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According to Wikipedia, the spelling for El*him is aleph-lamed-he-yud-mem
But in a book I found the following spelling:
(This is from the first line at p.171 at https://archive.org/details/AManualOfCatholicTheology/page/n231)
I have two questions :
1) What is the third character in the spelling for El*him above ? Is it a a zayin or a vav ? 2) Is the above spelling a typo ?
This isn’t a typo. Vav is sometimes used as a mater lectionis to indicate the vowels /o/ or /u/ (typically represented by cholam and shuruk respectively); roughly speaking, a word written using vav as such and with yod to indicate /i/ is one that is written with plene spelling (ktiv male) as opposed to defective spelling (ktiv haser). This is just another occurrence of one of that usage. As far as I can tell, this spelling does not actually occur in Tanakh, outside of versions published with ktiv male, but it does sometimes occur elsewhere.
The name E-lohim (some include the hyphen to prevent desecrating G-d’s name) is first encountered in the first verse of Bereshit (Genesis). There, and I believe in most places, it is spelled א-ל-ה-י-ם (without a Waw - a.k.a. Vav - following the Lamed). In colloquial Hebrew, it is usually spelled with the Waw (i.e. א-ל-ו-ה-י-ם). The name is never spelled with a Zayin.
