The Origin of the Word 'God'

Question

I originally posted this a while ago on my blog, but someone recently suggested that I pose it as a question here.

A brief Wikipedia search on the origin of the word ‘god’ reveals the following:

The earliest written form of the Germanic word god comes from the 6th century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan. Most linguists agree that the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form * ǵhu-tó-m was based on the root * ǵhau(ə)-, which meant either ‘to call’ or ‘to invoke’.

Google came up with this link which presents a survey of various sources that attempt to decipher the origin of the word. It begins with a short summary of its conclusion, which contains the following sentence:

The word God is a relatively new European invention, which was never used in any of the ancient Judaeo-Christian scripture manuscripts that were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek or Latin.

I am befuddled by the fact that they seem to have overlooked a very clear source.

In Genesis 30:11 - we read:

וַתֹּאמֶר לֵאָה בגד \ בָּא גָד

And Leah said, "gad has come."

Targum [Pseudo-]Jonathan interprets:

וַאֲמַרַת לֵאָה אָתָא מַזְלָא טָבָא

And Leah said, "the good 'mazal' (astrological sign / luck) has come."

I would assume that if ‘mazal’ = ‘gad’ then we could have a pretty good indication of where the word ‘god’ came from.

If this isn’t good enough, note the word גדא which is mentioned several times in the Talmud. See, for example, Hullin 40a:

אמר אביי לא קשיא הא דאמר להר הא דאמר לגדא דהר דיקא נמי דקתני דומיא דמיכאל שר הגדול

...Abbaye said, "it is not problematic, for this is when he said [he was slaughtering it] for the mountain and this is where he said it was for the gada (referring some heavenly minister that some would serve as a god) of the mountain...

It is quite clear from the context that גדא דהר means just that; god of the mountain!

Does anyone have any knowledge that would help in figuring out whether or not these words (גד and god) are actually related, as they seem to be?

Answer 1

Hebrew is an Afro-Asiatic language, whereas Proto-Germanic is an Indo-European language.

Both superethnic and cultural groups (Afro-Asiatics and Indo-Europeans) were connected through the history of trade, migrations, and the written alphabet. Afro-Asiatic cultures had trade routes throughout the Middle East, Orient, and Asia; and Indo-European cultures had both migratory and trade routes throughout the Orient, the Middle East and Europe; both groups shared these routes for thousands of years. The first written alphabet was Phoenician (Afro-Asiatic), and it was used as a model for the development of the Indo-European alphabets.

But we don't know of any relation between these two language families: they seemed entirely unrelated even in our earliest sources. If there is any relation, it is shrouded in the mists of remote prehistory (although some people hypothesise a prehistoric relation). Barring very strong evidence to the contrary, any similarity between a Hebrew word and a Germanic word must therefore be ascribed to coincidence.

had trade route interactions with Afro-Asiatic cultures for thousands of years

There are two theories about the origin of the Germanic word, which is still uncertain:

1. It could be from Proto-Indo-European *ghau- "call, invoke", as the entity that is invoked;

2. Or it could come from Proto-Indo-European *gheu- "pour", as the entity to which libations are offered.

Do you have any information about the origin of the Hebrew word?

Answer 2

Theological issues aside, I can see several wrong assumptions in your question.

"The word God is a relatively new European invention, which was never used in any of the ancient Judaeo-Christian scripture manuscripts that were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek or Latin."

It's not entirely clear what you meant there. If you are talking about the English word "god", then why would you expect to come across an English word in a Latin or Greek text? If you are talking about the concept of "god(s)", then your assumption is inaccurate. It is a well-known fact that various Indo-European peoples had gods, attested by names of deities (Jupiter, Zeus, Perkunas etc.) and the word 'god', e.g. Latin 'deus', Vedic 'devas' etc. As a matter of fact, Father Sky is a very common deity in many IE cultures. A common motif is the main god fighting/killing some chthonic creature (a snake or a dragon).

Now about "Gad" and English "god". The wrong assumption here is what Yuri Otkupschikov called "chronological scissors" (chronological disparity). You are comparing words that don't belong to the same time period. Yes, in OE the word was "god" but looking at other Germanic languages you can't help but notice that originally the root vowel was not "o" but rather "u", e.g. have a look at this.

I'm not a Hebraist (nor a Semitologist) but here's what I've been able to find about the origin of the Hebrew proper noun "Gad". I strongly recommend looking it up at least in Klein 1987:

A general remark on etymology:

"A generally accepted principle (advocated by Meillet) permits only comparisons which involve both sound and meaning together. Similarities in sound alone (for example, the presence of tonal systems in compared languages) or in meaning alone (for example, grammatical gender in the languages compared) are not reliable, since they often develop independently of genetic relationship, due to diffusion, accident and typological tendencies" (Campbell 2004: 356, emphasis mine - Alex B.)

Executive summary: I am very skeptical of your hypothesis/evidence and my answer is no.