Sigmund Freud was the most prominent proponent of
the idea that Akhenaten’s monotheism was the
root of western monotheism. He argued that following
Akhenaten’s death, his religion was carried on
by a lone Egyptian priest named Moses who led an oppressed
Semitic tribe out of Egypt and taught them to worship
his god.
While it is now widely agreed that Akhenaten’s
monotheism had no specific connection to the development
of Israelites’ monotheism,
it was the first major expression of a religious concept
that would be of world-historical significance.
