Akhenaten and Egyptian Monotheism

During the Eighteenth Dynasty, a Pharaoh named Amenhotep IV (Amenophis IV) came to power. He  rejected the traditional gods of Egypt and renamed himself Akhenaten. Aten, a sun god represented as a solar disk with stylized rays of light emanating from it, became Akhenaten's deity. A number of critical scholars who place Moses in the Nineteenth Dynasty during the reign of Ramesses II suggest that the Israelites were monotheistic because they were influenced by the monotheism of Akhenaten. This is untrue for at least a couple of reasons.

First, biblical evidence suggests that the Exodus occurred during the Eighteen Dynasty, years before Akhenaten became the Pharaoh of Egypt. According to 1 Kings 6:1, the Exodus occurred in 1446 B.C., decades before Akhenaten’s reign.

Second, Akhenaten made an intriguing statement that appears to reference the ten plagues with which the LORD struck Egypt: “From two talatat [bricks] in the fill of Horemheb’s tenth pylon we have retrieved – admittedly on only the most fragmentary form – the text of a speech by Akhenaten declaiming that the other gods have somehow failed or ‘ceased’ to be operative."[1] Akhenaten rejected the hundreds of Egyptian gods because they failed to protect Egypt. Almost certaintly this is a reference to God demonstrating His sovereignty over the false religious system of the ancient Egyptians.

In other words, Akhenaten did not influence Israelite monotheism. Rather, the religion of the sons of Israel, coupled with the LORD's supremacy over the false gods of Egypt, influenced Akhenaten. One more, archaeology demonstrates the veracity of the Bible!

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[1] Donald Redford, “The Monotheism on the Heretic Pharaoh: Precursor of Mosaic Monotheism or Egyptian Anomaly?” Biblical Archaeology Review 13, no. 3 (May-June 1987): 25.