Mary Barnum
My friend from Viet Nam has been given the name, Coung Cam Cao. This means "tall, strong one" and was chosen for him as a reflection of his parent's goals and dreams for him. So it is true that in other cultures, a name has deeper significance. The Hebrew culture was one such culture during the early times of the Old Testament. In this paper, we will look at the names used for God in the Old Testament. The question to be considered is whether or not the name/names used for God were intended to have a material effect on the theological content of the scripture? Or, are they, generally speaking, arbitrary, interchangeable, and a simple reflection of author preference?