The emergence of monotheism

[Novosedoff]

Hi all,

I suppose the discussion about the emergence of the monotheism must have been a popular topic on this forum. Many sources claim that Judaism is the first ever monotheistic religion on this planet. Other sources claim that Jewish borrowed the monotheistic ideas from Atenism of ancient Egypt, becauses Moses started to preach about the same time when Atenism emerged during the reign of Amenhotep IV (Amenhotep  was condemned for his monotheism, any mentioning of his name was to be expunged after his death). Ancient Egyptians are also known to believe in life after death. So the question I have here to ask is if Jewish had borrowed the monotheism from Egyptians, then how come they hadn't also borrowed the idea of the life after death? 🙂

Thanks. 

Edited October 16, 2022 by Novosedoff

[guy]

20 hours ago, Novosedoff said:

So the question I have here to ask is if Jewish had borrowed the monotheism from Egyptians, then how come they hadn't also borrowed the idea of the life after death? 

I know little about philosophy; less, about religion. 

But your premise is wrong (Judaism borrowing monotheism from Egyptians); therefore, your conclusions cannot be true.

Edited October 16, 2022 by guy

[Novosedoff]

1 hour ago, guy said:

But your premise is wrong (Judaism borrowing monotheism from Egyptians); therefore, your conclusions cannot be true.

Well, frankly the whole premise is not mine. In fact, I strongly suspect that the premise has some antisemitic sentiments behind it. But the truth is that Moses emerged when monotheism had already thrived for some time in Egypt. For someone who watched the Mummy (1999) the destiny of Amenhotep IV may be reminiscent to Imhotep's (I mean the way his name tried to expunge from memories)   

Edited October 16, 2022 by Novosedoff

[caldrail]

Monotheism among the ancient Hebrews evolved from a little known legend. The father-God, El, gave each of his sons a human tribe to call his very own. Yaweh got the Hebrews, and so they were obliged only to worship Yaweh.

Also stories that are thought to be uniquely Christian are often anything but. The story of the Great Flood? It' common these days to hear it was probably inspired by an actual event like a flooding of the Black Sea Basin, but no, it started as an explanation for huge ruined and abandoned cities found in Mesopotamia, the remains of Assyrian cities long forgotten whose destruction was explained as the result of some terrible fllood in times past. A legend of a flood survivor arose - of course that had to be enough survivors to explain why anyone was still alive, and the Hebrews incorporated the myth with their own version, a practice not unusual in the ancient world.

[Novosedoff]

Apparently, the idea of Jewish monotheism is not that straight and forward if we recall the cleansing king Josiah had to undertake in order to get rid of all "old school" orthdoxy (see below the link to William-Brassey-Hole's painting) 

https://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_198885/William-Brassey-Hole/King-Josiah-cleansing-the-land-of-idols

In fact, as we now know, Jewish Yaweh used to have a wife called Asherah whose images barely survived the age of cleansing too

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah

Jews are known to have been worhshing a golden calf, a brazen serpent, all that sort of things.  So apparently the idea of monotheism had been through some ups and downs before it became totally embraced.