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( Names of God in Judaism)
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Jews and Judaism In Judaism, the name of God is more than a distinguishing title. It represents the Jewish conception of the divine nature, and of the relation of God to the Jewish people. To show the sacredness of the names of God, and as a means of showing respect and reverence for them, the scribes of sacred texts took pause before copying them, and used terms of reverence so as to keep the true name of God concealed. The various names of God in Judaism represent God as he is known, as well as the divine aspects which are attributed to him. The numerous names of God have been a source of debate amongst biblical scholars. Some have advanced the variety as proof that the Torah has many authors (see documentary hypothesis), while others declare that the different aspects of God have different names, depending on the role God is playing, the context in which God is referred to, and the specific aspects which are emphasized (see Negative theology in Jewish thought). This is akin to how a person may be called by his first name, 'Dad', 'Captain', 'Honey', 'Sir', etc. depending on the role being played, and who is talking. The most important and most often written name of God in Judaism is the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God. "Tetragrammaton" derives from the Greek prefix tetra- ("four") and gramma ("letter", "grapheme"). The Tetragrammaton appears 6828 times (see 'Counts' in the Yahweh article) in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia edition of the Hebrew Masoretic text. This name is first mentioned in the book of Genesis (2.4) and in English language bibles is traditionally translated as "The LORD".
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