Forward By Bob Barney: There is strong evidence, and I tend to believe that King Akhenaten, meaning “Effective for Aten” (originally Amenhotep IV) was either the Biblical Hero "Joseph", or one of his children. This is why he knew the God named Jeh (Yahweh) and believed in the one true God. It would make sense that Moses knew this long before the burning bush…..
Did the monotheism of Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten influence Moses?
Robin Ngo • 06/10/2015
On this stela from El-Amarna, Egyptian King Akhenaten is seen with his wife Nefertiti and their daughters bearing offerings to the sun-disk Aten.
Defying centuries of traditional worship of the Egyptian pantheon, Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten decreed during his reign in the mid-14th century B.C.E. that his subjects were to worship only one god: the sun-disk Aten. Akhenaten is sometimes called the world’s first monotheist. Did his monotheism later influence Moses—and the birth of Israelite monotheism?
In “Did Akhenaten’s Monotheism Influence Moses?” in the July/August 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, University of California, Santa Barbara, emeritus professor of anthropology Brian Fagan discusses this tantalizing question.