When YHWH became ADONAI by slaveofone
The question of where and when the use of Adonai replaced YHWH in Jewish literature and liturgy has always interested me, but I never gave it much thought. And then today when I read this, my jaw literally dropped.
The rabbis taught: The year when Simeon the Upright had to die, he told the sages:
Children, know ye that this year I am going to die.They asked him:How dost thou know?He said:Every year when I entered and left the Holy of Holies, I was accompanied by one old man, dressed in white and enveloped in white; but this year it was an old man attired in black and in a black turban, and he entered with me but did not go out with me.And after the festivals, he got sick, and died. And thenceforth priests ceased to bless Israel with the name of Jehovah, but usedAdonai.Babylonian Talmud, Seder Mo’ed, Tractate Yoma, Chapter IV
If this can be taken as at least semi-historical, it indicates that the blessings were changed at about the time that Alexander the Great and Hellenism conquered the world. Judaism was fundamentally and forever changed by this new era in almost every respect. It makes sense to think that the one people (literally the only people) in the entire Greek world who in their best moments would have nothing to do with the Greek gods even if it meant the destruction of their entire nation, might do something to at least present their non-Greek god in a light that could be more readily understood and favored by the Greeks who surrounded them and constantly looked on with suspicion or distrust. It seems more than mere coincidence that the name Adonai, which is not only very Greek-sounding, but almost the same as the name of the Greek god, Adonis, one of Aphrodite’s lovers, and who’s child was the ancient land of Lebanon at the outskirts of Israel, would come into use at that time.