Expert: Brenda Martin - 4/26/2008

Question
Hi Brenda!
Would you please explain in detail why the words god and lord are not names.  The Oxford dictionary and Catholic encyclopedia tell the word god is a name.  I think that the Bible uses the word god as both name and title.
Thanks.
Farooq

Answer
In the original language; the word for God is, Elohim´& the original word for Lord is, “Kyrios”

The Greek and Hebrew words for both mean; “sir,” “owner,” “master”

Whereas the original word for Jehovah is YHWH which means; “He causes to become”

Jehovah is “A” God or “A” Lord, meaning he is our “owner or master” these are descriptive titles, not names.

The fact is; the name YHWH was in the original writings over 7,000 times, churches admit to taking it out & replacing it with the titles God & Lord.

The very frequency of the appearance of the name attests to its importance to the Bible’s Author, whose name it is. Its use throughout the Scriptures far outnumbers that of any of the titles, such as “Sovereign Lord” or “God,” applied to him.

In your Bible reading have you observed at Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6, the expression “Alleluia” or “Hallelujah”? According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary “Hallelujah” means: “Praise ye Yah (Jehovah).”

Comparatively recent discoveries have shown that the oldest fragments of the Greek Septuagint contain God’s name in its Hebrew form!

Commenting on this fact, Dr. Paul E. Kahle says: “We now know that the Greek Bible text [the Septuagint] as far as it was written by Jews for Jews did NOT translate the Divine name by ky´rios [Lord], but the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) written with Hebrew or Greek letters was retained in such MSS [manuscripts].”

Who, then, replaced the divine name in copies of the Greek Septuagint with the titles “Lord” or “God”? Dr. Kahle goes on to answer: “It was the Christians who replaced the Tetragrammaton by ky´rios [Lord], when the divine name written in Hebrew letters was not understood any more.”—The Cairo Geniza, pp. 222, 224.

All the best
Brenda