Re: Non-constructed religions

vardi wrote:
> "Yaveh" and "Jehovah" are attempts to pronounce the quintessentially
> unpronouncable four-letter name of God (I forget the fancy Greek word)
> that appears in the Bible - YHWH (i.e. the Hebrew letters yod- he- vav-
> he). The word seems to be related to the Hebrew root meaning "to be,"
> but while there are many theories I don't think there's one accepted
> view.
The most accepted theory (with tons of evidence - transliterations into
other ancient languages (ones that used vowels), the theophoric (a form
used in names), and other pieces of evidence) that the Name was
pronounced Yahweh, which would be the causative form, thus "He causes to
be" or "He causes to become".

> The Hebrew cognate is el, meaning god or God.
I wondered about that.  I read that that came from a root meaning
"shining" or something similar, and thus originally meant something like
"celestial being".

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