Since it is a large subject, it's hard to know where to start. I'll start with the Torah, and with Moses. In Shemot/Exodus 4:10, we learn that Moses was "slow of speech," not eloquent," and that his tongue was slow. Why? Because Hebrew was not his first language. He had grown up in the Pharaoh's household, speaking Egyptian. In fact, the name that Pharaoh's daughter gave him after she rescued him from a basket smeared with pitch to allow it to float safely on the river was an Egyptian name: Moses. This name means "he is born," and it is one of the elements in many Egyptian royal names, such as "Tutmosis" (Thoth is born), and Ramoses (Ra is born). When G-d spoke to Moses from a burning bush, it is reasonable to assume that G-d spoke to Moses in Egyptian, and that Moses wrote down the Ten Commandments on two stone tablets--in Egyptian. Alphabetic Phoenician/Old Hebrew writing either did not yet exist or had not yet come into common use as early as 1290 BCE, the assumed approximate date of the Exodus.
Because the name of G-d is sacred (literally "set apart"), Jews do not even try to pronounce it. When one sees the Tetragrammaton (יהוה) in a text, one says instead "adonai." If you look up the word "adon" in a Hebrew dictionary, you will find that it means "lord" (with a small "l"). So "adonai" means "my lord."
Now, it has been claimed by many (especially E. A. Wallis Budge, Champollion-Figeac, and Brugsch) that Egyptian religion was always monotheistic and the many divine names were just forms of a chief deity. But, depending on which priesthood you consulted,that chief deity was Amun, Ptah, or some other. What we know for sure is that Egypt had a truly monotheistic Pharaoh about two generations before the assumed date of the Exodus (ca. 1290 BCE). His original name was Akhenamun (which I believe means "Image of Amun"), but after he decided that the Aton, or disk of the sun, should be worshiped exclusively, he changed his name to Akhenaton (Image of the Aton).
[Note on the spelling of Egyptian words: Egyptian, like Hebrew and Arabic, did not write most of the vowels. Neither is it really possible to reconstruct the mystery vowels from Coptic, the latest form of the Egyptian language, which was written in a modified Greek alphabet, because Coptic had four or five different dialects, with different vowels. But Wallis-Budge wanted the words to be somewhat pronounceable, so he represented unknown vowels with a neutral "e," and most English scholars followed his lead. Thus, we see forms such as Akhenaten, Aten, and neter. We know from inscriptions in other writing systems that the last of these forms, which means "a god," a member of the company of the gods," was actually pronounced "nuter." But Budge continued to write "neter" anyway. Recognizing that this was misleading, the German scholars did not try to identify what was unknown, and used apostrophes and other symbols for the mystery vowels. In Spanish today, we see "Akhenatón," which is probably accurate.]
Going back to "adonai," it is easy to imagine that "My Atón" became an honorary form of address among the monotheists of Akhenaton's reign, especially for the Pharaoh.. The expression can therefore be dated to about forty years before the assumed date of the Exodus.
(to be continued)
Text Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
