Freud’s theory expressed in XX century is not dead even now and still have its supporters and adversaries. It even prompted serious researches that were trying to prove or disprove his theory. At least the timing of it seems to be right because Akhenaten appears in history two centuries before the first archaeological and written evidence for Judaism and Israelite culture is found in the Levant.
Pottery found throughout Judea dated to the end of the 8th century BC have seals resembling a winged sun disk of the god Athen burned on their handles. Some historians even claimed that Akhenaten’s maternal grandfather Yuya was the same person as the Biblical Joseph. Another striking coincidence is that there are strong similarities between Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten and the Biblical Psalm 104.
Amenhotep IV was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt was an extraordinary man for the times that lived in. He attempted to compel the Egyptian population in the monotheistic worship of sun god Aten, instead of the whole pantheon of Egyptian gods, that existed at his times. He even changed his name for that purpose to Akhenaten. Some historians even go as far as calling Amenhotep the first individual, as well as the first monotheist, first scientist, and first romantic on the planet Earth.
There are huge volumes written about his reign, his life and his Great Royal wife Nefertiti. So there is no use to go deep into these topics in this humble blog entry. But I wanted to tell you about interesting theories in regards of Akhenaten. The first one is that created by Akhenaten monotheistic religion transitioned later in Judaism. The first scientist that expressed this theory was famous Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten’s death. Akhenaten was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve. Freud thought that there was connection between Adonai, the Egyptian Aten and the Syrian divine name of Adonis as a primeval unity of language between the factions.
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