From:  (David S. Maddison)
Newsgroups: aus.religion,aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Who invented "G-d" and why?
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 11:59:53 GMT

In article <> Sun, 26 Jul 1998
17:29:55 +1000 Stanislaw Flatto <> wrote:

>Greetings all.
>I would like someone to inform me where from cames the
>usage of tokens in writting God.
>When I see someone like Les Brown write G-d it bugs me.
>He like myself read the original (TM) and there is nothing,
>repeat nothing, prohibiting writing.

I assume you are writing from a Christian perspective. Christianity
adopted only a tiny proportion of the "Old Testament" and it is thus
not aware of many of its teachings. Apart from the obvious fact that
Christians simply do not accept much or most of the OT, additionally
they did not adopt any of the Oral Law. Since the Oral Law is an
integral part of the OT and neither part is complete without the other
part, it is not surprising that Christians would not be aware of many
of its teachings (although other non-Christians who follow the Torah
such as Noachides, which I have discussed before, do accept the Oral
Law - as it applies to them).

The basic concept is that Jews do not write the name G-d in full on
disposable media such as pieces of paper or more recently, on-line.
Books are OK as these are not regarded as disposable. This is to avoid
the possibility of disrespect being given to G-d by throwing the paper
in the garbage etc.. In fact, when Jewish prayer books etc. are no
longer serviceable, they are first stored until there is a sufficient
number of them, and then they are respectfully buried (rather than
burned, thrown in the garbage etc.).

>What is prohibited is voicing The Name in public, this is
>allowed to the High Priest on special occasions.
>In Hebrew the written combination of letters is read as Adonai
>or Elohim.
>How this came to be used in languages and alphabets that did not
>even exist when the custom was formulated, please explain.

The custom was adopted by Jews in other languages as an extra
stringency and is not strictly required in non-Hebrew languages but is
done anyway as it is not uncommon to "build a fence" around certain
prohibitions to help ensure they are not transgressed.

>How to voice this "G-d" when reading aloud.

The same as usual. In Judaism, there are several names of G-d,
including a 72 letter version. Some Jews simply call G-d, "Hashem",
meaning "The Name". It is not permitted to pronounce certain forms of
G-d's name. (Some people wrote Gd.)

>"Capital jee minus small dee" - really!. You must be joking.
>And how you apply it in non-germanic languages.
>Slavic Bog, Spanish Dios, Arabic Allah and so on.

Probably in a similar way.

>I hate to think how would The Iliad and Odysei look when the
>translator uses this concept.
>Gods and godesses are running in those books like French
>soccer fans during Mondial.

I don't believe pagan religions have any problem with the desecration
of written forms of the names of the deities. So it wouldn't be
necessary to write, Ap-llo, for example.

>The poetry would look like some mechanical drawing.
>
>Waiting for answers.

I hope I gave them.

David Maddison

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