Hebrew/Aramaic word for God?

Question

One answerer posted a web page (Dictionary) showing the meaning of God in Aramaic/Hebrew language pronounced as Aloh/Alah. I have heard about it in Peace TV from a great orator Dr. Zakir Naik as well. Now one of my fiercely proud Jewish contact challenges that and says it tantamounts to lieing. Help please.

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Type down the word "God" in this Aramaic dictionary to find out what Jesus used to call God:
http://www.peshitta.org/lexicon/

Look at the name used here :
http://www.learnassyrian.com/aramaic/chu…

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The MOST famous name for God in the OT is called the Sacred Tetragrammaton –It is YHWH.

Yahweh was changed into Jehovah by Christians -- Mark 12:29

Harpers Bible Dictionary says that the name JEHOVAH was "the result of the translators' ignorance of the Hebrew language and customs" (1985 edition , p. 1036)

Jehovah is a mistaken name of YHWH.

The Book "World Religions From Ancient History to the Present" says : "The name Jehovah is a medieval misreading and does not occur in the Hebrew Bible" (edited by Geoffrey Parrinder, p. 386)

The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible says the name Jehovah is "an artificial name" (vol. 2, p.817)

Asimovs Guide to the Bible says that the name Jehovah "arose by mistake" (vol 1, p. 135). The author further says : "This mistake has persisted and will probably continue to persist" (p.135)

"When it came to God's name instead of putting the proper vowel signs around it, in most cases they put other vowel signs to remind the reader that he should say "Adonai". From this came the spelling Lehouah, and eventually Jehovah ...(pg. 8 ,Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1984)

"The truth is , nobody knows for sure how the name of God was originally pronounced". -(page 7- Watchtower Bible and Tract Soceity, 1984.)

The name Yahweh is derived from the statement God made to Moses in Exodus 3:14. Moses asked God as to what his name was and he got the reply -- "ehyeh esher ehyeh" .

The editors of the NEW JERUSALEM BIBLE explain this as : "The Hebrew can be translated literally 'I am what I am' , which would mean that GOD did not wish to reveal his name to them" (p. 85)

"The truth is , nobody knows for sure how the name of God was pronounced" (Pg. 7 - Watchtower Bible and Tract Society)

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Asker's Comment:

Enlightening.

Answer 2

the title for God in the hebrew bible is Elohim
the personal name of God in the hebrew bible is Yahweh

Answer 3

The Hebrew WORD for god or diety (a noun) is El. Eloi means "our god".

The Hebrew NAME for God is a tetragrammation YHWH which has been transliterated as "Yahova" and "Yahweh".

Hal-elu-YAH = "all praise be to YAH (God)"

YAHshua = Jesus's Hebrew name meaning "YAH (God) saves", not "Isa". Isa = Esau, proving Mohammad was misinformed, probably by poorly educated Arab "Christians" and/or Jews living among him.

Allah is a contraction of al-Ilah, which is what the pagan Arabs named the chief of their 360 gods.

Answer 4

The Aramaic word for God is Allah. The Hebrew word for God is NOT Allah. It is Elohim.

Answer 5

Now, in Hebrew there are a number of words that can mean generic "God." One of the first and oldest on record is אל ("El"), which scholars believe has its roots in the Canaanite pantheon (El, Ba`al, and Asherah). Hebrew being a descendant of the Canaanite language, it was borrowed freely for various deity names (specifically place names) and sometimes applied to the God of Israel as a descriptor (much how the word "god" in English works). El also appears in early Phoenician and early Aramaic and is related to Ilu, which appears in Old South Arabian and Ethiopic.

From there we also find two more words אלוה ("Eloah") and אלוהים ("Elohim" sometimes spelled אלהים) whose origins are a bit cloudy, but most scholars believe that they descend from the same root as El. Eloah is singular where Elohim is grammatically plural, but in many cases is used as a singular noun (the plural, scholars believe is a plural of majesty, i.e. "We are not amused" or simply plural as a convention, like other Hebrew words such as "life" or "virginity," both of which also don the "-im" plural ending ).

The Ugaritic cognate that is found often is "'lhm" (in Hebrew letters this would be אלהם, spelled the same as Elohim, but Ugaritic plural does not need an "i"). In Ugaritic, however, it refers to the Canaanite pantheon.... so only God knows how that is intertwined...

In either case, El, Eloah, and Elohim are generally used as general words for "god" much like the word is used in English, and that's how they're pronounced.

Anyways on to Aramaic:

In Aramaic the root for God is "אלה" (Elah), but in the Emphatic state (which originally served the function of the definite article, but later subsumed most other cases) it is אלהא (Alaha). Depending on dialect, the vowels could pretty much be anything (Elaha, Eloho, Aloho, Alaha, etc. etc.) as vowel shifts in Aramaic happen so often that many linguists have simply given up on tracking them.

Western dialects, such as Ma`loula and the dialect that Jesus of Nazereth would have spoken, the Emphatic distinction was somewhat preserved, so one would hear an occasional "Elah" in a sentence here and there, but only in a situation where it was grammatically necessary. For example the "Eloi eloi" in Mark is the Aramaic word "Elah-i" or "My God" (the "h" was dropped in transliteration as Greek cannot have an "h" sound in the middle of a word), and in Ma`loula we see it mainly in expressions like "w'khay il'alôh" ("I swear to God!") or "b'alôh ti'khalkil shmô" ("By God who created the heavens!")

So in short, yes and no. Yes in some cases the words sound similar to Aloh/Alah, but in most cases it's a stretch to say so.

Peace,
--
Steve Caruso
Translator & Artisan, Aramaic Designs
Author, The Aramaic Blog

Source(s):

http://www.AramaicDesigns.com - A professional Aramaic translation service.

http://aramaicdesigns.blogspot.com - The Aramaic Blog, dedicated to keeping track of the Aramaic language within the media and scholarship at large.