The results will be in later editions. sof 53 May 2002 22 Postscripts Origins of Monotheism In a recent TV programme, The Pharaoh’s Secret Treasure (BBC2, UK, Easter Sunday, 31 Mar, 21:00 - 22:00), the British metallurgist, Robert Feather, considered one of the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran. The Copper Scroll was found in 1952, so called as it is made of copper, but it has always been an enigma to scholars. The scroll lists the sites of buried treasures. As Qumran is thought to be an Essene or closely related Jewish monastic movement, it had been thought that the treasure referred to an immense wealth of the Jerusalem temple.
In 1959 & 1960 John Allegro of Manchester University led unsuccessful trips to find the treasure, (as at other times did Al Wolters, Geza Vermes, and Emile Puech) but Robert Feather argued that former translations of the Scroll have been based on a misconception that that the scrolls referred to a place in Israel, by the Red Sea. But Feather argues that the "great lf Feather is right, then monotheistic religion is the creation of Akhenaten Akhenaten, means 'the glory of the Aten' or ‘effective for the Aten’. He changed it from Amenhotep IV, meaning ‘Amun is content’, in the sixth year of his reign.
Akhenaten also abandoned the capital of Memphis and the Temple of Amun at Karnak, and moving his capital city to Akhet-Aten (‘the Horizon of the Aten’, today called TelEl-Armana) where he built a new temple. At the peak of Akhenaten's reign over 20,000 people lived there, though it lasted just 17 years.
Though other gods were worshipped for a time, Akhenaten led a purge against idolatry of the images of other gods, which were personifications of abstract concepts. Teams of workmen were sent around the temples throughout Egypt where they chiselled out the names and images of these gods wherever they occurred. He also erased the names of other gods, particularly Amun (after which he was formerly named) and even expunged the plural 'gods' from the language.
The reasons for the reform are possibly political: to undermine the priesthood of Amun, which it is thought was a wealthy and powerful political force.
His own renaming and that of the city support this view. The closing the temple of Amun would undermine this priesthood.
Furthermore, Akhenaten’s religion has been described sea" which the texts refer to is the Nile, and that the Copper Scroll is from Egypt, not Israel. He then suggested the location of the treasure that is referred to in the scroll, some of which is already in museums, but some of which remaining buried in a location that is described in the text, and which he has identified. A reading of weights given on the scroll as Egyptian measures and not Hebrew measures supports this view, making what was believed to be an immense hoard considerably reduced. This theory matches some discoveries already found. There are also some hitherto puzzling Greek coding letters on the Copper Scroll, which Feather reads to link them to Pharaoh Akhenaten, the shortlived ruler of Egypt of the eighteenth dynasty reigning from 1350-1334 BC.
Akhenaten initiated drastic reforms in religion and state, after the death of his father Amenhotep III. He reformed Egyptian religion from a polytheistic religion to monotheism. Solar gods had been important in Egyptian religion, as with Re, but in Akhenaten’s day, Aten was worshipped: the visible sun disk that can be seen traversing the sky each day. Akhenaten raised Aten to the position of - ‘sole god’, represented as a disk with rays of light terminating in hands, which reach out to the royal family and sometimes offering the hieroglyphic sign for life (see p24). The links between Akhenaten and Aten were made through art and text, and he is portrayed under the protective rays of the sun, suggesting that this pharaoh’s reign is divinely ordained or destined. His name, by James Allen as a ‘natural philosophy’. A number of hymns to the Aten that were composed during Akhenaten’s reign provide a glimpse of what the major emphasis, which was the Aten's visibility, tangibility, and undeniable realness. The wonders of the natural world are described to extol the universal power of the sun; all creatures rejoice when the sun rises and nasty things come out at night when the sun is not present. One such hymn is extremely similar to psalm 104, again supporting the monotheistic link.
Akhenaten gives others immediate access to Aten, bypassing the priesthood. It also gave him access to the temple revenue.
Akhenaten came to be known to ancient Egyptians as "the criminal" and "the heretic" for his sof 53 May 2002 reforms, and his 17 years reign may have been unnaturally cut short because of this. But as some images depict him as malformed it may also be that he suffered from a disfiguring disease.
This leads Feather to support a neglected theory, held in Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism, (held more recently Jan Assmann, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg) that the origins of the world's three great monotheistic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam, can all be traced to Ancient Egypt and in particular to this pharaoh, Akhenaten. It is not a theory that is found Karen Armstrong’s A History of God, for example. Feather argues that Moses was Egyptian, and that he carried monotheism out of Egypt, against the generally accepted view that Akhenaten’s religion did not survive his death and the subsequent Anti-Atenist backlash. The temple and city Akhet-Aten was destroyed on his death. Others argue that his evidence is circumstantial, and so the building under which he believes the treasure to be buried has been left undisturbed. If Feather is right, then monotheistic religion is the creation of Akhenaten for political reasons, and later adapted by the various faith communities in the centuries after his death.
The programme was based on Feather’s book, The Copper Scroll Decoded. If what the author says is true, the book will necessitate a reevaluation of the origins of the main Biblical stories, the history of the QumranEssenes - who wrote and possessed the Dead Sea Scrolls, our present understanding of the ancient Hebrew Community at Elephantine Island in southern Egypt and the existence of the 'Falasha' Ethiopian Jews, and our idea of monotheism as a human creation.
Robert Feather, The Copper Scroll Decoded (H.b. 7 June, 1999, HarperCollins; ISBN: 0722538022, P.b. new edition, 5 June, 2000, HarperCollins; ISBN: 072253941X) sof 53 May 2002