The similarity of "Yahweh" to "Jov-" J. F. Gannon Is God 'Being' After All?

J. F. Gannon observes:

The similarity of "Yahweh" to "Jov-" is most likely to be fortuitous. But the similarity is such that it must have attracted speculation earlier. I'm betting someone knows. Here is the little I know. Flavius Josephus is the fellow most likely to have made the connection, a Ioudaios writing in Rome for a Roman audience and stressing parallels between things Roman and Judean. I have often wondered about this, and have really, really wished that he had made the connection. But he does not. When he comes to the part of his narrative that parallels Exod. 3, where Moses asks God's name, he becomes more reserved than the Bible itself: "And God revealed to him His name, which had not previously come to men, and about which I am not permitted to speak" (AJ 2.276).

This is, incidentally, one of the clearest early indicators of the traditional rabbinic refusal to pronounce the divine name. NB: what one reads instead of the written name YHWH is of course ADONai -- another tantalizing one for parallel-seekers. People who did find some resonances, arguably, were those who composed the spells on the magical papyri, which frequently use forms of the name: Yahu, etc., no doubt surviving in today's popular ISP "Yahoo". I'm kidding.

Someone mentioned the biblical etymology of "being" for YHWH, and that is a much better prospect. It was common among Greek-speaking Judeans to connect their God with ZEUS by a Stoic-philosophical analogy: both names refer to ultimate Being, Nature, Reason, etc. This is best accomplished with the accusative form of the name, ZHNA, for obvious reasons.

See for example Josephus, AJ 12.22, where the Greek Aristeas allegedly says to King Ptolemy II, "Both they and we worship the God who created the universe, whom we call by the appropriate term ZHNA, giving Him that name from the fact that He breathes life (ZHN) into all creatures." In the so-called Letter of Aristeas itself (3rd to 1st cent. BC; sect. 16), both ZEUS (ZHNA) and DIOS (DIA) are connected with life-giving (ZWOPOIEW), connecting the Judean and Greek Gods. The same point is suggested by the Greco-Jewish writer Aristobulus, 2nd cent. BC, preserved in Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 13.12.7. If Dios, then Iove too, I guess.