Why use G-d instead of God?

[Polerius]

From www.jewfaq.org (http://www.jewfaq.org/defs/g-d.htm)
G-d
A way of avoiding writing a name of G-d, to avoid the risk of the sin of erasing or defacing the Name.
But, after several years of using "G-d", won't the letters "G-d" represent the name of God just as much as the letters "God" do?

After all, the name of God was originally written in Hebrew, so the latin characters "God" had nothing to do with the name of the Hebrew God. It now seems that after centuries of usage, people consider the letters "God" to be sufficiently representing the name of God that they avoid writing it.

Does this mean that the letters "G-d" will one day be considered to sufficiently represent the name of God that people will start using some other letters?

[AFAIKnow]

From www.jewfaq.org (http://www.jewfaq.org/defs/g-d.htm)

But, after several years of using "G-d", won't the letters "G-d" represent the name of God just as much as the letters "God" do?

After all, the name of God was originally written in Hebrew, so the latin characters "God" had nothing to do with the name of the Hebrew God. It now seems that after centuries of usage, people consider the letters "God" to be sufficiently representing the name of God that they avoid writing it.

Does this mean that the letters "G-d" will one day be considered to sufficiently represent the name of God that people will start using some other letters?

I think it's the intent that counts. Just guessing though.

[waterj2]

I believe that the basic idea is to provide an English equivalent to YHWH, which is what Jews use instead of Yahweh for the Name, to avoid the sin of saying or writing it. If thousands of years of using YHWH in place of Yahweh hasn't rendered the two equivalent, I doubt that G-d will ever be considered unwriteable. Hopefully, one of our knowledgeable Jewish posters will be along to provide a more detailed explanation.

[Sequent]

Looks like waterj2 is right (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-d#Lesser_used_names_of_God)

Many Jews also write "G-d" instead of "God". While this last substitution is by no means required by religious law (only the Hebrew name, not the English, is holy), it is done to remind the reader of the holiness attached to God's name.

[deevee]

I've often wondered this myself. G-d is God with different symbols used. If it is a sin to write or utter Yahweh, then how do we know it. How are children taugh this and are they left to learn the real word on the street (no sarcasm I am genuinely interested)

[raindog]

Looks like waterj2 is right (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-d#Lesser_used_names_of_God)

I guess my basic problem with that is that "God" is no more "YHWH's", "Jehovah's" (or any of the many derivations) name than my name is "Man."

And the bible bears that out---Satan himself is called a "god." (2 Cor 4:4)
It makes perfect sense to me to Caplitalize God when referring to the Sovereign of the universe. However, His name is not "God."

[Scott Plaid]

I guess my basic problem with that is that "God" is no more "YHWH's", "Jehovah's" (or any of the many derivations) name than my name is "Man." Hey, if your name was "Jealous (http://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2034:14&version=47;) Q. Raindoq" would you want people to call you that?

I don't blame him. :)

P.S.God is indeed a jealous God—
He cannot bear to see
That we had rather not with Him
But with each other play.

[raindog]

Hey, if your name was "Jealous (http://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2034:14&version=47;) Q. Raindoq" would you want people to call you that?

I don't blame him. :)

P.S.
Why quote Dickinson when God Himself is available? :dubious:

"14 For thou shalt worship no other ùGod; for Jehovah -- Jealous is his name -- is a jealous ùGod;" (Ex 34:14) (Darby)

[raindog]

Correction....
I see you linked to the Exodus text......
Cool!

[Beware of Doug]

I'm pretty sure I've read something that not only used "G-d" but "J---s" and "Chri--". Is this Jewish practice as well? Why, if they don't believe in a divine Jesus?

[Shayna]

I believe that the basic idea is to provide an English equivalent to YHWH, which is what Jews use instead of Yahweh for the Name, to avoid the sin of saying or writing it.

If it is a sin to write or utter Yahweh, then how do we know it. There is no sin in saying or writing the name of G-d in Judaism. Judaism does not prohibit writing the Name of God per se; it prohibits only erasing or defacing a Name of God. However, observant Jews avoid writing any Name of God casually because of the risk that the written Name might later be defaced, obliterated or destroyed accidentally or by one who does not know better. Nothing in the Torah prohibits a person from pronouncing the Name of God. Indeed, it is evident from scripture that God's Name was pronounced routinely. Many common Hebrew names contain "Yah" or "Yahu," part of God's four-letter Name. The Name was pronounced as part of daily services in the Temple. Source: http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm

Hope that answers some questions.

[GilaB]

I'm pretty sure I've read something that not only used "G-d" but "J---s" and "Chri--". Is this Jewish practice as well? Why, if they don't believe in a divine Jesus?

Where did you see that? Most Orthodox Jews avoid referring to Jesus as "Christ," the Greek word for 'annointed' (aka "Messiah", which is the Anglicised Hebrew word), as we don't believe the Jesus was the Messiah, but I can't imagine that any Orthodox Jew would use the word but leave out some letters. Perhaps some branch of Christianity has adopted the practice?

[Polerius]

There is no sin in saying or writing the name of G-d in Judaism. Source: http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm

You forgot the following from the same page you cited:
However, by the time of the Talmud, it was the custom to use substitute Names for God. Some rabbis asserted that a person who pronounces YHVH according to its letters (instead of using a substitute) has no place in the World to Come, and should be put to death. Instead of pronouncing the four-letter Name, we usually substitute the Name "Adonai," or simply say "Ha-Shem" (lit. The Name).

[Polerius]

Judaism does not prohibit writing the Name of God per se; it prohibits only erasing or defacing a Name of God. However, observant Jews avoid writing any Name of God casually because of the risk that the written Name might later be defaced, obliterated or destroyed accidentally or by one who does not know better.

I still don't get why you can get away with defacing or destroying "substitute" names for God.

If my boss is called Joe, and we all start referring to him as Bob, that doesn't mean I can go around saying "fuck Bob, he's an asshole", without any consequences.

"Bob" now refers to the entity that is my boss, and whatever I do with "Bob" (e.g. print the name out and spit on it) is indistinguishable from doing the same thing to "Joe" (especially if my boss knows everyone now calls him "Bob")

And I assume God knows people are referring to him as G-d.

[raindog]

I still don't get why you can get away with defacing or destroying "substitute" names for God.

If my boss is called Joe, and we all start referring to him as Bob, that doesn't mean I can go around saying "fuck Bob, he's an asshole", without any consequences.

"Bob" now refers to the entity that is my boss, and whatever I do with "Bob" (e.g. print the name out and spit on it) is indistinguishable from doing the same thing to "Joe" (especially if my boss knows everyone now calls him "Bob")

And I assume God knows people are referring to him as G-d.
The problem with your analogy is that you and your co-workers didn't just create a new, unique name for Joe. You picked a name that is used by other workers to describe their bosses, not just within your company (think the various flavors of Judaism) but for bosses the world over. (Islam, Christianity)

You may make the claim that "your B-b"is the only valid use of the name Bob, to which I reply "nonsense". And in fact note that your B-b, on more than one occasion, dissed other Bob's---while using the name "bob.'

[Noone Special]

From www.jewfaq.org (http://www.jewfaq.org/defs/g-d.htm)

But, after several years of using "G-d", won't the letters "G-d" represent the name of God just as much as the letters "God" do?

After all, the name of God was originally written in Hebrew, so the latin characters "God" had nothing to do with the name of the Hebrew God. It now seems that after centuries of usage, people consider the letters "God" to be sufficiently representing the name of God that they avoid writing it.

Does this mean that the letters "G-d" will one day be considered to sufficiently represent the name of God that people will start using some other letters?
Dunno about English, but this has already happened in Hebrew -- it had been customary to write a single letter Heh with a following apostrophe (thus in Hebrew -- 'ה ), presumably as a short version of Hashem. By the time I was finishing high school, this was considered too much of a "God's Name", and was beginning to be rendered instead as a single letter Daleth (thus -- 'ד )(presumably in order to invoke the sound of the word Adonai [?]).

As a lifelong Atheist, this always made me laugh... but to each their own, I guess.

Dani

[Malacandra]

Zounds, and odds-bodkins, but this could get bloody strange.

[Thudlow Boink]

I believe that the basic idea is to provide an English equivalent to YHWH, which is what Jews use instead of Yahweh for the Name, to avoid the sin of saying or writing it.
From James Cahill's The Gifts of the Jews (which I just happened to read the other day):

Ancient Hebrew was written without vowels; and by the time vowel subscripts were added to the consonants in the Middle Ages, the Name of God had become so sacred that it was never uttered. Even in classical times, as early as the Second Temple period, only the high priest could pronounce the Name of God—and only once a year in the prayer of the Day of Atonement. Once the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, no Jew ever uttered the Name again. From that time to this, the devout have avoided this word in the text of their Bible, reading "Adonai" ("the Lord") when they come to the word YHWH. Many Orthodox go a step further, refusing even to say "Adonai" and substituting "ha-Shem"("the Name"). So, after such a great passage of time, we have lost the certain knowledge of how to pronounce the word that is represented by these consonants.

[Sal Ammoniac]

If thousands of years of using YHWH in place of Yahweh hasn't rendered the two equivalent, I doubt that G-d will ever be considered unwriteable.

I'd consider that YHWH and Yahweh are equivalent. After all, YHWH would never mean anything other than Yahweh.

Noone Special's post made me laugh. And I think it provides the answer the OP was looking for. Yes, G-d might be the equivalent of God, but you've got to cling to it as a bulwark, because what happens if you don't? You'll find yourself going from "G-d" to "G--" to "---" and by the end you'll only be able to refer to the deity by a slight twitch of your left eyelid.

[Purd Werfect]

I always thought it was done to make it more difficult for him to do vanity searches on his name. Just me I guess.

[Kimstu]

The use of "G-d" was also reinforced in the larger (i.e., Christian) society by 18th- and 19th-century printing conventions that bowdlerized swear words, including the name of the Deity, especially when used in oaths. You would see expressions like "G-d d--n me" or "what in h--l".

[Malacandra]

Similarly, characters in Thomas Hardy stories swear "by 'od!". This, I understand, is the author's faithful recording of a spoken convention of the time, not a printer's censoring.

(Did everyone understand post #17?)

[Acsenray]

It was my understanding that it is not known what the proper vowels are to be inserted into "YHWH" and that the vowels in "Yahweh" are inserted based on the vowels in another word ("Adonai"?). Larry Gonick, in The Cartoon History of the Universe suggests it could even have been "Yahuwahu."

Course he's mostly joking, but the point is, I thought, that no one really knows how "YHWH" was supposed to be pronounced.

The use of "G-d" was also reinforced in the larger (i.e., Christian) society by 18th- and 19th-century printing conventions that bowdlerized swear words, including the name of the Deity, especially when used in oaths. You would see expressions like "G-d d--n me" or "what in h--l".

And the odd convention on network television to bleep only the "god" part of "god damn it!"

[Beware of Doug]

Where did you see that? Most Orthodox Jews avoid referring to Jesus as "Christ," the Greek word for 'annointed' (aka "Messiah", which is the Anglicised Hebrew word), as we don't believe the Jesus was the Messiah, but I can't imagine that any Orthodox Jew would use the word but leave out some letters. Perhaps some branch of Christianity has adopted the practice?Looked it back up. It's a semikook page; not obviously Jewish [/or] Christian in orientation. The writer apparently wanted to foil search requests for "Jesus", "Christ", "God", etc.

[Acsenray]

Similarly, characters in Thomas Hardy stories swear "by 'od!". This, I understand, is the author's faithful recording of a spoken convention of the time, not a printer's censoring.

(Did everyone understand post #17?)

By god's wounds and god's body, I didn't know that "bloody" had something to do with religion.

[Malacandra]

By god's wounds and god's body, I didn't know that "bloody" had something to do with religion.

It By-Our-Lady does!

[DocCathode]

Noone Special How do you get Hebrew out of a standard pc?

RE YHWH

If you're thinking of the above as the Name, you're wrong. The Hebrew characters are yod hey vav hey. Which lead to the Latinization Jehovah. Like Jacob, Jerusalem and many others, the Name starts with a consonant y in Hebrew.

The letter vav can be a vowel or a consonant. A dot above the vav makes it a long o. A dot to the left of the vav makes it an 'eww'. No dot means it's a consonant equivalent to the letter V. The classical Hebrew of the Torah has no vowels written below the letters, and no dots (this also means that certain letters can be s/sh, k/chc, p/f). At some point after folks switched to writing vowels and dots, a convention for the vowels and dots of the Name arose. The vav has a vowel (an 'ah') below it and a dot above it. This means it is simultaneously "oh" and "vah". The proper pronunciation is not "ovah" as in Jehovah. There is no proper pronunciation. It is impossible to pronounce as written.

Re Saying The Name

Sure, it was said in Temple services. The Temple also housed the Ark Of The Covenant. Neither was anything the average Jew was supposed to mess around with. Jewish folklore tells of the Bal Shem Tov, the keeper of the Good Name. His mastery of Kabbalah and his knowledge of the proper pronunciation of the Name gave him wondrous powers. In other stories, the maharal of Prague used his knowledge of the Name to create a golem. In another tale, a man begs a Bal Shem Tov to teach him the Name. But though the student is rightous, he lacks the spiritual purity necessary. This interferes with the pronunciation of the Name. Instead of causing holy wonders, it summons demons who eat the man's soul. In actual history, we have Shabati Zevi. He proclaimed himself the messiah. Jews wondered if he was or if he was a charlatan or a lunatic. When Zevi repeatedly said the Name in public, the majority of Jews were sure it was definitely door number two or door number three.

Re Substitutions

It's important to remember Jewish tradition. Two ancient traditions are relevant here. One, that Hebrew is a special and holy language. Two, that the words of the torah must be absolutely unchanged. If a single stroke or dot is missing, the torah is unfinished. If a single letter is wrong, the whole torah is flawed and worthless. So to many Jews, replacing a letter with a hyphen or a word with a letter and an apostrophe changes it from the Name of the Lord who brought us forth from Egypt to just a little placeholder so we know what to say.

[Scott Plaid]

Noone Special How do you get Hebrew out of a standard pc?How I get arabic, greek, and hebrew letters() is to go to MS Word,כצצצףף press Alt-I, open up Symbols, and select the hebrew (or whatever) subset, then cut 'n paste.

[Noone Special]

Noone Special How do you get Hebrew out of a standard pc?I have Hebrew installed as an additional keyboard language, I switch to it using Alt-Shift... but ultimately it gets translated into Unicode ( '&#<code>;' ) for each character -- "א" is code 1488, etc...

... which is probably too much except if you're going to input a few letters, so Scott Plaid's suggestion may help more.


RE YHWH
The vav has a vowel (an 'ah') below it and a dot above it. This means it is simultaneously "oh" and "vah". The proper pronunciation is not "ovah" as in Jehovah. There is no proper pronunciation. It is impossible to pronounce as written.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that's not true -- YHWH is vowelized to conform to the pronounciation that is used today -- "A-do-na-y"; so the initial Y has an "ah" under it, the 'H' has a dot to the top and left of it ("Holam Haser") -- which is a "short 'oh'" designation On the Heh; and the W has an "ah" under it. So "Ya-ho-Va" would be the way the Name of God would be pronounced as written today.

I totally agree this has nothing to do with how The Name would have been pronounced by the ancients...

[Clothahump]

I believe that the basic idea is to provide an English equivalent to YHWH, which is what Jews use instead of Yahweh for the Name, to avoid the sin of saying or writing it.

Is it just me, or does anyone else see something like that and think "How utterly asinine?". If there is a god of any kind, the Jews and others who use the g-d form apparently think it's better to address him/her/it as "Hey, you" rather than by name.

[The Great Sun Jester]

Nothing constructive to add. Just can't stop giggling from the insane thought that you're all going to be stoned to death by one who denies being the messiah and his mother.

[Scott Plaid]

Nothing constructive to add. Just can't stop giggling from the insane thought that you're all going to be stoned to death by one who denies being the messiah and his mother.Jesus came upon a small crowd who had surrounded a young woman they believed to be an adulteress. They were preparing to stone her to death.

To calm the situation, Jesus said: "Whoever is without sin among you, let them cast the first stone."

Suddenly, an old lady at the back of the crowd picked up a huge rock and lobbed it at the young woman, nearly hitting her. Before the crowd can react, Jesus, quite exasperated, turned to the woman and said: "That wasn't an ORDER, Mother!"

http://www.ship-of-fools.com/Features/2005/laugh_judgment_results.html

[Beware of Doug]

I totally agree this has nothing to do with how The Name would have been pronounced by the ancients...Given that everybody was constantly begging for His attention, my guess would be something like: "Yeah?Wha'?"