The bible shows clearly that God was never called by one name. Yes, His name Yena is his personal identifier but his other names were indicative of His power, His location, His abilities all in all.
I don't think God can be limited to just one word to describe Him. It seems the English name God is very limited. It does not describe what he is capable of, where he is located and so forth.
In Bantu dialects, God is many things.
You can see that using the name God is very limiting. God shows Himself different all the time. Sometimes he is a healer, provider, protector, etc. And at that time God is called by what he did in Bantu.
To heal is - ukulapha same as Jehova Rapha. But in true sense it would be Yena uYalapha.(lapha vs rapha)
It seems most bible names have not been used that much by Bantus because very few people know how to worship God. The only thing people will tell you is they speak to ancestors who then speak to God. When I read the bible I don't see that type of worship. Abraham is said to have called on the name of the Lord (Genesis 13: 4).
Today, most people will defend the ancestral worship and call it African spirituality. But if the bible is Bantu spirituality, then how come today people claim ancestral worship as Bantu spirituality.
The sad reality is Bantus have always been leaving God for other types of worship. It is a never ending circle of returning to God and then forsake Him again from generation to generation.
The names we use to call God today have no power and are not indicative of what God is doing for us at all. Those names are not relational.
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