Akhenaten, Monotheism, King Paro, and Midrashim

Question

Background and Reason I am Asking

I would like to know if there is any reason to believe, or disbelieve, that Akhenaten might have been the Pharaoh that faced the plagues. According to the Midrash, he did teshuva, and began trying to spread monotheism.

According to historians, Akhenaten also was the first Pharaoh that started spreading (at least a form of) monotheism, and many of the descriptions of the deity he insisted Egypt worship sound eerily similar to many of the Torah's descriptions of Hashem (see Great Hymn to the Aten vs Psalm 104). It's also crazy that someone was able to pull off such a massive and fast change in the religion of the great and very ancient empire of Egypt, for the first time in thousands of years, so fast and so successfully!

There's also the interesting matter that his reign is very coincident with the Exodus, approx 3350 years ago!

[I understand that the academic, cynic's and atheist's reflex would be (and has been ad nauseum) to reverse things, and say Judaism evolved/absorbed material from Akhenaten's religion in some way, but of course that is not what Traditional Judaism holds.]

Question:

Within the rubrick of traditional Judaism, is there any reason to believe that Akhenaten was [or was directly connected to] the King Pharaoh of the Exodus, and that his move to create this new, monotheistic-ish religion was because of what our sages said - he did teshuva after the plagues?

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^{I don't trust myself to research this, I would much rather hear from an orthodox scholar who has already researched it, or knows how to research it properly. It would also be interesting and relevant to look into discussions on whether worshiping Aten has been analyzed as counting as Avoda Zara/Shittuf etc. or not, perhaps?}

Answer 1

Ramses I ruled after Akhenaten. One of the towns the Jews built was called Ramses so it is unlikely that Akhenaten was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

Further, Akhenaten was deliberately obscured and only rediscovered in the 19th century. He is unlikely to feature in any classical Rabbinic literature.

Answer 2

Summary:

• Akhenaten knew Psalm 104 and was a contemporary of Yehoshua's conquest
• The Exodus occured in the 7th year of Thutmose III of the 18th dynasty, which ruled over the Middle Kingdom.
• The Exodus events took place in the Nile Delta, ruled by dynasties 4-6.

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According to the book "Pharaoh" by R. Alexander Hool, p. 59-60, the Hymn of the Sun-Disc carved into the neckropolis of Akhenaten bears a striking resemblance to the Psalm 104 written by king David, who lived many years after Exodus. Based on Bava Basra 14b, we have to conclude that Psalm 104 was written by Moshe and modified to its final version later by king David.

The synchronization of the Egyptian history proposed by R. Hool places Exodus in the 7th year of Thutmose III of the 18th dynasty. Officially, Thutmose III ruled for 54 years, afterwards there was Amenhotep II (25 years), Thutmose IV (8 years), Amenhotep III (38 years), followed by Amenhotep IV Akhenaten who ruled for 17 years. Official dating of 18th dynasty would place Exodus 119 years prior to Akhenaten. However, in the Amarna letters there is a request from Abdu-Heba king of Jerusalem that pharaoh Akhenaten IV help against invading Hapiru/Apiru. If this is a reference to invading army of Yehoshua, we must conclude that Amenhotep IV Akhenaten was a contemporary to the later years of Moshe when his version of Psalm 104 was available, so that Akhenaten could know it. This synchronization allows resolving many historical enigmas well-known in the academic world.

Why Thutmose III was contemporary of Exodus? According to historian Manetho, Exodus occured under pharaoh Tutimaos. First 6 years of his reign Thutmose III co-reigned with his stepmother Queen Hatshepsut, who in an inscription speaks of "wandering people" that caused ruination of Egypt and left Egypt in her time. The mummy of Thutmose II showed that he died suddenly in his 30s evidently from a plaque of boils engulfed on his entire body. The mummy of Thutmose III also bears the same scars, and so does Queen Hatshepsut's and another contemporary.

The problem is that 18th dynasty in the 7th year of Thutmose III only ruled over the Middle Egypt, but events of the Exodus occured in the Nile Delta. It took Thutmose III several years to conquer all of Egypt and then expand his war campaign into Canaan. The 15th dynasty of Hyksos (likely the Amalekites) ruled the Delta for some time after Exodus.

It turns out that in the southwest corner of the festive hall of Thutmose III there is a well known Karnak King list which is at variance with the conventional as it mentions kings Teti, Pepi I, and Merenre from the 6th dynasty among those of 11th and 12th dynasty kings. Based on considerations given in the book, it turns out that indeed the Nile Delta was ruled by the 6th dynasty, and the Pharaoh of Exodus was the last king Neferkare the Younger (ruled 1 year), when the dynasty was suddenly interrupted. R. Hool believes that kings of 4-6th dynasties were rulling in the Delta for the duration of the Egyptian Exile of the Jewish people and he explains that they were Edomite kings, i.e. related to the rulers of Edom, which also fits well with the assumption of that they were Hyksos. It may also shed light on why both Edomite and Egyptian converts needed 4 generations to marry into Israel.