Akhenaten and Egyptian Monotheism

The story of the Pharaoh that introduced the worship of one God before the time of Israel.

Fourteen hundred years before Christ, the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV rejected the old gods of Egypt and introduced the worship of one God above all: Atun. Although he was able to promulgate a new henotheist (possibly even monotheist) religion during his lifetime, after his death the traditionalists won out, reversed his reforms, and deleted his name from the king lists. We'll look at this remarkably early innovation and its echoes in later monotheistic religion.

[JaceCameron]

I enjoy all of the lectures on this channel. What bothers me is when people interrupt and you can't hear the questions or comments and it's disrespectful to the speaker. I think they should be done last and with a microphone so we can hear the questions or comments so we know what he's referring to.

[Nick_BRZ]

John, you are LEGEND!!! 🧩 Truly excellent content, you really do restore my faith in humanity (for the most part). I appreciate understanding of where our faiths originate from a critical but fair frame of reference. I look forward to your channel’s continued growth and increasing the quality of conversation on can have with those willing - all without an opinionated, bookish attitude which isn’t conducive to moving us forward. Cheers!

P.S.
I award you x♾️ of 🎤’s. 😜

[robinsonsuarez]

I really enjoy the questions. I learn way more than without them.

[CSHorn]

This is not pertinent to any specific lecture but, john Hamer, your name sounds like a bad ass super hero for a reason!!
I have so much fun listening to you that my roommate thinks im insane because i ask questions and laugh out loud from the weirdo joy i get from pausing, doing some research then listening to you already know all the shit i just read!!!
You have contributed greatly to me searching for answers only to realize how much joy i feel in knowing i cant know the answers.
Thank you!!
P.S. you should do a talk about ignostisicsm. The definition alone is esoteric enough that you have to read it a few times to realize that its what we all really are. But what do i know.

[AWOL]

Really hope the questions are kept to a minimum this time. The lecturer is fantastic but some members of the audience are not.

[awuma]

1:40:55 All of those rulers WERE mummified! However, in the dying days of the New Kingdom, when the Amun priests had fully taken over after the Bronze Age collapse, all of the tombs were systematically looted by the government, the mummies were lightly re-wrapped and placed in re-cycled coffins usually not their own, and placed in a couple of tombs taken over for that purpose. Later, some of the mummies were disturbed by further looters, even though by now there was no gold or other precious materials to be had. Most of the mummies had some sort of identification, but the later looting left them in some cases without ID. Hence the uncertainty regarding the parents of Tutankhamun, whose mummies we have but whose identities are inferred. Tutankhamun's tomb was so buried by rubble that the late New Kingdom official looters overlooked it, but in fact he was rather poorly mummified.

1:11:00 The genealogical chart has many uncertainties, needing better and more extensive DNA testing where possible. I suspect that the key figure of the later 18th Dynasty is Yuya, who may have been the brother of Mutemwya and father of Ay, though neither is attested. The tomb of Yuya and the royally-descended Tuyu, with their excellent mummies, was the best preserved tomb discovered before that of Tutankhamun, although it had been looted of its most precious items. It is not too likely that Ay was the father of Nefertiti; his wife Tey is attested as Nefertitii's wet-nurse. There is a possibility that Horemheb's second wife, Mutnodjmet, was a daughter of Ay. All of this is interesting, given that Ay probably usurped the throne after Tutankhamun's death instead of the designated heir or "iry pat" Horemheb.

[maxsonthonax]

It's good that Shaheen (sp?) explained to the lecturer what he'd literally just explained twice, while Elizabeth had also illustrated the concept very efficiently & with an example that is local & thus familiar to her fellow Canadians present in the room. It adds colour & character(s) to proceedings. Relive it in full by clicking here... 16:02

[steelegreenland]

I really wish she would just stop attending these lectures. You KNOW who I’m talking about.

[sadikinjeryon]

I think this is the meaning of that weird artistic potrayal of pharaoh:
- baby face = everlasting fresh, youth, purity and innocence
- androgyne, male/female = divinity (God) contains and transcends any polarity (male/female)

[SEMIA]

I hope someone told Shaheen just how rude she was during this talk

[jackbailey]

Watch the 1954 classic movie, "The Egyptian", which is about Akenaten & is free on youtube.

[CaseTrick]

The Khristos is a Hellene translation of the ancienne spiritual practices of Kemet, Ethiopia and Nubia.

[StephanieSoressi]

I loved the 10 Commandments too, and watched it time & time again. In fact, I got really spooked by the Plague of the Firstborn -- being a tomboy, I thought angels might mistake me for a boy, as people often did, and I am my parents' firstborn. The only way I could calm my anxiety about it on Passover was to prick my finger & make marks on our door jamb, just like the ones from the show, but much smaller (I didn't have a paintbrush & a bucket of blood, that's for sure!)

Yule Brenner was the BEST! "So let it be written! So let it be done!"

[tylerhinds]

I really enjoyed this lecture!

I'm increasingly convinced monotheism vs polytheism doesn't capture things accurately. It's more like a spectrum. You have hard monotheism and hard polytheism, but you also have soft monotheism and soft polytheism.

Where would you place Joseph Smith's Nauvoo period Mormonism? That's where the plurality of gods and world first emerged. Where would you put the Binitarianism in the Lectures on Faith? These are tough questions.

[steverorison]

I'm pretty sure he knows which way the Nile flows. And yeah lady us uneducated people know a river can flow south to north.

[StephanieSoressi]

When Moses first approaches Pharaoh, he asks to be allowed to go out into the desert to worship their god. That is an odd part of the text, and it reminds me of how Amenhotep/Akhenaten's Aten cult had performed its rituals out in the desert...

Btw -- a good lecture would be on the Hyksos...

[jameshose]

immaculate conception: it doesn’t mean what you think it means immaculate means “without stain (of sin)” and refers to mary, not jesus - she was, from her mother’s womb, conceived without the stain of original sin, in order to be a perfect vessel for her future son (of god), jesus - it has nothing directly to do with jesus 99 pc of non catholics get this wrong and probably half of catholics there is no convenient term for jesus’ conception by the holy spirit, which is why protestants make this assumption ~ atheist former catholic

[julieaqula]

I really enjoy these lectures....painless learning! Really expanding my horizons of history. Thanks.😊

[steverorison]

Ohhhh my stop giving this lady a microphone

[johnobrien]

Monotheism is not progress. Akhenaton was probably a dictator and had some form of psychopathy. Monotheism is inherently dangerous for several reasons. First, it creates an "in group" and an "out group". Since there is only one true God, those who are non-believers are not merely followers of a different path in life, but are infidels or blasphemers. If you tolerate non believers, you risk God's wrath. Also, when your religion is the one true faith it admits no room for error and can't grow and change with the times. When God's salvation is limited and only meted out to those who pass an arbitrary criteria, what are you willing to do to achieve that limited salvation? With paganism you at least have the option of choosing other gods, and each God's way is not considered the "only way" or the "one true way", but one of a smorgasbord to choose from.