Expert: J.M.J. West - 6/15/2008

Question
Hello, I do have a detailed question for you, in hopes of searching for the truth.

There is an on going discussion about what is the name of the True God, there is this individual whom insists the name is Allah, and I will show you below why he states this, and I will also show you a response from someone whom says it is not, hopefully you will be able to clear this up for me, Thankyou in advance and Blessings.

Here is an experpt from the ongoign discussions, first the muslims response:

Jews already know this. Some Christians (who don't speak Hebrew) deny it. Here's the absolute evidence of it.

Let's demonstrate using Strong's Concordance.

"Ezr 5:1 Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that [were] in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, [even] unto them."

Ezr 5:1 Then the prophets 05029, Haggai 02292 the prophet 05029, and Zechariah 02148 the son 01247 of Iddo 05714, prophesied 05013 unto 05922 the Jews 03062 that [were] in Judah 03061 and Jerusalem 03390 in the name 08036 of the God 0426 of Israel 03479, [even] unto 05922 them.

Strong's H426
'elahh (Aramaic)
אלה (ALEPH LAMED HEH)

1) god, God
a) god, heathen deity
b) God (of Israel)

ALEPH LAMED HEH (Elahh) in Hebrew is exactly the same as ALIF LAAM HA in Arabic (Alah). And of course ALIF LAAM LAAM HA is Allah الله (Alah with emphasis.)

So, essentially Allah (AL=THE [TRUE] LAH=GOD) is a name of God of Israel, (a sir name), as defined by Hebraic biblical experts.

Now here is a rebuttal to this statement:

You might as well cease pretending to be some sort of scholar when you've made it more than obvious that you lack even a grade school understanding of what it is you're talking about. Particularly in the matter of translation, transliteration, and linguistic etymologies.

Any moron who's actually studied scriptural text knows that Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic are all semetic languages. However, any scholar worth his/her salt, also knows that these three semetic tongues do not readily directly cross translate, one to the other. And thus, translteration becomes the common practice. And the word "Rhema" exist in the Greek text of biblical scripture via the same process. Oh yes! You didn't expect this, but school has now opened.

Now as far as your idiotic suggestion that no scholarly source would be found to back my previous statements, you're going to be proven wrong here also. You seem fond of misrepresenting the information in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. So I'll utlize that source of the sake of this post. However, any Hebrew dictionary would also suffice. Maybe you've missed a thing or two about the Masorah too. Maybe you've never heard of the Syriac Pe%#&@$!ta. They to, would serve to prove you wrong. Now, for Strong's.

Strong's #426 'elahh (Aramaic)=God
Strong's #430 elohiym (Hebrew)=gods(ordinary sense), of the Supreme God
Strong's #433 'elowahh (Hebrew)=the Diety

None of which even remotely translate to "Allah".

Now as for "Allah", it literally translates to "the Supreme Being". How many other religions refer to a generic "Supreme Being" as their proposed god? THOUSANDS.

Further more. Cross reference "allah" through Strong's, and you get:

Strong's #427 'allah(Hebrew)=oak. a variagion of 424
Strong's #424 'Ela" [pronounced "ay-law"]=oak; Ela an Israelite.


Answer
Great questions.  I think the simplest answer to this is that if this is true:

"Allah (AL=THE [TRUE] LAH=GOD)"

Then the words are probably not directly related.

In Hebrew, "El" is the term which refers to God.  This "El" would be analogous to the "Al" in Allah, and so it would seem to be case that the words are simply similar but probably un-related (though some linguistic interrelation is to be expected from languages that developed close to each other.  Of course the "Elahh" listed above isn't even Hebrew, it's Aramaic, and so the relational diagram would go even deeper (and unfortunately probably beyond my level of expertise).

God himself reveals his name to Moses as "YHWH" or "Yahweh", which means "I am who am".  The term "Yahweh" is meaningless to modern ears unless they know it's meaning, and it is the meaning most properly which is the actual name of God.  He is.  Period.  All being exists in him.  Whether you commonly refer to him as "Allah" (as Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews do, meaning simply "God"), or as "God", what matters most is the meaning which that God, the God of Abraham, revealed to Moses in the Desert and to his people.

I hope this was helpful, feel free to ask clarifying questions if I missed anything you wanted to know.

Shalom, Pax, Salaam,

-J.M.J. West