Pharaoh Akhenaten making an offering to Aten, the Sun Disc God. Akhenaten threw out all the other gods declaring Aten as the only true God.
In obscure corners of the internet, there are people muttering the explosive theory that Pharonic Egypt was the source and inspiration of all Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Abrahamic religions are the original and main religions that declare there is but one true God. The common belief is that before Abraham, all was animism, polytheism and a polyglot of who-knows-what. The idea that the Ancient Egyptians, the land of many gods, actually deserve monotheistic credit revolves around the revolutionary actions (this is not a phrase I use lightly) of one man: Akhenaten. Pharoah Akhenaten bent all of Egyptian society to his will. By decree, he threw out the old polytheistic religion, traditions and leaders. In their place, Akhenaten ushered in a new monotheistic religion and concomitant culture. In this new regime, only Akhenaten himself could speak to, and for, the one and only true God. In short, he tore down the old gods, cut off the priest at the knees; confiscated priestly wealth; seized all temples and sacred land; and buiit a gleaming new capital that included a new royal estate. All these steps reinforced this new social order that had only one true God with Akhenaten at the center of all. These sweeping changes were a true revolution, but it did not outlive Akhenaten. This monotheistic vision died with its creator. The old order of priests, nobles and syncopanths rushed in to fill the vacuum created by Akhenaten’s death. The traditional religion of many gods flourished again.
Q: How can Pharaoh Akhenaten be the Primogenitor of Christianity? A: Moses
Akhenaten was the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty ruling from 1353 – 1334 B.C.E., during the New Kingdom. He was the first major leader in the world to advocate monotheism. Akhenaten – not Abraham, not Moses – was the first ruler to lead his people to one true God. The ideas of Akhenaten spread to the Hebrews, who picked up on Akhenaten’s vision of only one God. According to one source, Akhenaten proclaimed there existed only one true God seven hundred (700) years before Isaiah walked the earth. Akhenaten is the casual link to Christianity through the shared beliefs the Hebrews may got from Egyptian sources during the 400 years of links between the Hebrews in Levant and Pharaohs in Egypt. That is all indirect conjecture: the “smoking gun” of this direct link is Moses himself.
Moses, a founding father, leader, and prophet of the early Judaic Hebrews came after Akhenaten. However, Moses started out his life as an Egyptian prince. For example, Moses had an Egyptian name. The name Moses is derived from Egyptian mose (“is born”) and is found in such names as the Pharaoh Thutmose (Thutmose = The God Thoth Is Born). Originally, it is inferred, Moses’ name was longer, but the second name of deity was lost. Moses is supposed to have learnt the truth about the one God from Akhenaten’s surviving priests in hiding. Moses absorbed this teaching and took it’s wisdom with him upon his fleeing Egypt. Moses then propagated this Egyptian inspired belief among the Hebrews. Moses’ teaching combined with other Egyptian influence on the Hebrews laid the groundwork for the monotheism of the Abrahamic religions.
Some authors contend that Akhenaten and King David were contemporaries lending some support to the idea that cross fertilization of ideas was realistic. This idea sounds good but most scholars think the dates of Akhenaten and David do not line up.
There are many scholarly and lay support for this frankly disturbing proposition, that the Egyptians are the well springs of Abrahamic religions, including Sigmund Freud himself. Freud, in 1939 wrote a whole book entitled, “Moses and Monotheism”. To summarize his longer argument, Freud wrote: “if Moses was an Egyptian and that if he transmitted to the Jews his own religion, then it was that of Akhenaten, the Aten religion.”
How did the Controversial Akhenaten Convert Egypt to Monotheism?
Akhenaten fathered Tutankhamun, married Nefertiti, and was one of the most original thinkers of his era. Then why was the pharoah Akhenaten often dismissed in Egyptian history as a madman for his solitary vision of only one true God? For the first five years of his reign, he was Pharaoh Amenhotep IV: the keeper of the traditional faith, supporting the belief on many Gods spearheaded by Amun-Ra, the god of sun and air. After five years, Amenhotep converted to the beliefs of a small cult that worshipped Aten, the sun disc. Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten, which translates to: “of great use to the God Aten.” The problem, or opportunity, with his personal conversion to this obscure cult, was that Akhenaten was the infallible, all powerful Pharaoh. Akhenaten made his personal epiphany into state policy, empire wide. Thus Akhenaten decreed: out with the old religion, traditions and culture. In with the one true God, Aten. Lucky for him, Akhenaten was Aten’s one and only beloved Son, and the only mediator between Aten and the people. Akhenaten described himself as “thy son who came forth from thy limbs”, “thy child”, “the eternal son that came forth from the Sun-Disc”, and “thine only son that came forth from thy body”. The close relationship between father and son is such that only the king truly knows the heart of “his father”, and in return his father listens to his son’s prayers. Akhenaten alone could interpret that will for all mankind with true teaching coming only from him. This Egyptian belief that the divine-like leader was the “son of god” echos in Christian ethos. It is hard to believe the early Christians came up with these ideas in a vacuum.
Akhenaten’s revolution had a lot of socio-economic effects on Egypt. This religious upgrade to monotheism dovetailed nicely with resolving contemporary conflicts for Akhenaten. For millennium, the Egyptian priesthood (usually working with nobles) were the keeper of the true religion, and cultivated worship of the gods. However, in the few centuries before Akhenaten’s time, the priesthood had gained in power and rivaled the Pharaoh. In fact, under Akhenaten’s predecessors, the priesthood owned more land than the royal family! Through his conversion, Akhenaten was able to minimize the priesthood, seize their land and temples, and destroy the old order. A new order emerged and Pharaoh was now both sole executive and religious authority. Akhenaten sealed this dream of a new order by ordering the building of Amarna, a new administrative capital and royal residences. This new city was constructed in the empty sands 30 miles away from the historic capital of Thebes, (now known as Luxor). Akhenaten was in a hurry: he had 10,000 workers toil endlessly with many dropping in place — including a large percentage of laborers who were children, teens, slaves, and other disposables. During its heyday of fifteen years, Amarna had a population of between 20,000 to 30,000 of which 10% where the wealthy elite. Below are two examples of 3-D reconstructions of just small sections of Amarna, (amarnaproject.com)
View to the ‘north’ along what was probably the principal thoroughfare leading from the residential area to the government offices which were located behind the palaces and temples. One of the latter, the Small Aten Temple, is the white building in the left distance.
View to the ‘south’ from the Central City towards the housing area. The long central thoroughfare is the same one as appears in Figure 16. The foreground is occupied by the Great Aten Temple.
Akhenaten was focused on consolidating Pharaonic power and the cult of Aten. He neglected the usual tasks of protecting, shoring up and building the Empire. Allied states were threatened, attacked and overrun by invaders; Egypt’s enemies massed on its borders. Akhenaten did nothing. He was more concerned about promoting his image as a family flourishing under Aten as all Egyptians should. Only under Akhenaten did public depictions of a Pharaoh’s family emerge. The statues of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and children all together worshipping Aten reinforced the reality that Akhenaten was focused on family and Aten but not on foreign relations, or other pressing concerns of the empire. The displaced priest and nobles waiting him out. After Akhenaten’s death, the elites, and the public, branding him a heretic, despised as a despot and fool. Amarna, his new shiny capital city, flattened and forgotten. His son, the ill fated boy-Emperor Tutankhamum (King Tut) spent a lot of his short rule just negotiating the terms of Pharonic surrender to the other Egyptian elites. Power, prestige and property were restored to priests and nobles. Ultimately, the cult of Aten was erased entirely.
The Real LIterary and Religious Link between Akhenaten and Christianity
The Hymn to the Aten, is Egyptian state propaganda piece also served as a paen to Aten. The hymn exclaims that the source and sustainer of life was the sun god Aten; and is full of praise and adoration to the this particular god. Psalms 104 just like the Hymn to Aten is also about the creation and sustenance of life. The Psalm, written by King David, is in praise and adoration of the almighty God. The Psalm extolls God as the creator and sustainer of all existence in this world, including the sun. These two texts have very similar ideas, themes, and wording. But are they connected — is one poem derived from the other? According to Wikipedia: “In his 1958 book, Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis compared the Hymn to the Psalms of the Judaeo-Christian canon. James Henry Breasted noted the similarity to Psalm 104,[9] which he believed was inspired by the Hymn.[10] Arthur Weigall compared the two texts side by side and commented that “In face of this remarkable similarity one can hardly doubt that there is a direct connection between the two compositions; and it becomes necessary to ask whether both Akhnaton’s hymn and this Hebrew psalm were derived from a common Syrian source, or whether Psalm civ. is derived from this Pharaoh’s original poem. Both views are admissible.” Other scholarly sources, of course, pooh-pooh this idea. Please read the common highlights, and heck the whole poems below and you can decide for yourself if the earlier Egyptian hymn influenced this major Psalm poem, written by King David himself.
Project Augustine has made it easy to see the similarities in the two elegies. This makes your evaluation easier. Project Augustine is a thought provoking, ecumenical group found at: projectaugustine.com. Review the similarities and make your own inference if one text is derived (polite term for plagiarized) from the other:
| Hymn to Aten | Psalm 104 | |
| Sole God beside whom there is none! | YHWH my God you are very great. | |
| How many are your deeds … You made the earth as you wished, you alone, All peoples, herds, and flocks. | YHWH, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. | |
| When you set in western lightland, Earth is in darkness as if in death | You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. | |
| Every lion comes from its den | The young lions roar for their prey .. when the sun rises, they withdraw, and lie down in their dens. | |
| When you have dawned they live, When you set they die; | When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die | |
| You set every man in his place, You supply their needs; Everyone has his food. | These all look to you to give them their food in due season. | |
| The entire land sets out to work | People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening | |
| The fish in the river dart before you, Your rays are in the midst of the sea. | Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there | |
| Birds fly from their nests, Their wings greeting your ka | By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches | |
| He makes waves on the mountain like the sea, To drench their fields and their towns. | You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills … The trees of YHWH are watered abundantly |
Below are the two texts, shortened only for clarity:
After reviewing this post and drawing on your personal knowledge, what do you think? How much does the Abrahamic religions owe to Ancient Egypt as the wellsprings of monotheistic thought? In particular, how indebted are the Christians to Ancient Egypt as their inspiration? Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts.
HYMN OF ATEN How manifold it is, what thou hast made! They are hidden from the face (of man). O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou didst create the world according to thy desire, Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts, Whatever is on Earth, going upon (its) feet, And what is on high, flying with its wings. The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt, Thou settest every man in his place, Thou suppliest their necessities: Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned. Their tongues are separate in speech, And their natures as well; Their skins are distinguished, As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples. Thou makest a Nile in the underworld, Thou bringest forth as thou desirest To maintain the people (of Egypt) According as thou madest them for thyself, The lord of all of them, wearying (himself) with them, The lord of every land, rising for them, The Aton of the day, great of majesty.[7] From the last part of the text, translated by Miriam Lichtheim: You are in my heart, There is no other who knows you, Only your son, Neferkheprure, Sole-one-of-Re [Akhenaten], Whom you have taught your ways and your might. [Those on] Earth come from your hand as you made them. When you have dawned they live. When you set they die; You yourself are lifetime, one lives by you. All eyes are on [your] beauty until you set. All labor ceases when you rest in the west; When you rise you stir [everyone] for the King, Every leg is on the move since you founded the Earth. You rouse them for your son who came from your body. The King who lives by Maat, the Lord of the Two Lands, Neferkheprure, Sole-one-of-Re, The Son of Re who lives by Maat. the Lord of crowns, Akhenaten, great in his lifetime; (And) the great Queen whom he loves, the Lady of the Two Lands, Nefer-nefru-Aten Nefertiti, living forever.
PSALM 104 Bless thou the Lord, my soul—how great, O Lord, what a stupendous weight Of honours crown thy name; Thou'rt cloath'd with majesty and might, And glories how exceeding bright Come clust'ring on thy fame! With light, which thou hast purer made, As with a robe thou art array'd, Whose pow'r the world upholds; And hang'st the skies in beauteous blue, Wav'd like a curtain to the view, Down heav'n's high dome in folds. His chamber-beams in floods he shrouds, His chariots are the rolling clouds Upon th' etherial arch; And on the rapid winds their wings Majestical, the king of kings Walks in his awful march. The guardian spirits know their post, His heralds are th' angelic host Obedient to his will; The delegated lightnings fly, And flames are sent on embassy His mandates to fulfill. Fair and full-finished at her birth, Firm at the first he fixt the earth, And wrought her bases fast; Her deep foundations has he girt, That as the lively springs exert, Her state of rest might last. Upon the surface deep and wide Thou pouredst out the flowing tide, Like some loose garment spread; The rising waters stood around, And swoln above the level ground, O'ertop the mountain's head. But at the thunder of thy word Their inundations were deterr'd, And thy rebuke obey'd; And to the centre from the top, Th' unfathom'd ocean to a drop Was pacify'd and laid. As in the spirit I repeat His praise, my musings shall be sweet, To just refinement wrought; Yea, while I yet suppress my voice, To thee, O Lord, will I rejoice In melody of thought. The men, by carnal sins entic'd, Must fall before the rod of Christ, Confounded and amaz'd;— Praise thou the Lord, my soul apart— Praise ye, who hear with voice and heart— The Lord our God be prais'd.