James Morcan asked Tony Sunderland:

In your view, Tony, where do you believe the Jewish belief system derives from? Was it residue from the Egyptian religions or does it come from elsewhere?

Tony Sunderland Great Question James. The Hebrew Bible is not only a scriptural testament, it is also an historical text that records the unique story of Judaism. That said, the emergence of monotheism within Judaism occurred at roughly the same time as the rise of monotheistic Aten worship in Egypt. Moses was an adopted 'prince' of Egypt. I concur with Freud regarding this: Freud contended convincingly that the religions are similar not only in their belief of one god but that there are also similarities in some of their other teachings. Controversially, he concludes that the Hebrew word Adonai (the plural for Adon or God) is similar to ‘Aton’ or ‘Aten’. (The letters ‘d’ and ‘t’ are interchangeable in the Egyptian and Hebrew languages.) However, the critical factor in his argument hinges on the premise that both these unique and new forms of monotheism occurred at the same time. There are also similarities between Akhenaten’s hymn to Aten and some verses of the Hebrew Bible. There appears to be a direct link between the hymn to Aten and Psalm 104 from the Old Testament; Psalm 104:24 states, ‘How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures’. The hymn to Aten says, ‘How manifold are your works which are hidden from sight, you sole god without equal! You have created the earth’. The broad themes of the psalm and the hymn are also similar; they both celebrate the goodness and beauty of the natural world.

Interestingly, the emergence of Jewish Monotheism (in what would become modern day Israel), occurred at the tip if the Great Rift Valley where early man made his way out of Africa...

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