Adon () literally means "lord." Adon has an uncertain etymology, although it is generally believed to be derived from the

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeology, archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycl ...

ad, “father.”

Ugaritic tradition

The pluralization of adon "my lord" is ''

adonai Judaism has different names given to God in Judaism, God, which are considered sacred: (), (''Adonai'' ), (''El (deity), El'' ), ( ), (''El Shaddai, Shaddai'' ), and ( ); some also include I Am that I Am.This is the formulation of Josep ...

'' "my lords."

Otto Eissfeldt Otto Eißfeldt, spelled alternatively Otto Eissfeldt, (September 1, 1887, in Northeim – April 23, 1973, in Halle) was a German Protestant theologian, known for his work on the Old Testament and comparative near-east religious history. His magis ...

theorizes that ''adonai'' is a post positive element attested to in Ugaritic writing. He points to the myth of the struggle between

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

and Yam as evidence. Some theorize that ''adonai'' was originally an epithet of the god

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

depicted as the chief antagonist of "the ''Baʿal''s" in the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

euphemism A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...

to avoid invoking the deity's proper name,

. In Canaanite/Ugaritic tradition, ''ʾadn ilm'', literally "lord of gods" is an epithet of El. However, ''ʾadn'' "lord" could also be an epithet of other gods. When Yam is described as being at the zenith of his might, he is proclaimed ''ʾadn'' or "lord" of the gods. In some

texts the term ''ʾadn ʾilm rbm'' meaning "the Lord of the Great Gods" is used to refer to the lord and father over deceased kings. Some think that this is a reference to Baal. Other suggest this is a reference to a human

necromancer Necromancy () is the practice of magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events and discover hidden knowledge. ...

, who was traveling to the land of the dead.

Karel van der Toorn Karel van der Toorn (born 8 March 1956 in The Hague) is a Dutch scholar of ancient religions. From 2006 to 2011 he was chairman of the Board at the University of Amsterdam, where he was a professor from 1998 until he became the chairman. Van der ...

disagrees; he believes that it is a reference to Milku, Yaqar or

Yarikh Yarikh (Ugaritic: , , "moon"), or Yaraḫum, was a moon god worshiped in the Ancient Near East. He is best attested in sources from the Amorite city of Ugarit in the north of modern Syria, where he was one of the principal deities. His primary cul ...

, or possibly El.

Ugarit Ugarit (; , ''ủgrt'' /ʾUgarītu/) was an ancient port city in northern Syria about 10 kilometers north of modern Latakia. At its height it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate. It was discovered by accident in 19 ...

family households were modeled after the structure of the divine world, each headed by an '' ʾadn'' meaning in this context "master" or "patron". Generally, this was the

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and ...

of the family and there may be some relation between ''ʾadn'' and the Ugarit word for "father", ''ʾad''.

Etymology

The name of the Greek god

Adonis In Greek mythology, Adonis (; ) was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone. He was considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity. The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip ...

is similar to a Semitic word—''adon'' (which means "

lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage o ...

"). Scholar

Walter Burkert Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of student ...

stated about the hypothetical deity "Adon" : "''there is in Semitic tradition no known cult connected with this title which corresponds exactly to the Greek cult, to say the nothing of a counterpart to the Greek Adonis myth''" but for the cult of Adonis points to an inherited tradition stemming directly from the Mesopotamian cult of Tammuz-Dumuzid

R. S. P. Beekes Robert Stephen Paul Beekes (; 2 September 1937 – 21 September 2017) was a Dutch linguist who was emeritus professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University and an author of many monographs on the Proto-Indo-European langu ...

''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 23 "Supposed to be a loan from Semitic (Hebr. adon 'Lord'). But no cult connected with this name is known in the Semitic world, nor a myth parallel to that in Greece".Burkert (1991) p. 177 note 6 bibliography. "For this reason the connection between the cults was called in question both by Greek scholars (P. Kretschmer, Glotta 7 (1916) 39; G. Zuntz, MH 8 (195 1) 34) and also by Near Eastern scholars (H. Frankfort, The Problem of Similarity in Ancient Near Eastern Religions, 1951; C. Colpe in lišan mithurti: Festschrift W. v. Soden, 1969, 23). Cf. O. Eissfeldt, Adonis und Adonaj, SB Leipzig 115.4, 1970. S. Ribichini, Adonis, Aspetti ‘orientali’ di un mito greco, 1981, stresses the Greek re-elaborations of foreign elements." .."For all that, there is in Semitic tradition no known cult connected with this title which corresponds exactly to the Greek cult, to say the nothing of a counterpart to the Greek Adonis myth." .."What can be identified is the spread of the Mesopotamian Dumuzi-Tammuz cult" https://archive.org/details/greekreligion0000burk/page/176/mode/2up?q=adon&view=theater

Hebrew Bible

In the Hebrew Bible, ''adoni'', with the suffix for the first person possessive, means "my lord", and is a term of respect that may refer to God or to a human superior,1 Kings 1:31 or occasionally an angel, whereas ''adonai'' (literally "my lords") is reserved for God alone. In Jewish tradition, the pluralization can be used to distinguish God from earthly lords and to increase his majesty. However, many modern critical scholars see the use of a plural as a remnant of a

polytheistic Polytheism is the belief in or worship of more than one Deity, god. According to Oxford Reference, it is not easy to count gods, and so not always obvious whether an apparently polytheistic religion, such as Chinese folk religions, is really so, ...

past, with the word only later coming to refer to

, the single god of Judaism. It is thought that at least some biblical authors used the word originally in a polytheist sense.

References

{{Names of God Ancient Semitic religions Baal Phoenician mythology West Semitic gods El (deity) Adonis Yahweh

Ugaritic tradition

Etymology

Hebrew Bible

See also

References