I think this is all very helpful, but I can't help but think about what this means for Christians. I tend to think there is more to this hyphenation and continue to think of the meaning of this name as representing a very far away point where is the object that we aren't actually discussing. Are Christians aware of that? I don't think so in general. 'Metaphor' does not seem to cover it, either. After much post-sunday-school discovery I prefer to think of 'God' as a discovery made later some time after the Torah was received, so that originally perhaps the Torah wasn't assumed to come from a person or being necessarily. No one appeared on the mountain. No one appeared in the 'Burning bush'. Maybe the idea of the 'Being' or 'Person' of God was a discovery that came later after Torah. Perhaps the being or the person is as much metaphor as 'Hand' or as 'Name'. So, is it really appropriate to start Children off believing in God as a thing that they understand? It seems to me a disservice, much like having children memorize many Math formulas without showing them how to derive anything first.
Now whether God was discovered or invented I don't know. Perhaps God was encountered in service to Torah? Maybe God was encountered in service to Torah and then the understanding of God was enhanced when Jews encountered Persians? This all up in the air for me. What is not up in the air is that perhaps the hyphen does not go far enough.
I like what Tumah says about the whole metaphor thing. Maybe that helps me understand some of the religious conversation. I also thought it was very interesting what Rosends said about one 'Name' relating to justice and one to mercy. The interactions between ideal justice and ideal mercy are complex, and its difficult to unite the two.
I think the disconnect is that whenever we are saying something in relation to G-d we are saying it in the form of metaphor (or more accurately, that our hands are a metaphor for the spiritual concept of a hand). G-d does not have a physical hand, so when Scriptures uses the phrase "G-d's hand" it is using metaphor. The same is true for "G-d's Name". G-d does not a name as we do, because the Infinite G-d can't be encapsulated into a finite idea by which to be called. So the concept of name is being used as a sort of metaphor, with various Names being used to represent various perceptions of our experience of Him.
