just wanted to know why.

I was mystified concerning "G-d" the first time I encountered that, too. Someone explained that custom by pointing out how (most) translators of the Hebrew scriptures adhered to the same convention --- the name of God isn't spelled out in Hebrew --- so they used LORD wherever YHWH was written. 

GOD appears a few times in most English translations which represents "Elohim" in Hebrew. I know we aren't held to the same custom, brother.