“He is the king of heaven…whose body is unknown” (qtd. in Redford 162). In the Egyptian New Kingdom, in the 14th century BCE, a man was trying to force a change, a revolution, on a people who had remained unchanged and unchanging for 2000 years. This man, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, promoted monotheism primarily for religious reasons and not for political or personal gain. He chose a God, Aten, and it was this deity who was the center of attention during Amenhotep's reign. Amenhotep IV, who later took the name Akhenaten, led a controversial reign which ended in failure. He would ultimately be considered the “heretic king” (Assmann 149), but what earned him this title? Was Amenhotep IV really a “heretic king”? What type of man was the “first prophet” of Aten? Through his religious reforms, Akhenaten has long struck a chord in today's predominantly monotheistic world, and the fact that the pharaoh's revolution ultimately failed only seemed to confirm his role as an early revealer of truth religious - a power for good. (Reeves 8- 9).Amenhotep IV was born in c. 1365 BCE during the 18th Dynasty in Egypt to Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye (Aldred 11). It received its name in honor of the gods Amon and Re whose earthly representative Amenhotep III sought to be (Bratton 17). Amon-Re was the creator God and Re was the sun god (Assmann 485-6). Together, these two deities constituted the most powerful God and are therefore normally referred to by their joint name of Amun-Re (Redford 97). Although Ra was the only Sun God, there were others under him who were individually responsible for a specific detail of the Sun God. Aten was an aspect of R...... middle of paper ... completely devoid of their complicated and cruel theologies. By implementing this revolutionary ideal, the heretic king hastened the end of his empire and his own tragic destiny. But his failure earned him such a unique reputation in the records of civilization that Breasted, the great Egyptologist called him "the first individual in history" (Bratton 49-50). Works Cited Aldred, Cyril. Akhenaten, king of Egypt. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988. Assmann, January. The Spirit of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Times of the Pharaohs. New York: Metropolitan, 2002. Bratton, Fred Gladstone. The first heretic; the life and times of Ikhnaten the king. Boston: Beacon, 1961. Redford, Donald B. Akhenaten: The Heretic King. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1984. Reeves, C. N. Akhenaten, the Egyptian False Prophet. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001