Divine Names are a key component in the communication between humans and gods in Antiquity. Their complexity derives not only from the impressive number of onomastic elements available to describe and target specific divine powers, but also from their capacity to be combined within distinctive configurations of gods. The volume collects 36 essays pertaining to many different contexts - Egypt, Anatolia, Levant, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome - which address the multiple functions and wide scope of divine onomastics. Scrutinized in a diachronic and comparative perspective, divine names shed light on how polytheisms and monotheisms work as complex systems of divine and human agents embedded in an historical framework. Names imply knowledge and play a decisive role in rituals; they move between cities and regions, and can be translated; they interact with images and reflect the intrinsic plurality of divine beings. This vivid exploration of divine names pays attention to the balance between tradition and innovation, flexibility and constraints, to the material and conceptual parameters of onomastic practices, to cross-cultural contexts and local idiosyncrasies, in a word to human strategies for shaping the gods through their names.

Reveals the real, whole name of God and its place within each of us • Explains how none of the God-names commonly used in the Bible is God’s real name • Shows how the real name of God unites all religions from both West and East • Includes spiritual techniques, prayers, poems, and meditative chants to bring each of us into deep, personal, intimate, living relationship with God Of the many names of God commonly used in the Bible and other sacred literature, none is God’s real name. Every God-name, including YHWH, reflects only one of God’s many aspects, such as the loving creator, the militaristic authoritarian, or the all-knowing judge. None embodies the wholeness, the totality, the full Essence of God. Who then are we to speak to when we seek God? If you can’t truly know something until you know its name, how can we truly know God? The culmination of years of translation research and etymological investigation, Rabbi Wayne Dosick’s work digs through many layers of presumption and deeply ingrained beliefs to reveal the real name of God hiding in plain sight in the Bible: Anochi. He shows how this sacred name unites all religions--both of the West and the East. The name Anochi enables us to finally meet the whole, complete, real God--both the grand God of the vast universe and the God of breath, soul, and heart who dwells within each of us. This in-depth exploration of God’s name includes spiritual techniques, poems, guided prayers, and meditative chants to bring each of us into personal, intimate, and purposeful relationship with God. By knowing the real name of God, we can affirm the connection to the Divine at the core of our being. We can touch the face of God that resides deep within us all.

"In The Divine Names the unknown Dionysius the Areopagite expresses many profound truths concerning the Divine Nature, based upon discussions of the names which are ascribed in the Bible to Him and to His attributes. In doing so, Dionysius had the advantage of the mystical teachings of the Neoplatonic School, which developed the Platonic teachings. Since he treated these from a Christian point of view, Dionysius played a great part in developing Christian mysticism. At the same time he is a link with the older thought, and therefore illustrates how the one fundamental truth is contimued [sic] through many schools of thought."--

"In this work, Andrei A. Orlov examines the apocalyptic profile of the angel Yahoel as the mediator of the divine Name, demonstrating its formative influence not only on rabbinic and Hekhalot beliefs concerning the supreme angel Metatron, but also on the unique aural ideology of early Jewish mystical accounts."--Back of dust jacket.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-284) index.

Christians face a conundrum when it comes to naming God, for if God is unnamable, as theologians maintain, he can also be called by every name. His proper name is thus an open-ended, all-encompassing list, a mystery the Church embraces in its rhetoric, but which many Christians have found difficult to accept. To explore this conflict, Valentina Izmirlieva examines two lists of God’s names: one from The Divine Names, the classic treatise by Pseudo-Dionysius, and the other from The 72 Names of the Lord, an amulet whose history binds together Kabbalah and Christianity, Jews and Slavs, Palestine, Provence, and the Balkans. This unexpected juxtaposition of a theological treatise and a magical amulet allows Izmirlieva to reveal lists’ rhetorical potential to create order and to function as both tools of knowledge and of power. Despite the two different visions of order represented by each list, Izmirlieva finds that their uses in Christian practice point to a complementary relationship between the existential need for God’s protection and the metaphysical desire to submit to his infinite majesty—a compelling claim sure to provoke discussion among scholars in many fields.