Content area
Full Text
Introduction
Divine presence is believed to appear in various areas of human life—in public spheres (such as temples and tabernacles)1 and in a variety of private spheres: sensual, cognitive, spiritual, and emotional.2 It may appear without being summoned and effect revelatory experiences, and it can appear as a result of premeditated human action. Accordingly, divine presence is both acknowledged and promoted within religious systems through a host of means—ritualistic, linguistic, contemplative, aesthetic, and more. Recent conceptual work on monotheistic religions pays special attention to the role of the human body, on the one hand, and that of the icon, on the other, as means of expressing and promoting divine presence.3 Less conceptual attention has been paid to a third vehicle—that of divine names.4
Divine names are linguistic objects that belong to the grammar of religious language; that is, they make the very existence of such language possible rather than merely functioning within it. They comprise physical qualities, both graphic and phonetic, alongside semantic qualities, the latter being the focus of the pages that follow. These names function as both representations and presentations of the divine.5 As representations, divine names aim to carry information pertaining to God’s nature or actions, and his unique will, in a manner that adequately represents him uniquely.6 In this sense, divine names are comparable to pictorial representations. As presentations, divine names are believed to somehow effect divine presence in proximity to the believer, opening a path of direct connection to God. In this sense, divine names are functionally comparable to a local representative of a multibranch corporation; they are a particular channel to a greater whole.7
In this paper I seek to analyze the interaction between presentation and representation concerning divine names in a selection of key texts within Judaism and Islam. Far from aiming at a comprehensive survey of all positions regarding divine names in Judaism and Islam, I offer a philosophical analysis of a specific strand in both traditions,8 laid out in three phases. First is the scriptural phase, in which the initial problematics and potentialities of naming God appear in a nuclear manner. Second is the oral or homiletic layer of interpretation, in which initial reflection over...