Answerer

I think this had been rised before. But I'm still curious (since there is no satisifactory answers yet), how is Akhenaten, the heretic and first monotheist king of Egypt related to Moses?

Is Moses a mythically forged version of that king or is the king actually related to Moses?

The only thing I know about them is that they lived around the same era.

Ok, I know some of you are going to say that Moses has been a lie or non-existed due to a lack of evidences. But other than that (And some other lame jokes) , is there other explanations for the apparent similarity between the two people.

Thanks.........

Benni72

It doesn't seem to me that the two had anything important in common besides henotheism and upbringing at the Egyptian court (which is considered legendary in the case of Moses, due to its similarity to many other stories about great rulers/leaders such as Sargon, Cyrus, Romulus, Arthur etc.)

Those few secular historians that acknowledge the historicity of Moses date him some 150 years after Akhenaten.

Sheshbazzar

This question has been known to generate considerable ire.

spin

There are a number of problems:

1. Though Akhenaten forbad the worship of other gods, did he believe that there was only one?
2. Did Moses exist?
3. If so, when?
4. Yahweh is certainly not monotheistic in the 8th c. BCE in Palestine, for he has a consort called Asherah according to two separate inscriptions (Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom), so what relation could the possible monothesism of Akhenaten with the only late monotheism of Judaism?

spin

Agemegos

There is an interesting if somewhat speculative essay on the development of Akenaten's religious reforms here.

baloria

No relation between Moses and any Egyptian king.
As clearly exposed by Professor Thomas Thompson (The Early History of
Ancient Israelites) and as accepted by the Church:
-the first five books of the OT are fictious
-Moses as a person never existed;myth
Baloria

Sheshbazzar

The Scriptures are forthright in recording the continual apostasy of the 'chosen people' from monotheism, so evidence of polytheism is to be expected even according to the Biblical record.
The question is, did monotheism did exist at all? (or does it even exist today, given all of the provable evidences that there are some who are presently not monotheistic?)
Similar to the old conundrum "which came first, the chicken or the egg?,
Further questions;
Did the first commandment of the Decalogue exist in the 8th c. BCE?
Did the Shema exist before or during the 8th c. BCE?
Which would likely come into being first, monotheism, or the statements establishing and popularizing the concepts of monotheism?
Thousands of individuals were directly involved in the carrying out of Akhenaten's 'reforms', and the lives of tens of thousands more were directly affected, (the older established priesthoods being banned and persecuted) and the welfare of the entire nation indirectly (confusion, and lack of respect for the King and his new religion)
Certainly, giving the span of time,(circa 1300 BCE) and the number of individuals that were affected both directly and indirectly, the surrounding nations would have soon heard enough of Akhenaten's religion to begin evolving their own peculiar versions of monotheism.
In as much as the established religious cults and priesthoods held the political power, the introduction of these monotheistic ideas would be an effective ploy by insurrectionists who wished to supplant the older power structures that had left them feeling disenfranchised.

Jayhawker Soule

May I ask your criteria for "satisifactory answers"?

spin

There should be many more questions. Why is the first commandment, you shall have no other god beside the Lord your god? What was wrong with the other gods? Monotheism was clearly not an option at that time.

What actually hppened was that Akhenaten sequestered himself away from his populace and didn't really give two hoots about them. He put all his other energy into building his city Akhetaten and left the rest of the country to be administered by those who were. He managed the country through them and looked after foreign affairs from Akhetaten. His religion had absolutely no effect on the general population, so little so that when Tutankhaten moved back to Thebes and changed his name, there was no sign after that point in time of any knowledge of the crazy king who let his country go to ruin. There was no penetration of the religion into the common religion. It was a royal religion. And after his death no trace of it carried on. His temples were destroyed very quickly and used as fill for the mainstream religion. So this isolated religion cannot be seen as having any effect on anything other than leaving the memory of the troubles during the period which would have been a good indication that things were back to normal with Amun.

Number of people affected: zilch, none, nada. The number of people is wishful thinking regarding an elitist religion, whose principal purpose seemed to remove the priests of Amun from exercising the power they had developed because of their hand in the liberation of the country from the Hyksos.

We have good witness of the surrounding countries at the time from the Amarna letters (found at Akhetaten) and they were all very busy doing their own thing and Akhenaten certainly would not have had any interest in spreading his personal religion to foreigners. That would have been seen as totally below his dignity.

It was an effective ploy by Akhenaten to divest the priests of Amun of having to much influence. Pity he died with no real line to follow him.

As to your musings about insurrection, you must be joking. You have totally no idea of the religion of Akhenaten and how it worked. It was one centred around his intervention and supplication to the sun. High courtiers were the few who had access to the religion. Nearly all the graves of those who were buried with Atenistic symbols were desecrated soon after its fall. Very little sign of Aten exists outside Akhetaten, and then only in rich tombs, not accessible to anyone but the rich family.

It's a vain hope to try to tie the apparent monotheism with the late Jewish monotheism, especially when there is no evidence of a monotheistic religion in Judah in the interim -- in fact the opposite is attested.


spin

andrewcriddle

A connection of some sort has been suggested between Psalm 104 and Akhenaten's 'Hymn to Aten' but direct derivation would seem unilkely.

Andrew Criddle