RELG 201 Research Paper The Religious Reforms of Akhenaten Pre-reign tendencies - post-reign impact - monotheistic analysis

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The Religious Reforms of Akhenaten Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (later named Akhenaten), the second son of Amenhotep III and Tiye, was the unlikely heir to the throne of Egypt; undoubtedly, the title could have fallen to the first born Thutmose V had he not expired in his youth. Although Amenhotep IV suffered from a congenital defect that was later identified as an endocrine disorder, his abnormalities did not prevent him from pursuing his passion for the sun god, Aten; it was his desire to see Aten as the sole god of the empire. (Redford, 1984, p57 - 58) Akhenaten endeavored to alter the course of Egyptian religion but evidence suggests that he did so during a time when such tendencies already existed (Redford, 1976, p150); nevertheless, there is much speculation about whether Egyptian religion during his time was monotheistic. In an attempt to answer these queries one must explore the solar religion before Akhenaten gained power to understand the source of his reformist ideas, then one must examine what his reformations entailed to comprehend his religious intentions and its theological impact, and finally, one must look to the analysis of multiple Egyptologist to perceive the monotheistic elements of Akhenatens movement. To fully grasp Akhenatens heretic movement, one must first explore Atenism before Akhenaten gained power; contrary to the popular idea of comparing him to monotheistic prophets, it is important to understand that the cult of Aten was not a new concept. Aten can be translated to modern English, as Sun Disc and the use of Aten to represent a god existed after the 18th Dynasty. (Redford, 1976, p150) In the time of Amehotep II, Aten was represented with rays ending with human hands but it was by the reign of Akhenaten's father that Aten was seen as a bona fide deity with his own denomination rather than being depicted as another term for Sun Disc. (Najovits. 2004, p118) Simson Najovits thinks that Amenhotep III, like his father Thutmose IV, had political and economic motives along with concerns with the excessive power of the Theban Amun Clergy that motivated his preference to Atenism. (Najovits, 2004, p121) Nevertheless, he preferred Aten and did not exclude the other gods from his worship and praise (unlike his son, Akhenaten); Amenhotep III kept the link between Aten and Re-Harakty who remained an aspect of Amun. (Najovits, 2004, p83)

Monotheistic tendencies, though, must have existed to explain the regime encouraged by Akhenaten; some New Kingdom texts go so far as to describe the god Ra as the ultimate, one and only god. (Tobin, 1989, p160) This idea seems to have risen from Akhenaten's father, Amenhotep III, and his military campaigns that aimed to broaden Egypt's frontiers; it is possible that with Egypt's imperialism, its gods attained greater hegemony over the extended empire and eventually the world. The ubiquitousness of the gods gradually became a more prominent idea. (Redford, 1976, p150) Jan Assmann, in his book The Search for God in ancient Egypt, claims that in texts like the hymns of Suti and Hor that date before the Amarna period, there is some implicit monotheism present that Assmann calls New Solar Theology"; he surmises that "there is no doubt that Amarna religion [Atenism] sprang from this movement". Assmann defines NST as "a sort of monotheism that regards the sun as the natural manifestation of the uniqueness of god. (Assmann, 1995, p16) Other authors like Alan Gardiner speak of towngods that would become unique and almighty to substantiate the notion of there being a powerful urge towards monotheism. (Gardiner, 1961, p216) Consequently, Akhenaten does not seem to be the creator of a one-god doctrine; he is simply advocating an ideal that was already present in his society at the time. Eventually, Amenhotep III perished and left an Egypt that was at its zenith of influence but holistically committed to a traditional constitution and religion under the god Amun. Verily, his son Akhenaten would attempt to refashion this to allow Aten to gain authority over the gods; with this, the tendency towards a one-god religion became more likely. (Grimal, 2005, p223, 225) To understand the elements of this transition though, one must explore Akhenatens reign and its unorthodoxy in relation to his diehard Atenist beliefs. Akhenatens reign began with the death of his brother, Thutmose V; subsequently, he became responsible for designing all legitimate artwork as High Priest of Ptah. (Najovits, 2004, p120) Amenhotep IV commenced his first two years as Pharaoh with extensive sandstone extraction projects to enhance Egypts infrastructure; furthermore, he decorated the pylons that belonged to the temple of Karnak (built by his father). These pylon ornamentations provide us

with the first evidence of Akhenatens deviance from traditional Egyptian art and they follow along with his unorthodox religious transformations. The pylons frequently depict him and his family engaged in Sun-Disc worship and they rarely have illustrations of any of the other gods of the Egyptian pantheon. (Redford, 1984, p120) In addition, a fragmented speech by Akhenaten given at Karnak and translated by Murnane shows his blatant denouncement of the traditional gods; he claims them to be weak and brittle while his god, Aten, is powerful and indestructible. (Murnan, 1995) Along with frequently taxing and closing down temples dedicated to Amun and other gods like Osiris, he redirected revenue to his Sun Disc Temples; Amenhotep IV even went so far as to change his name to living spirit of Aten or Akhenaten. (Najovits, 2004, p163, 150) In the third year of his reign, Akehnaten held a jubilee celebration that was usually held to celebrate a pharaohs 30 year reign; at this festival, all polytheistic references, aside from the Hymn to Hathor, were eliminated and Aten was the only god named. After his oddly early jubilee festival and his name change, he then commenced his transformation of Aten from an aspect of Re to the proclaimed one and only god. (Redford, 1984, p122-130) Akhenaten also went about building major temples in Karnak dedicated to the Sun-Disc god and then abandoned the old capital Thebes, to create a new one named: Akhetaten Horizon of the Sun Disc (now known as Tell El-Amarna). (Gardiner, 1961, p220) Akhetaten was a deserted region but it was special due to its proximity to the cliffs that would, from the Nile, give shape to the hieroglyph for Horizon: Akhet. Moreover, Akhenaten claimed that he was inspired by Aten himself to build this new city and ordered the dissident burying of his wife and children in the eastern cliffs of Akhetaten; whereas traditionally, the pharaoh and his royal family would be buried in the Valley of the Kings. (Redford, 1984, p137-142) Before the ninth year of Amenhotep IVs reign, he changed Atens official name to Re-Harakty, who rejoices in the horizon in his name Shu, who is Aten. (Hornung & Lorton, 1999, p34) Sigfried Morenz argues that the title represents a sort of trinity which Akhenaten associates Aten with himself. (Morenz, 1992, p147) Akhenaten sometimes even refers to

himself as the child of his god but it was known at the time that Aten worship was always through Akhenaten. (Hornung, 1999, p83) Alters to Aten in the sun temples consistently depicted the royal family rather than representations of the sun god; furthermore, Akhenatens name could also have been translated as The Incarnation of Aten implying that Akhenaten may have truly believed he was Aten in the flesh. (Aldred, 1968. P185) Akhenaten's intention was to be represented as part of this trinity; moreover, in Morenzs book Egyptian Religion, he quips: "The trinity was a major preoccupation of Egyptian theologians . . . Three gods are combined and treated as a single being, addressed in the singular." (Morenz, 1992, p255) The notion of monotheism also erupts when one considers Akhenatens new label for his god: The Living One, Ra, ruler of the two horizons, who rejoices in the horizon in his name as Ra who has come in the Aten Akhenaten eliminated the credit that was originally given to other gods like Shu and he definitively proclaimed that Aten is Ra. Interestingly enough, Simson Najovits cheekily makes the point that Amun and Aten were both inherited by Ra; therefore, knowing that Akhenaten was trying to give Aten a universal god title, there was nothing extraordinarily radical about Akhenaten claiming that Ra was Aten; he argues that Akhenaten was behaving in a traditional Egyptian manner of amalgamating gods. (Najovits, 2004, p124-125) This viewpoint downplays Akhenatens heresy and provides Egyptologists and students with a fresh perspective of the pharaoh. Be that as it may, it was only after his sixth year of reign that Akhenaten truly and heretically rejected the Egyptian pantheon and made Akhenaten the sole divine reality. During this time, he began a religious campaign by removing the King of the gods, Amun, from all the monuments and texts and replaced the term for gods with god or Aten. Furthermore, Simson alters his previous mild conclusion and propounds that Akhenaten had taken a step that no ancient Heliopolitan/Theban theologian or even his father ever took. (Najovits, 2004, p125-126) After the massive unorthodoxy displayed by Akhenaten, the monotheistic undertones of his Atenism became more evident; although the tendencies of previous pharaohs were to favor one god over others (intentionally henotheistic), Akhenaten's sole objective to promote Aten

worship and inhibit the veneration of other gods. (Hornung, 1999, p88) In spite of this, some argue that Akhenaten's religious reforms were monotheistic only in theory; a true monotheistic leader would simply refuse to recognize the existence of other deities rather than actively deface and substitute polytheistic references. Furthermore, it is beguiling that Akhenaten did not remove Amun from his former name Amenhotep IV in some texts; other unexplainable instances are present in the tomb of his chamberlain littered with polytheistic inscriptions and the discovery of texts with the name of Thoth (the god of wisdom) intact. (Davies, 1923, p150) With this information it becomes difficult to effortlessly claim Atens cult as monotheistic and end the argument. Donald Redford provides us with an opposing view that Atenism was not an authentic monotheism like that of the sixth century Israelites; he claims that the Sun Disc god can never be a personal god to his people, unlike Yahweh to the Israelites, except to his son, Akhenaten. Redford goes further to assert that Hebrew monotheism and Atenism share no theological link as he believed that Akhenatens cult was not a creed but more of a royal statement regarding a kings relationship with his father. (Redford, 1984, p232 & 1992, p 377382) Freud, in contrast, did believe Akhenatenc conceived a doctrine of a universal god into monotheism; he went further to compare Atenism to authentic monotheistic cults and dubs Akhenaten the first founder of a monotheistic counter-religion. (Freud, 1953, p22, 24) French Egyptologist, Nicholas Grimal, contends Akhenatens religious reformation to be far from the revolution it has been associated with; the Middle Kingdom movement or solarization of the principal gods might have been responsible for the rise of Heliopolitan sun cults that put Ra instead of Amun as the center of attention. Grimal says that this shift in focus does not necessarily preclude any other god; he asserts that the Sun became a divine conglomerate whose visible presentation a Sun Disc became Akhenatens religious fetish. Akhenaten uniquely attempted to provide Egypt with a tangible Sun god rather than a previously praised yet hidden Amun. Moreover, Grimal tells us that although, to Akhenaten, Aten took care of the dead and Osiris funerary cult was futile, Osiris continued to be honored

by the royal family. Similarly, another French Egyptologist, Clair Lalouette, believes that Atenism was not necessarily monotheistic; she claims that ancient Egypt believed that although each god is unique in the heart and spirit of the believer, this does not exclude a possible recourse to other gods. (Grimal, 2005, p 228-230) Grimal goes on to argue that Akhenatens revelation did not have much of an effect on the population or the traditional structure of Egyptian society since religion tended to be restricted to temples and palaces and were of not of much concern to the common workman. In addition, Akhenatens enforced theocratic absolutism made him the only intermediary between Aten and man and disenfranchised other deities; these changes had more of an impact on the local temples of certain deities and led to a drastic transition in Egyptian artwork from realism to the realms of caricature rather than altering the Egyptian way of life. (Grimal, 2005, p230, 232-233) The moderate view that earns the most respect in my opinion is that of Simson Najovits in his book Egypt, trunk of the tree, Volume 2. Simson first brings to light the universal brotherhood promoted by Akhenaten in his hymns to Aten; he transcended Egypts borders and, although he did not allow everyone equal access to the Sun Temples, foreigners were no longer mentioned as being wretched a newfound universality was born and it was a huge step forward with many beneficial effects. (Najovits, 2004, p140) Simson says that the aforementioned authors (Grimal et al) each hold too extreme a view and promotes a halfway solution that claims that it is not true to say Atenism was an authentic monotheistic cult; neither is it false to assume that it was monotheism - Akhenaten was clear to promote a single god, Aten. (Najovits, 2004, p136-137) Moreover, he concedes that ambiguities do exist when trying to quantify the degree of Akhenatens monotheism; he states that Akhenaten might have simply wanted to raise awareness of his position as Pharoah-god and even though Aten was Akhenatens personal god, the personal god of Egypt was, to his advantage, Akhenaten. (Najovits, 2004, p138) To Najovits, Akhenaten also partially succeeded in his anti-polytheistic project among his

officials but failed among his people and the Amun-clergy. (Najovits, 2004, p141) In spite of this, Atenism was a revolution that shook the foundations of traditional Egypt; to present it as a proto-monotheism or as a scaffold for modern day Judeo-Christian faith is not very farfetched. The final years of Akhenatens reign were problematic for the Heretic king; he witnessed the death of his second daughter and wife and was confronted with many allies asking for money and help against each other on the battlefield. Although it is unknown what happened to Akhenaten at the end of his reign, he is thought to have died of natural causes; subsequently, the city of Amarna and the beliefs of the Aten cult were abandoned. Akhenatens son, Tutankhaten (later changed to Tutankhamen to return exaltation to Amun) made it his prerogative to restore the traditional cults of Egypt and return the orthodox worship of Amun. (Najovits, 2004, p149-151) Whether or not his fathers fanaticism was considered monotheistic, it is safe to assume that Akhenaten began his reign with an idea that was already prevalent in society, promoted a pre-existing pseudo-monotheistic urge that he later attempted to accentuate to seem solely monotheistic and finally, did what others before him failed to do: he became responsible for one the most famous transformations of primitive polytheistic observances in history. To compare him to Moses and Yahweh or designate him a radical henotheist is extreme and naive, as both views exist on far and opposing sides of the analysis of Atenism; one genuinely requires more data than the ruins and fragments we make use of today to substantiate either claim. In truth, solace lies in the notion that Akhenaten was a proto-monotheist; this prospect is most amenable to scholars and theologians alike.

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