Adon

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In Ancient Semitic religion, specifically Canaanite religion, the term Adon (ʾdwn, Hebrew אדון, from a triliteral "hollow" root D-I-N or D-W-N, cognate with Akkadian adannu "mighty"^{[citation needed]}), literally "lord, patron", has been in use as a theonym from the Late Bronze Age at least, contrasting with Ba`al "master".

In Canaanite (Ugaritic) tradition, ʾadn ilm, literally "lord of gods" is an epithet of El, but ʾadn could also be an epithet of other gods, especially Tammuz. The epithet of Tammuz enters Greek tradition as a proper name, Adonis, the youthful lover of Aphrodite.

Hebrew tradition makes Adon "lord" or Adonai "my lord" an epithet of the God of Israel, depicted as the chief antagonist of "the Ba`als" in the Tanakh. The epithet came to be used as an euphemism to avoid invoking the deity's proper name, Yahweh.

Adonis is a "Semitic divine title equipped with a Greek ending" derived from adon; by the time of Sappho, a cult worshiping Adonis had emerged in Ancient Greece.^[1]

In Ugaritic texts, ʾdn in its meaning as "lord" appears a number of times. Used to refer to the lord and father over deceased kings, the term ʾadn ʾilm rbm (meaning "the Lord of the Great Gods"),^[2] is thought by some scholars^[who?] to be a divine epiteph of Ba`al,^{[dubious – discuss]} while others think it refers to El, Mardikh, Yaqar or Yarikh.^[3][4] ʾAdn ʾilm (meaning "the Lord of Gods") also appears in the texts to refer to El, and when Yam is described in at being at the height of his power, he is proclaimed ʾadn or "lord (of the gods).^[4]

Ugarit 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 of the family and there may be some relation between ʾadn and the Ugarit word for "father", ʾad.^[5]

Bibliography

• van der Toorn, K.; Becking, Bob; van der Horst, Pieter Willem (1999), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible: DDD, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 0-8028-2491-9, 9780802824912 
• Gesenius, Hebrew Lexicon, s.v. ADWN, DWN
• Cook, Stephen L.; Morse, Jane; Patton, Corrine; Watts, James Washington (2001), The Whirlwind: Essays on Job, Hermeneutics and Theology in Memory of Jane Morse, ISBN 1-84127-243-4, 9781841272436 
• Gordon, Cyrus Herzl; Rendsburg, Gary; Winter, Nathan H. (1987), Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, EISENBRAUNS 
• Houtsma, M. Th. (1987), E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936, BRILL, ISBN 90-04-08265-4, 97890040826 
• Hughes, Thomas Patrick; Hughes, Patrick (1996), A Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopaedia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs, Together With the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan Religion, Asian Educational Services, ISBN 81-206-0672-8, 9788120606722 
• Van Dijk-Hemmes, Fokkelien; Becking, Bob; Dijkstra, Meindert (1996), On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender-specific and Related Studies in Memory of Fokkelien Van Dijk-Hemmes, BRILL, ISBN 90-04-10274-4, 9789004102743 
• West, Martin Litchfield (1997), The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-815221-3, 978019815221 

See also

• Adonaist

References