Aramaic: Could Jesus Have Used the Same Word for “God” as the Muslims? The Aramaic word for God is Elah, or Alaha, [14] also derived from El. [15] The ancient Hebrew word Elah, means “something strong,” like trees of the oak, rooted in Elijah, meaning God of YHWH, which again leads us to its root, El. [16] Elah [17] is used about 70 times in the Old Testament. When combined with other words, we see different attributes of God. Some examples: Elah Yerush’lem - God of Jerusalem: (Ezra 7:19); Elah Yisrael - God of Israel: (Ezra 5:1); Elah Sh’maya - God of Heaven: (Ezra 7:23); Elah Sh’maya V’Arah - God of Heaven and Earth: (Ezra 5:11). [18] There are also several verses in the Qur’an using Elah and its derivatives, Il or El. These words are specifically referred to in the Qur’an (see Sura 9:8 and 10). While some Islamic scholars understand it to mean blood ties, most others take it as short for the Arabic word Ilah, meaning “Lord.” It could also be the Arabicized Aramaic Hebrew for EL as in Ismael (Ishmael), which means “God listens” and/or Elah, or Deity, from its original Aramaic or Syriac. It may surprise some people to know that even Jesus used this form for God in Matt. 24:47 when he cried out in the Aramaic language, “Eli, Eli“, meaning “my God, my God.” Jesus, an Aramaic speaker, would naturally use Alaha just as Aramaic speakers do today. It is simply the Aramaic version of the identical Arabic word Allah. “The cognate Aramaic term appears in the Aramaic version of the New Testament, called the Peshitta, as one of the words Jesus used to refer to God, e.g., in the sixth Beatitude, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see Alaha.’ The Arabic Bible uses the same word in Matt. 5:8, for instance, translated Allah.” [19] While all this may seem confusing, simply stated and confirmed by Brown, Driver, and Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, El is the root word for God in Hebrew, Elohim; in Aramaic, Alaha; and in Arabic, Allah. Furthermore, they connote the same God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Ishmael. In addition, the prophesied Messiah in Isaiah 9:6 of the Tenach is referred to as El. After speaking at a peace conference in Egypt, I approached the heads of the Lutheran and Coptic (Egyptian) Churches who were in attendance. I asked these two Christian leaders what name they used for “God” in their churches. They looked at me very puzzled and responded “Allah, of course!” They would be shaken to know that probably 99 percent of Western Christians do not think Allah is the same God as the Christian God. Their response to my seemingly stupid question is a microcosm of the answer; it is simply the Arabic word for “God.” The “Correct” Name of God Eventually the seminary students clearly understood the different forms of “the name of God” used in the Holy Books. Hebrew El, Aramaic Alaha and Arabic Allah are identical words derived from the same linguistic root, using the Semitic letters Alef-Lamed-He, pronounced ila. Such names should not be the focus of scorn, or the cause of division and war. The slight modifications among each of the language groupings simply reflect different pronunciations conforming to the historical pattern of cognate shifts in each tongue, not different words. To put it simply, the Latin, Spanish, and Italian words for God (Deus, Dios, and Dio) and the English and German words (God and Gott) all mean the same as do the Semitic Allah, Alaha and Elohim. Islam and Judaism do not have a problem seeing the God of each tradition as the God of Abraham, so why should we? The seminary students were intrigued and lined up after the presentation to express their excitement.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 15:06:19 +0000