Tell el Amarna and the Bible

by Charles F. Pfeiffer

The Egyptian religion of historical times represents a fusion of previously independent local gods. Each town was devoted to a particular deity, many of whom were represented in the form of animals. The cat goddess Bast was honored at Bubastis; the cobra-headed Edjo, at Buto; the ibis Thoth, at Hermopolis Magna; and the jackal god Wepwawet, at Lycopolis. Animal deities were frequently given the bodies and limbs of humans.

The sun and the Nile River were the two important factors in the life of all Egyptians, and gods associated with these phenomena tended to transcend Egyptian provincialism and become truly national in scope. The priests at Heliopolis, near ancient Memphis, were devoted to the worship of the sun god under his ancient name Re. Heliopolis (“city of the sun”) is the Greek form of a name that appears in the Old Testament in transliteration from the Egyptian as On (cf. Gen. 41:45ff.) and as Hebrew, Beth-Shemesh, “House of the sun” (Jer. 43:13). Joseph was married to an Egyptian girl named Asenath, “she belongs to (the goddess) Neith,” the daughter of a priest named Potiphera (“He whom Re has given”) who ministered at the shrine to the sun god at On, or Heliopolis (Gen. 41:45, 50; 46:20).

Re as the sun god came to be associated with other deities. As Re-Atum he came to be regarded as a manifestation of Atum, the creator. As god of the horizon, Re took the compound name Re-Harakhti. Such compounds as Sobek-Re and Khnum-Re indicate the tendency to identify local deities with the more universal Re. Beginning with the Fifth Dynasty (ca. 2500 B.C.) each Pharaoh bore the title “Son of Re” as part of his name, further enhancing the name and reputation of the sun god. Until the Egyptian New Kingdom (ca. 1600-1100 B.C.), when Amon of Thebes became the principal god of Egypt, the priests of Re at Heliopolis shared with the priests of Ptah in nearby Memphis the position of highest influence and wealth in the religious life of the country.

Hapi, God of the Nile. The Nile god is depicted on a relief from the throne of the Pharaoh Eye.

As creator god, Re was symbolized by the falcon and the scarab. The sun’s daily journey across the sky reminded the devout Egyptian of Re’s first appearance as the originator of life. Re, himself, was self-created according to the Book of the Dead. In Middle Kingdom times (ca. 2000-1600 B.C.), Thebes became the Egyptian capital and its patron deity Amon was identified with the sun god and assumed the compound name “Amon-Re, king of the gods.” Thus a purely local god, through identification with Re, became the national god. As local gods became identified with one another, or with more universal gods, we may observe a tendency in the direction of monotheism.

Aton Worship

The worship of Aton appears as early as the reign of Thutmose IV (ca. 1414-1406 B.C.), who issued a commemorative scarab stating that the Pharaoh fought “with the Aton before him,” and that he campaigned abroad, “to make the foreigners to be like the (Egyptian) people, in order to serve the Aton forever.”[8]

Aton occupied an important place in the Egyptian pantheon during the reign of Akhenaton’s father, Amenhotep III. A stele of the king’s architects, Hori and Suti, describes the sun god as the deity who holds sway over all peoples and lands. A hymn speaks of Amon as “Aton of the day, creator of mortals and maker of life.” The royal barge of Amenhotep III and his wife Tiy bore the name, “Aton gleams.” Other gods were worshiped, and Amon was still in his place of honor, but Aton had come to the fore—perhaps in a context of rivalry between the priests of Heliopolis and Thebes—and the stage was set for the impending battle.

In the earliest period of Akhenaton’s reign, Aton was the preferred god, but Amon was still granted homage. There was actually little that was original in the religious life of those earliest years, although there was much that might give concern to the Amon priests. Although there had been an earlier Aton temple in Thebes, it was Akhenaton who slowly moved from a position in which Aton was the favored god to one in which Aton was the only god tolerated. While there had been tendencies toward monotheism before, and Aton worship was not new, it was Akhenaton who finally made the break with the Amon priests at Thebes. With inexorable logic he changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaton, closed the Amon temples, and erased the name of Amon from monuments and inscriptions. While Amon was the particular object of his disfavor, Akhenaton declared war on all the “thousand gods of Egypt,” and sought to remove the very word “gods” from the monuments.