The Usage of the Names "LORD" and "ELOHIM" in Genesis 1-2

In Genesis 1, the name God ("Elohim") appears exclusively, while the names God and the LORD (The Divine Name) appears in chapter 2. Because the name LORD does not appear in chapter 1, critical scholars have surmised that 1:1-2:3 and 2:4b-25 derive from separate sources that were stitched together by an editor who connected the sections with 2:4a. The first section is deemed by critical scholars as originating from the "E" source, while the second section is seen as stemming from the "J" source. Critical scholars tend to place the combination of J and E at about 750 B.C., and that by 400 B.C. the "P" redactors combined JEDP. The belief that two different names for God must have stemmed from different sources is based upon a misunderstanding of Ancient Near Eastern practices.

Many ancient pagan deities were known by a multitude of names. Examples:

1)      Ninhursaga = Nintur

2)      Osiris = "of many names"[1]

3)      Marduk = has fifty names according to the Enuma Elish

4)      Enki = Ea

John Walton discussed the meaning of names in the ancient Near East:

If ancient cultures considered something to exist when it had a 

name and a function, the name of a deity is more than simply a 

moniker by which he or she can beinvoked. It is the god's identity and frames the god's "existence" . . . . It is not unusual for a single deity to have many different    epithets or titles . . . . The multiplication of names is one way to express the power and station of the deity.[2]                                                              

In other words, the practice of applying more than one name to a single deity was common in the ancient Near East. For whatever reason critical scholars, while claiming separate sources for the Old Testament because of the names LORD and God, do not do so when other Ancient Near Eastern literature contains different names for the same deity.

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[1] "The Great Hymn to Osiris," recorded on the Stela of Amenmose. William W. Hallo, ed. The Context of Scripture, vol. 1: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World (Leiden: Brill, 1997): 41.

[2] John  H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 92.