Zarw, modern Kantara East, was the centre of the land of Goshen where the Israelites dwelt, and in the same location where Moses was born. What in the world?!? Unfortunately, Moses lived around three-hundred years earlier — the story of the Exodus covers a period between 1657 and 1512 BCE. Akhenaten’s Monotheism is Historic!!! Defying centuries of traditional worship of the Egyptian pantheon, Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten decreed during his reign in the mid-14th century B.C.E. It is possible that both successors were Akhenaten's sons by Thank you BAR for being open minded and a little blasphemous at times! Some scholars parrot the idea that David, in Psalm 104 , copied Akhenaten’s hymn to the Aten. Exodus in the Bible and the Egyptian Plagues. […] Just as I concluded a series of posts addressing Moses and the Exodus and its relationship to Akhenaten’s revolution I see Bible History Daily has picked up the theme and renewed the momentum with an article Akhenaten and Moses. Commentary on Genesis: I haven’t yet received the new issue, so I don’t know whether he mentions this, but Fagan is not the first to suggest the connection. 40 years in the desert? c. It When the foreigners were expelled, whether by the end of the Hyksos reign or the Exodus, this influence was removed and Egypt reverted back to its traditional polytheism. If he was influenced to monotheism by Egypt then god is no different than the Egyptian gods. There were NO Israelites before Abraham! He was the youngest son of the couple. that his subjects were to worship only one god: the sun-disk Aten. It should be clarified that it is the root of the personal name Arpachasad (Genesis 11:10), “chasad,” that is thought to be derived from the place-name “Kashdu” in Akkadian, the Hebrew “Kasdim.” It is interesting that the first 3 sons of Shem; Elam, Asshur and Arpachasad, that are listed in the earlier compilation by the Jehovist writer around the 10th century B.C.E., are also the kingdoms that spawned rulers who did what Akhenaten in breaking with tradition: If Moses was before Akhenaten, than that may have been where Akhenaten got the idea of the one God. Remember he sat with Aaron and Moses in the Presence of the One true living God. Always trying to discredit the Bible. One man seems to imply that Akhenaten’s motives stemmed from the fact that he was Moses himself – the man depicted in the old testament of the Bible. Any suggestion that the monotheism of Moses’ writings derived from Egyptian influence is therefore completely without foundation. Stories like these led me to drop my subscription to BAR. In this fully secular analysis, the chronology of the Hebrew patriarchs is for the first time coherently synchronized to external history, matching at multiple points across centuries. If a dozen slaves escaped it would have been recorded – 2 million? In response to some of the comments here, I recommend Robert Wright, The Evolution of God (Little, Brown 2009). Egypt realized that the God of Moses was the one true God, because they experienced the plagues and saw that the God of Moses protected his people while destroying Egypt, which was oppressing them. There is also uncertainty about the relationship between Akhenaten and The Great Hymn to the Aten is the longest of a number of hymn-poems written to the sun-disk deity Aten.Composed in the middle of the 14th century BC, it is varyingly attributed to the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten or his courtiers, depending on the version, who radically changed traditional forms of Egyptian religion by replacing them with Atenism.. No, it was the other way around. Sincerely…. in the shape of men…” time, Akhenaten's mother, Queen Tiye, visits Akhetaten, Coregency between Akhenaten and Smenkhkare, Seat of government transferred to Akhetaten. Long ago when reading a book now out of print called THE LAST HERETIC about Akhenaten the author translated some of his hymns of praise to the one true God as he understood Him and I was moved by how much they sounded like the Psalms of David. It is interesting for anyone to try to place Moses with Akhenaten, when we Can see Solomon was this pharaoh’s son in-law. Though the claim is made that a form of monotheism existed during the reigns of Pharaohs Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton), when the worship of the sun-god Aton became nearly exclusive, it was not a true monotheism. pushing from above and below Assmann, Jan, From Akhenaten to Moses: Ancient Egypt and Religious Change (The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 2016). Sign up to receive our email newsletter and never miss an update. He reigned 17 years and died in 1341 BC. Apparently this section in the book of Proverbs is the fruitful bounty of the studies of the generation of Hezekiah in the late 8th century, who allegedly (according to the Talmud) hung a sword in a prominent place and decreed that whoever did not study would be pierced with the sword. Moses stole the Pharaoh’s gold and that was why the Pharaoh was chasing him. JR Audet, And there is also this theory: That Moses was Akhenaten: TIMELINE OF AKHENATEN. According to Rabbi Joseph Gikatalia who wrote the “Gates of Light” in Spain during the early 14th century, the divine name Adonay is likened to a gate through which the heavenly realm is accessible: I see far more politics in the move than religious motivations. There hundreds of gods worshiped in Canaan before the Israelites even existed. IV. But then isn’t the Aten the supreme monad, the Christian / Hermetic ‘pearl of great price’? He was the first! Birth of Ankhsenamun, daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, wife of Tutankhamun. Combine a one-year tablet and print subscription to BAR with membership in the BAS Library to start your journey into the ancient past today! In MOSES THE EGYPTIAN Jan Assman makes just this argument in 2003. References. Commentator FAMiniter #30 made a good point concerning the 2nd commandment’s prohibition of the worship of other gods besides Yahweh as being a monolatric belief that recognizes one supreme god while acknowledging the existence of other gods. It’s more reasonable to assume Akhenaten borrowed from the psalm which would make its original author Moses or perhaps Joseph or some other Israelite. One of the earliest attempts at monotheism was made by Menes (perhaps identical with Narmer), the first pharaoh of a united Egypt, c. 3100 B.C.E. Because of Joseph’s position and his achievements, he and those born into his household (the household of his father, Jacob) were treated with respect for many years — even centuries — after his death. Some even reject its historicity. And this created no need for the priesthood, who had all the treasure. Sometimes archaeology will tell us things different to the Bible but don’t shoot the messenger! http://www.maat.sofiatopia.org/aten.htm#6.3a. Moses was an adopted son/son-in-law who was a believer in the one god religion of Akhenaten. The iconography of the two serpents aside the Aten also appear alongside the standard solar-disk, ie of Ra, making them quite ubiquitous. He had 40 years to teach Moses. Ahken-ATEN, was the pharaoh who was convinced of monotheism by one of his advisors Zaraph-Panea, who ix none other than the Biblical Patriarch Joseph, son of Jacob. … 1339: 10: Birth of Neferneferuaten: 1338: 11: Birth of Neferneferure and Setepenre: 1337: 12 The final mystery of Akhenaten was what became of his mummy. This guy is a visionary who turns away from the state pantheon of gods, and instead, turns Egypt to the worship of a single deity known as the Aten -- the disk of the sun. Psalm 82 has God meeting with his divine council. I feel dumber for having looked at this page. Cult, ritual and mythology were anathematized, literature edited to remove unwanted allusions. . COPYRIGHT © 2021 BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY SOCIETY 5614 Connecticut Ave NW #343, Washington DC 20015-2604. This had to with an instruction to read a translation from right to left but it should be left to right. However, in none of these cases was the attempt altogether successful” (“Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East” by Michael Roaf, p. 143). I read it’s pages for scholarly discussion on issues that she’d light on the Bible, its writers and those who lived it’s stories. Am a pastor .am so exited and l won’t to know ore this history thanks. “May he set thee forever and ever; may he endow thee with jubilees like the numbers of the shore, when measured with an ipet-rod; like reckoning the sea when measured with zawets, (or) a statement of the numbering of the mountains when weighed in the balances; (of) the feathers of the birds, (or) the leaves of the trees, in jubilees for the king, Wanre (Ikhanaton)” (Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. (2002). Referred to in Assyrian chronicles as the land of “Naharaim,” (rivers) it became “Aram Naharaiim” in Genesis 24:10, which neatly links this with the Genesis 22:22 reference to Abraham’s uncle Nahor, whose name means river. Was Akhenaten’s monotheism the progenitor of Israelite monotheism? Why couldnt Moses religion just as easily influence Akhenaten? As Jude said thy would ‘slip in to the church ‘ even’ denying the Lord that bought them.’, 5. Did the monotheism of Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten influence Moses? In “Did Akhenaten’s Monotheism Influence Moses?” in the July/August 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, University of California, Santa Barbara, emeritus professor of anthropology Brian Fagan discusses this tantalizing question. Did his brother die with the first born of Egypt? And the Library is fully searchable by topic, author, title and keyword, as well as the Special Collections like this one. I believe we can make the most sense of this puzzle if we connect the Pharaoh Akhenaten to the Hebrew prophet Moses. Again, in 1 Kings 22, Yahweh presides over a meeting of the host of heaven. Whether Akhenaten, himself, really believed it or not, would be immaterial in that case. Syncretism was no longer possible: Akhenaten’s god does not accept and absorb—he excludes and annihilates. a. What I read was that this is a thought, but the concepts are mutually exclusive, as noted in the following quote: According to BAR author Brian Fagan, we are talking about two different kinds of monothesisms: Monotheism predated the Egyptians and their Pharaohs,Noah’s family was monotheistic. Even $5 helps: In the BAR article “The Monotheism of the Heretic Pharaoh,” Donald B. Redford, who excavated Akhenaten’s earliest temple at Karnak (in modern Thebes), describes how Akhenaten instituted worship of Aten: The cult of the Sun-Disk emerged from an iconoclastic “war” between the “Good God” (Akhenaten), and all the rest of the gods. Amenhotep IV continues work on pylons started by his father at Spiritual and moral qualities lacking. An interesting thought. Akhenaten saw himself as Aton’s earthly manifestation. The book is free for BAS Library members. . It is a glaring omission to discuss early monotheism sans the Hebrew patriarch. Which means that Ahkenaten tried to institute Monotheism right as Joshua and the other “Apiru” (stateless nomads) were taking over Canaan. He would NOT have replaced it with another of the same type. The evidence from the Berlin Pedestal would indicate that Israel was already acknowledged as a people in the southern levant during the reign of Amunhotep II. The monotheists, followed Moses when he fled from Egypt. The tree of life growing in the middle of the garden (Genesis 2:9) represents the attributes of God numbering 10 that were described as the spheres of the heavenly bodies;consisting of the 7 planets, over which was the realm of the fixed stars, over which was the primordial starting point of it all, the fount of wisdom, located on the tip of the letter ‘yod’ which is the first letter of the name YHVH. Reign of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's father, 'Heretic King' of Egypt. Your hypothesis might have some merit, had both Akhenaten and Moses lived during the same period. Judaism did emerge as a monotheistic belief system until the 7th century BCE (600-700). Re, Official family, with all six of Nefertiti's daughters shown for last That Spirit is always strengthened in my life when gaining information about the culture and practices of ancient peoples and God works through all of us to manifest the Love Christ died to bring into the world. Akhenaten became Pharaoh in 1358 BC only 2 years before Joshua died in 1356 BC. No? There is only one God…and he’s been around allot longer then Moses. Akhenaten claimed to be the only one who had access to Aten, thus making an interceding priesthood unnecessary. If you’re going to have to pay for your sins you need a Savior. This should be “Biblical” Archaeology.com. As stated above, scholars are divided regarding dating of the Exodus, though probably not evenly. There are similarities with this notion and with the ancient Egyptian company of the gods known as the “Ennead” that is usually comprised of 9 nine gods, but in the pyramid text of Teta the 1st pharaoh of the 6th dynasty we have a reference to a company of 18 gods that consist of 9 male and 9 female gods (“The Gods of the Egyptians” by E.A. Read the book of Exodus. Life of Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Akhenaten was an Egyptian Pharaoh who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC. It is more likely, therefore, that Joseph — and particularly his father Jacob (Israel) — introduced the concept of monotheism into the religious landscape that existed in Egypt at that time. It also contained a straight main hallway, while in all other tombs the main corridor … I wll not state my opinion of this article, I just want you to realize that “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”. Long before there were the 10 commandments and Moses there were the 42 negative confessions of maat known of and followed by the egyptians (africans).