שְׁמַע יִשׂראאֵ יהוה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יהוה אֶחָד׃
The verse above is Devarim (Deuteronomy) 6:4, The "Shema" that is fundamental to Judaism as we know it. When one says it, one says "Sh'ma yisrael adonai eloheynu adonai echad." The meaning is "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." It is a reaction to surrounding polytheism, either that of Egypt or that of the neighboring tribes. But one does not pronounce the name YHVH, the Tetragrammaton; instead, one says "adonai," which conventionally means "Lord."
I say "conventionally" because the word must originally have had a different meaning. In fact, I think it is Egyptian, by the look of it. In Egyptian it would mean "my Aton." "Aton" in ancient Egyptian meant the disk of the sun, worshiped by Pharaoh Ahkenaton during Egypt's short monotheistic period. It is easy to imagine that "Atonai/Adonai" was the customary title that one used when addressing this pharaoh, and that among his followers it came to simply mean "my lord." The pharaoh was God's representative on earth.
By the way, the alternate spelling "Aten" came from E. A. Wallis Budge, "Late Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum." The ancient Egyptians did not write vowels, so when the exact character of a vowel was not known, Budge inserted a neutral "e" vowel, to make the language more pronounceable. It turned out to be a pernicious habit that created a lot of misunderstanding. It had a big influence, though, because he translated more Egyptian texts than anyone else.
Anyway, as many scholars have pointed out, Moses, if he existed, probably lived in the century after Akhenaton's death. when the Egyptian monotheists were being persecuted. As many have pointed out, the name "Moses" is Egyptian, and means "is born" or "son." For example, "Tutmoses" means "Thoth is born," or "Son of Thoth." If we take the Biblical stories literally, Moses was raised by a princess of the Egyptian royal family. He would have spoken Egyptian fluently, but could not communicate well in Hebrew, so he had his brother Aaron speak for him.
Moses' monotheism was probably the monotheism of the Aton, the disk of the sun. But Moses never got to enter the Promised Land so his influenced waned. The Aton, a benefic god who was the giver of all life, came to be replaced by YHVH (exact pronunciation long forgotten, and I wouldn't say it even if I knew it, so strong is that stricture). The god represented by the Tetragrammaton was probably a fierce god of the Midianites, who was to be feared.
We find many other Deity-names in the Bible. Most of them, such as El, are Canaanite. It appears that the Hebrews were strongly influenced, at least for a time, by Canaanite religion. Evidence for this can be found, for example, in Psalm 106, which speaks of them having sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.
The exact meaning and etymology of the "Shaddai" in "El Shaddai" is not known, but it does not look like Hebrew to me.
The thing to remember, it seems to me, is that what we think of as "Judaism" is really Rabbinic Judaism, and it comes from a much later and more evolved period. There are plenty of clues, in the Bible and elsewhere, to less evolved beliefs and practices, but they do not represent the religion that resonates with me.
Text © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
