God: Difference between revisions

Conceptions of God can vary widely, but the word God in English—and its counterparts in other languages, such  as Latinate ''Deus'', Greek Θεός, Slavic ''Bog'', Sanskrit ''Ishvara'', or Arabic ''Allah''—are normally used for any and all conceptions. The same holds for Hebrew ''El'', but  in Judaism, God is also given a proper name, the tetragrammaton (usually reconstructed as ''Yahweh'' or YHWH), believed to hark back to the religion's henotheistic origins. In the Bible, when the word "LORD" is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton.<ref name=Barton2006>A Sketch of Semitic Origins: Social and Religious ISBN 142861575X</ref> God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of God, with early references to his name as Krishna-Vasudeva in Bhagavata or later Vishnu and Hari,<ref name = "Hastings541">[http://books.google.com/books?id=Kaz58z--NtUC&pg=PA540&vq=Krishna&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1&sig=lo3NqA31k8hJZw7qNc9QDEAYyYA Hastings]</ref>  or recently Shakti.

It is difficult to draw a line between proper names and epitheta of God, such as the names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, the names of God in the Qur'an, and the various  lists of thousand names of God and List of titles and names of Krishna in Vaishnavism.