A word on "God"

First off, I would like to go over a short lesson about the name of what most Christians in America call “God.” God is called many names in the Hebrew Bible, among these being “El” or the plural of El, “elohim.” The plural in Hebrew is used to show respect, though it literally means “gods.” “El” was the name which you can think of as the name of Abraham's god. However, in this early time in the history of the Abrahamic religions, "El" and "elohim" was also confused with the name “Baal,” literally meaning something like “master.” “Baal,” in the modern sense of the word is often used as a synonym for something like the word “devil.” However, this was not the form in which the word was originally used. As time progressed, “Baal” was used less in association with “El” and more with false gods. Also, the name “Asherah” was used in association with “El.” Though this term often refers to wooden poles used in worship, it was also the name of the female consort of “El” (remember, at the time in which “El” was still the name for “God,” monotheism for the followers of Abraham’s god was not established, so goddess worship was not out of the question). However, once Moses has contact with the divine, the god of Abraham becomes know as “I Am” in the Hebrew Bible. This self-identification by “I Am” later gets roughly translated into Hebrew, becoming known currently as the Tetragrammaton. This new name for “God” becomes the four Hebrew letters yod-heh-vav-hey, or in English now commonly called YHWY (pronounced “Yahweh”). However, note that because the Hebrew of that time did not use vowel markers, the exact pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton is lost. "LORD" in most Christian Bibles today is what is put in in place of YHWY and "God" for other references to the same divine being.

Thanks to Aubrey Watkins (visiting professor in the College of William and Mary’s Religious Studies department) and the authors of the book “The Hebrew Bible: A Thematic Approach,” Sandra L. Gravett, Karla G. Bohmback, F. V. Greifenhagen and Donald C. Polaski