\n<\/p>\n
I recently finished a book draft where I talk about God a lot. And it finally hit me that I\u2019m tired of writing \u201cGod\u201d all the time. It feels lazy to me\u2014like calling my wife \u201chuman.\u201d<\/p>\n
I feel the need to find some other word.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod\u201d is a term found throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, it\u2019s the English way of rendering the Hebrew word \u201cElohim.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thing is that Elohim is a generic word in the ancient world of the Bible\u2014a lot of cultures used some form of it.<\/p>\n
In the Bible, it can refer to Israel\u2019s God specifically, some other ancient god, or a whole bunch of gods. Elohim might even mean \u201cangels\u201d or \u201cjudges.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the ancient literature of Ugarit (north of Israel in present Syria), elohim<\/em> refers to the Ugaritic pantheon of gods.<\/p>\n That makes me think the ancient Israelites could have put a little more effort into it instead of using a blah\u00a0general word for \u201cdivine beings\u201d\u00a0\u00a0when referring to \u201cGod. Way to be confusing, ancient Israelite writers.<\/p>\n When the Israelites\u00a0wanted to distinguish their God from the other gods, they used God\u2019s personal name YHWH, which might have been pronounced \u201cYahweh.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Our English Bibles have almost completely lost that word, though. Through the influence of\u00a0Jewish scribes from very long ago, YHWH has been replaced in English Bible with another generic title, \u201cLord\u201d (spelled with the O-R-D in small caps\u2014see Genesis 2:4).<\/p>\n To make matters even more confusing, the way in which Israel\u2019s ancient writers described their God YHWH often looks like how other ancient peoples described their gods.<\/p>\n For example, YHWH controlling the weather and riding on the clouds (Psalms 24 and 68) mimics older descriptions of the Canaanite storm-god Baal (who makes several appearances in the Old Testament).<\/p>\n Again, Israel\u2014thanks for the confusion.<\/p>\n The New Testament runs into the same sort of problem.<\/p>\n The Greek word \u201ctheos\u201d means \u201cgod\u201d and is about as generic as you can get. It refers to divine beings in\u00a0general and the gods of the\u00a0Greco-Roman world. Why, in 2 Corinthians 4:4 it\u2019s even used of another divine being, the devil.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the main word the New Testament writers use for God. Nice move.<\/p>\n Another Greek word referring to God is \u201ckurios,\u201d which means Lord and is also used of Jesus, but that\u2019s generic as well. Caesar was also called kurios.<\/em><\/p>\n To sum up, biblical writers, when talking about God, adopted ancient titles\u00a0and metaphors from the surrounding cultures. There is nothing\u2014no.thing.\u2014special about these words.<\/p>\n It strikes me that, for us to be truly \u201cbiblical\u201d in how\u00a0we refer to God, we might be better off following the biblical practice<\/em>\u00a0more than the biblical\u00a0words.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n So I ask myself: what are some possible terms, titles, descriptors, metaphors from our own culture that we might adapt and transform to talk about our God in our<\/em> time and place rather than using terms that are essentially meaningless in post-Christian culture\u2014like \u201cGod\u201d or \u201cLord\u201d?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t really have an answer. \u201cThe force\u201d. . .\u00a0ultimate meaning. . . the universe. . . higher power?<\/p>\n In my book draft, I use \u201cPresence\u201d a few times, but I\u2019m just not sure. I\u2019m still looking.<\/p>\n In the meantime let me say this: if you are taken aback by the thought of using alternate language<\/a> for God, especially using terms that sound very unbiblical, even pagan or trendy to you . . .<\/p>\n well . . .<\/p>\n Remember that the very same practice is carved into our own Bibles.<\/p>\n So, what modern terms or descriptors\u00a0should we adopt? I\u2019m not sure, but\u00a0we might be most biblical when we don\u2019t simply repeat biblical words for God but use some of our own.<\/p>\n\u201cGod\u201d or \u201cLord\u201d had for them built-in meanings and connotations that were adapted and transformed<\/strong><\/em> to speak of their God.<\/h2>\n