In the last video we asked what is the personal Name of God? and I felt that we didn't do
full justice to this question not having asked what does the name of God actually mean
and where did the name come from and also there's a pressing question back in my mind how does this
relate to the Quran and the famous 99 names of God many of which are found in the Quran
So, to begin with I want to go back to Bart Ehrman's excellent book; “The Bible, A Historical And Literary Introduction”
and read what he has to say about the name of God in the Hebrew and where it comes from
and what it means and then I will go on to the Quran which of course he doesn't discuss
at all because his book is on the Bible. So, he says on page 64, there's a title here
called God's actual name. He says, we saw, we earlier saw that the tetragrammaton
YHWH was probably understood by ancient Israelites to be the personal name of God .
But where did the name come from? It is not only modern readers who are interested in this question.
Ancient speakers of Hebrew wanted to know as well. This is evident in the one passage that
was widely thought to be an attempt to answer this question but that appears to answer it in
three different ways, possibly indicating the confusion over the matter even in antiquity.
When God first reveals himself to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3, he instructs
him to go to the Israelites in Egypt and on their behalf demand that the pharaoh set them
free. Moses is hesitant though, thinking that the Israelites will not believe that God has sent him,
and so, he asked God what name he should call him. Then come the three answers and he refers to
Exodus chapter 3 verses 13 to 15 and I want to read them from the new revised standard version.
This is the probably the best academic and scholarly translation available. It tends
to have a far less bias and spin, Christian spin on it, than a number of other translations and in
this translation there's an interesting footnote, which I want to read out as well.
So, it says but Moses said to God, if I come to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your
ancestors 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 that's in block capitals in this translation. I AM WHO I AM. He said further:
Thus you shall say to the Israelites I AM has sent me to you. God also said to Moses thus
you shall say to the Israelites the LORD and then there's a little note here referring
us to the bottom it says the word LORD, that's in capital letters. When spelt with capital letters,
stands for the divine name Y H W H which is here connected with the verb heya to be. So it sounds
like the verb to be in Hebrew and I actually know from some of the comments on my, on the page
that some Arabic speakers recognize the word in Arabic as well as meaning precisely the same thing.
So just to read this again. Thus you shall say to the Israelites, the LORD the God of your ancestors,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever
and this my title for all generations. So that's the passage, famous passage in Exodus and then
Bart Ehrman gives a little bit of commentary on that passage. He says he's already told us.
Then we come to the three answers which I’ve just read out. The first is this God said to Moses,
I AM WHO I AM. The Hebrew here is a little difficult to translate, but it may be better rendered,
I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE. As you might imagine, this statement has led to numerous interpretations over the years.
Is God the self-existent one, the only one who exists in and for himself?
This is what later more philosophically orientated Jews thought. Is God saying that who he is, will
become manifest in what he is about to do? Is God telling Moses to mind his own business?
That he will be whoever he chooses to be? So, that there is this lack of clarity
here about what God is precisely indicating by his name because that may be deliberate.
But next he will go on, but next he goes on and indicates that I AM or I WILL BE or I WILL CAUSE TO BE.
These are all possible possibilities is his actual name. I am has sent me to you.
This is significant because the word I am in Hebrew is linguistically similar to the name YHWH.
Is this an attempt by an ancient Hebrew writer to explain the origins of the sacred name.
In the third instant, God gives his name as the tetragrammaton YHWH the God of your ancestors
dot dot dot has sent you. It appears clear at least to this author, God's sacred name was somehow
related to the word to be and of course exactly the same comment was made in the NRSV translation
and this is an important point to remember. But how it was related must remain a puzzle to us.
Just as it apparently was for the author of Exodus (end quote). Now, I think some of the puzzle
may actually be solved by the Quran, interestingly, interestingly enough and I will come to that in
a second. One of the 99 names of God in Islam is Al-Qayum, if I pronounce that correctly and that
is usually translated as the self-subsisting the self-existing, one upon whom all others depend and
this name is used in the Quran for example in the second surah verse 255. So, this is
the one, whose nature it is to exist and there is a similarity here with the term to be, being itself.
The attribute of Al-Qayum is also nicely described or defined really in the words of Acts
17:28, which says: In him we live and move and have our being. In him we live and move and
have our being. The name Al-Qayum also has much the same meaning as the Hebrew phrase in Exodus 3:14
which is often translated as we as we've seen as I AM THAT I AM. There are I think another couple
of fascinating names of God in the Quran which I think are related to this question as well.
One is Al-Samad which is in the famous 112th surah verse 2, which is translated
variously as the eternal, the absolute, the self-sufficient, the self-sufficient again.
Also related to this I think is Al Ahad, the One, the indivisible.
So, I think the puzzle we see in Exodus is clarified in the Quran and God's name
linguistically and semantically is found in the Quran as it is in the Hebrew scriptures.
It means the same thing, the same thing linguistically and semantically.
Now perhaps to be slightly more controversial, I might, I might ask the following question.
What do we not find in these definitions in the Torah and in the Quran? well, we don't find in these
definitions anywhere the concept of God having a multiple personality that God is three distinct
persons, each of which is fully God. For example in Christianity, where the father is fully God,
the son is fully God and the holy spirit is fully God. That's three and yet in some way I don't quite
understand, that is still one God. You don't find that in Exodus 3 or in the Quran of course.
The Quran and the Torah pretty much agree on the nature of God, on his name in that, he is the
self-existent one, that he possesses "aseity" to use the technical term. That's from philosophy.
But we don't really find that in Christian theology where God has three personalities,
one of whom is mortal, it turns out, being killed by his creation. So I see a fascinating continuity
between the Jewish understanding of God in Exodus and in the Quranic understanding of the concept
of God. And the Christian one is slightly different from, discontinuous from those two
I think it's a fascinating continuity. So, I hope that was of interest. Till next time.