Akhenaten

In my mind, Akhenaten is a visionary. Although his attempt at a monotheistic faith partially failed, the attempt itself left a huge mark. Even with all that we have talked about in class as to why he might have had decided to switch the faith, it still puzzles me and I still do not understand. It is hard for me to imagine how the idea of going from many gods, to only one could appear, and a man, a very powerful man, a pharaoh, but nonetheless, one, could have come up with the idea that had not yet been presented. To me it seems that some people were ready for a change, you know because the world is always changing... But clearly, not enough people were because the monotheistic religion where Aten, a sort of kind of, derivate of Amen-re, was the all mighty one god. So what would have happened if Akhenaten's reign had lasted a bit longer? I mean, from what I found, he was pharaoh for approximately only 17 years... that’s not much time. So if it took only 17 years for the belief in a monotheistic faith to settle and although minimal, stay around, what could have happened if his reign would have lasted a little longer? There are many ways it could have gone, but that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about the ways that the small time it did last, impacted the spread of it. So back to what I found out, 17 years of reign under Akhenaten and his new religion, 17 years also happens to be the time that one whole new generation takes to develop almost all of their basic ways of thinking. So, I'm guessing that after the death of Akhenaten, things slowly went back to normal, normal being worshipping all the old gods, and embracing once again the former way of thinking and worshipping, and praying and living... But the generation, as I would guess could have been against this change considering they had grown up with Akhenaten's religion, not all of them, or course because even during Akhenaten's reign, there were people that stuck to their old ways. Anyway, with most of the young generation being rebellious to the change, something was bound to happen.

So as we discussed in class, the link between Egypt and Judaism is clear. And not too long before the whole Moses story and migration from Egypt thing, what happened? Yes, the Akhenaten religious reign occurred! So Judaism derivates from the monotheistic religion involving Aten, but interestingly enough, Christianity is said to be sprung from Judaism, all in all, the three mayor monotheistic faiths we have now are all in some way connected to one another, and with this being, they are then all existent and connected to the first one, the one Akhenaten created. Weird is it not, that everything seems to connect in history? I think so. But it’s also interesting. I can barely image what life would be like now if we had never moved away from paganism/ polytheistic faiths.