Akhenaten Monotheism Vs Polytheism

Humanities Project

Akhenaten

DeVry University

Christina Maldonado

        When we think of religion, what comes to mind? God? Church? Of course, but do you ever wonder what religion was like in Egypt? What about in the 18th Dynasty? I would think, Pharaoh’s, pyramids, ancient Egyptian spells, and mummies. What about if I were to tell you that one King Pharaoh in particular did something out of the norm during this time. This ancient ruled for about 17 years and came to be known by several names over this time.

        My project will be about the Heretic Pharaoh Akhenaton. I want to dissect the reasoning behind this Pharaoh’s thinking when he decided that Egypt was going to be away with all of previous god’s and worship only one, the sun god, Aten. This being the beginning of monotheistic religion and away with polytheistic religion. What is all of this? Egypt for many years had a belief system in polytheistic religion. This is the worship of doctrine that there is more than one god or many gods (Dictionary.reference.com). The people of Egypt worshiped gods for everything such as the sky, rain, food and even fertility. This is sort of similar to someone reading their horoscope daily for guidance.

        Monotheistic religion is the worship of one god. The Pharaoh believed there was only one god that existed due to an event in which the king said changed his whole view. He called this god “Aten” the sun disk god. He believed that he was a direct descendant of this sun disk god. Continued worship was known as Atenism. He informed his followers that his god can be approached by day and night something unheard of in polytheism. This did not happen as soon as his reign began, it was just at the sixth year of his leadership that all of Egypt was ordered to worship the sun disk god.

        To have more of an influence on Aten in Egyptian daily lives, Akhenaten had a great temple built in Amarna. He along with his followers lived for 10 years. What did Akhenaten do for these 10 years? How was worship conducted?  I plan to go in depth on how this sort of “new” religion was maybe the door to Judeo-Christian religion. What are the possibilities of this being the beginning of Christianity and the start of the similar traits we have today? I want to be able to explain monotheistic religion with Egypt vs. today’s society.