The Name of the Creator
By Dick B.
Copyright 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved
The subject of the name of the Creator of the heavens and the earth is one of the most important and exciting topics in the Bible. Your investment of time in studying this section carefully will be well worth every moment.
And this article has its focus on the significance of the special mention of God as “Creator” in the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous.
"God," with a capital "G," is specifically called "God" 277 times in the Third Edition of A.A.’s Big Book. That Big Book also contains 107 specific pronouns—he, him, his, and himself—which are similarly capitalized and hence unquestionably refer to "God." Counting the additional places where A.A.’s Big Book contains references to our Creator—calling Him "Creator," "Maker," "Father," "Father of Light," and "Spirit"—the Creator is thus specifically mentioned in the Big Book more than 400 times. (See Dick B., The Good Book and The Big Book, pp. 49-50.) Not surprisingly, but certainly unfortunately, the Big Book nowhere calls the Creator by His proper name. Nonetheless, the Big Book distinguishes the Creator from any other "god" or kind of "god."
Bill Wilson, initial author of almost every word in the Big Book’s basic text, can quickly be seen as articulate and careful in his grammatical usages. Especially when dealing with, and capitalizing, certain words! In the "Handbook of Style" section of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, the following is stated about capitalized words:
Capitals are used with
almost all proper nouns–that is, nouns that name particular persons, places, or
things (including abstract entities), distinguishing them from others of the
same class. . . . The essential distinction in the use of capitals and
lowercase letters at the beginnings of words lies in this individualizing
significance of capitals as against the generalizing significance of lowercase.
. . . (pp. 1541-42)
In the sub-subsection titled "Religious Terms," the following is also stated in the "Handbook of Style" section of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition:
28. Words designating the
Deity are capitalized.
29. Personal pronouns
referring to the Deity are usually capitalized, even when they closely follow
their antecedent (p. 1544).
Note first:
For God is not the
author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints (1 Cor.
14:33)
As concerning therefore
the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know
that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none
other God but one.
For though there be that
are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and
lords many,)
But to us there is but
one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him (1 Cor. 8:4-6)
There can therefore be little, if any doubt (considering the many references by Bill and Bob to the Bible and biblical language) that Bill was, in the Big Book and his other early writings, specifically talking about the "Deity" of the Bible. His capitalized references to God, the Creator, Maker, and Father, were not referring and did not refer to a "group," a "doorknob," a "lightbulb," "the Big Dipper," or some other vague "higher power" of Bill’s own making. Bill’s intent to designate our Creator as such is further evident from the frequent mention by Bill (and Bob) of his "Heavenly Father," just as Jesus did in the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew chapters 5 to 7).
In other specific, biblical references to the Creator, Bill spoke of Him as the "living God," as "God Almighty," and as "God our Father"– all terms in and from the Bible. A Bible which refers to false gods, but never to the Creator as one of these false gods, or as a group, as a lightbulb, or as a "higher power."
Again, not surprisingly, but certainly regrettably, the Big Book did not refer to the Creator by his personal name. We will see in a moment that the Creator Himself made it possible to identify Him with exactness and clarity. That identification comes with the use of His proper, personal name.
There are many reasons for getting Bill’s biblical references to "God" and our "Creator" straight. They start with the need for identifying our Creator’s actual name. First, as will be discussed below, in the Bible, God specifically declares what His name is—many times. He indicates the importance of that very name to Himself. He states clearly that His name is "my holy name." Second, there is endless confusion today in the A.A. meeting-room talk about strange new gods, higher powers, and inanimate objects such as chairs and bulldozers.
Our Creator long ago explicitly distinguished the difference between Himself and the kind of self-made idols that are proliferating today in the recovery community. Psalm 115 says:
Not unto us, O LORD, not
unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy
truth’s sake.
Wherefore should the
heathen say, Where is now their God?
But our God is in
the heavens; he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
Their idols are
silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
They have mouths, but they
speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
They have ears, but they
hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
They have hands, but they
handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their
throat.
They that make them are
like unto them; so is everyone that trusteth in them.
O Israel, trust thou in
the LORD: he is their help and their shield. (Ps. 115:1-9)
Psalm 115 makes obvious the absurdity of trusting in some light bulb, as a few AAs and members of the recovery community declare today that you can do. And a word to the wise is sufficient.
Reverend Sam Shoemaker spoke to AAs at their international convention and decried the use of "absurd names for God." Such absurdities, of course, could have been eliminated in the twinkling of an eye by referring to the Creator of the heavens and the earth by His proper name which He Himself sets forth in the Bible. And He makes clear in the Ten Commandments that there are to be no other "gods" before Him–no gods, graven images, or substitutes.
There follow therefore specific references in the Bible to the Creator’s holy name and explanations of what the Creator has said about His name in the Good Book.
When you want to get to know someone, one of the first things you usually want to know is his or her name. And peoples’ names tend to be very important to them. The Bible indicates in many ways that the name of the Creator of the heavens and the earth is very important to Him also.
Thou shalt not take the
name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless
that taketh his name in vain (Exod. 20:7, emphasis added)
And ye shall not swear by my
name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am
the LORD (Lev. 19:12, emphasis added)
Because he hath set his
love upon me [i.e., the LORD], therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on
high, because he hath known my name. (Ps. 91:14, emphasis added)
Glory ye in his holy
name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD (Ps. 105:3, emphasis
added).
He sent redemption unto
his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is
his name (Ps. 111:9, emphasis added).
And I will sanctify my
great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in
the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith
the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes (Ezek. 36:23,
emphasis added)
So will I make my holy
name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them
pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the
LORD, the Holy One of Israel (Ezek. 39:7, emphasis).
Somewhere between the
fifth and the second centuries bce a tragic accident befell God: he lost his
name. More exactly, Jews gave up using God's personal name Yahweh, and began to
refer to Yahweh by various periphrases: God, the Lord, the Name, the Holy One,
the Presence, even the Place. Even where Yahweh was written in the biblical
text, readers pronounced the name as Adonai. With the final fall of the temple,
even the rare liturgical occasions when the name was used ceased, and even the
knowledge of the pronunciation of the name was forgotten [David J. A. Clines,
"Yahweh and the God of Christian Theology," Theology 83
(1980), pp. 323_30].
In the Bible, the Creator of the heavens and the earth specifically tells us His name many times. That name in the Hebrew Old Testament is represented by four Hebrew letters—Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh (or YHWH)—and these four letters are sometimes called the tetragrammaton ("four-letter writing"). YHWH, Strong’s number 3068, occurs 6,519 times in the Hebrew Old Testament underlying the KJV [according to the Blue Letter Bible (BLB) on the Internet (www.blueletterbible.org/)], and 6,828 times in the Hebrew Old Testament from which the NIV was translated [The Hebrew-English Concordance to the Old Testament (HECOT, p. 630)]. In fact, YHWH is one of the 35 most frequently occurring terms in the Hebrew Old Testament!
As to the pronunciation of the four Hebrew letters YHWH, Kenneth L. Barker states:
There is almost universal
consensus among scholars today that the sacred Tetragrammaton (YHWH) is to be
vocalized and pronounced Yahweh. [Barker, "YHWH Sabaoth: ‘The Lord
Almighty,’" The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation http://www.gospelcom.net/ibs/niv/mct/9.php, emphasis added]
And the Encyclopaedia Britannica adds:
Although Christian
scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah
for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th centuries biblical scholars again began to use
the form Yahweh. Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria
in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and this pronunciation of the
tetragrammaton was never really lost. Other Greek transcriptions also indicated
that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh [Encyclopædia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=79806&tocid=0), "Yahweh," emphasis added]
As to the meaning of the Creator’s name YHWH, "Yahweh," Exodus chapter three provides important information:
[11] And Moses said unto God,
Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth
the children of Israel out of Egypt?
[12] And he said,
Certainly I will be [ehyeh] with thee; and this shall be a
token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people
out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
[13] And Moses said unto
God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto
them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me,
What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
[14] And God said unto
Moses, I AM THAT I AM [ehyeh asher ehyeh]: and he said, Thus
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM [ehyeh] hath
sent me unto you.
[15] And God said moreover
unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the LORD [YHWH,
Yahweh] God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is
my memorial unto all generations.
[16] Go, and gather the
elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD [YHWH, Yahweh]
God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto
me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in
Egypt (Exod. 3:11-16, KJV, emphasis added).
The best known modern Bibles [such as the NIV, NASV, and the Revised Standard Version
(RSV)] all differ from the KJV and agree with each other in their translation of the Hebrew words underlying "I AM THAT I AM" in Exodus 3:14:
God said to Moses, "I
AM WHO I AM.f This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM
has sent me to you.’" (NIV)
God said to Moses, "cI
AM WHO cI AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the
sons of Israel, "cI AM has sent me to you." (NASV)
God said to Moses, "I
AM WHO I AM."e And he said, "Say this to the people of
Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’" (RSV)
The NIV and RSV also offer alternative translations in their footnotes relating to verse 14:
Or I WILL BE WHAT I
WILL BE (NIV, footnote "f")
Or I AM WHAT I AM or I
WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE (RSV, footnote "e")
And the NIV and NASV provide information concerning the relationship between the term "I AM" which occurs three times in verse 14 and the term "the LORD" [YHWH] in verse 15:
The Hebrew for LORD
[in verse 15] sounds like and may be derived from the Hebrew for I AM in
verse 14 (NIV, footnote "g")
["I AM" in verse
14 is] Related to the name of God, YHWH, rendered LORD, which is
derived from the verb HAYAH, to be (NASV, footnote "c").
In the chapter titled "YHWH Sabaoth" quoted earlier, Barker points out the importance of Exodus chapter 3 relative to the meaning of "Yahweh":
[T]his verse [i.e., Exod.
3:14] is a divine commentary on—or exposition of—the meaning of the name Yahweh
(v.15).
Scott Grant, in his article "Being Involved" which is posted on the Internet [http://www.pbc.org/dp/grant/exodus/exo003.html], states:
God seems to indicate that
his name is "I AM" (or "I WILL BE"), for he tells Moses to
tell the people that "I AM" has sent him [verse 14]. This is the
first person singular form of the verb "to be." God has used it
elsewhere already in this passage in conveying his nature. In Exodus 3:12, he says,
"I will be with you." Although in the New American Standard
translation, the name "I AM" and the verb "I will be"
appear to be different tenses, they appear in the same Hebrew tense, and they
are one and the same word. . . .
. . . God twice identifies
his name with a word translated "the Lord" (3:15, 16) [i.e., YHWH,
Yahweh]. This word is likely the third person singular form of the verb
"to be" and means . . . "HE IS" or "HE WILL
BE." The transliteration from Hebrew into English, near as we can
tell, is "Yahweh" (emphasis added).
And the New English Translation’s discussion of Exod. 3:14 in note 47 states:
The verb form used here
[for "I am" in verse 14] is . . . ('ehyeh), the Qal imperfect, 1csg, of
the verb "to be," hyh (haya). It forms an excellent paronomasia with
the name [Yahweh]. So when God used the verb to express his name, he used this
form saying, "I AM." When his people refer to him as Yahweh, which is
the 3msg form of the same verb, it actually means "he is." Some
commentators argue for a future tense translation, "I will be who I will
be," because the verb has an active quality about it, and the Israelites
lived in the light of the promises for the future. The Greek translation [of
the Hebrew Old Testament known as the Septuagint or "LXX" (for the
supposed 70 translators)] used a participle to capture the idea [i.e., ego
eimi ho on, "I am he who is"]; . . . The simplest meaning is the
English present tense, which embraces the future promises. The point is that
Yahweh is sovereignly independent of all creation and that his presence
guarantees the fulfillment of the covenant. Others argue for a causative Hiphil
translation of "I will cause to be," but nowhere in the Bible does this
verb appear in Hiphil or Piel (http://www.bible.org/).
The meaning of God’s holy name Yahweh has been frequently discussed in scholarly literature through the years. If the reader would like to pursue this matter further, here are several additional sources for consideration: (1) "Yahweh," Encyclopædia Britannica Article (http://www.britannica.com); (2) "Jehovah (Yahweh)," Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/).
Here are some key verses in which the Creator’s name Yahweh occurs:
Abraham planted a tamarisk
at Beersheba and there he invoked Yahweh, the everlasting God. [Gen. 21:33
Jerusalem Bible (JB)]
The KJV translates "there he invoked" as "called there on the name of" in verse 33 because the Hebrew Old Testament contains the word shem, "name."
And God also said to
Moses, "You are to say to the sons of Israel: ‘Yahweh, the God of your
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent
me to you’. This is my name for all time; by this name I shall be invoked for
all generations to come (Exod. 3:15 JB)
(Note Bill Wilson’s usage of the phrase "God of our fathers" in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, AAWS, 1987, p. 29.)
God spoke to Moses and
said to him, "I am Yahweh. To Abraham and Isaac and Jacob I appeared as El
Shaddai; I did not make myself known to them by my name Yahweh." (Exod.
6:2, 3 JB)
And let them know this:
you alone bear the name Yahweh, Most High over the whole world (Ps. 83:18 JB).
My name is Yahweh, I will
not yield my glory to another, nor my honour to idols. (Isa. 42:8 JB)
Now listen, I am going to make them acknowledge, this time I am going to make them acknowledge my hand and my might; and then they will know that Yahweh is my name.
(Jer. 16:21 JB)
[The research and editing for this material was conducted and
completed by my son Ken B. and is more fully set forth in our title, Why Early A.A. Succeeded. See www.dickb.com/titles.shtml.]
Gloria Deo
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