Scottish historian & art historian; @EmpirePodUK podcaster & Jaipur Lit Fest co-director. 2024 Visiting Fellow at All Souls, Oxford. Writes the occasional book.
Joined November 2012
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New from @EmpirePodUK
THE ORIGINS OF GOD
Where did the idea of one God come from? Not the God of any particular faith — but the very concept that there is only one, that all others are false, that monotheism itself is possible? This week on Empire, we go looking for the answer. It leads somewhere extraordinary.
linktr.ee/empirepoduk
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@ProfFrancesca joins @DalrympleWill to explore that world.
From Akhenaten’s Aten to Yahweh’s rise, they ask how gods changed, how rival deities disappeared, and how one divine figure came to dominate the biblical imagination.
Link to episode below 👇
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What if early Judaism was not born in isolation?
What if its ideas about one God were shaped by contact with Egypt, empire, exile and older Near Eastern traditions?
The Hebrew Bible itself emerged from a world full of cultural collision.
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Freud believed this experiment did not simply die with Akhenaten.
In his theory, Atenism survived through Moses, who passed an Egyptian form of monotheism to the Israelites.
It is controversial, speculative, and still debated.
But it raises a fascinating possibility.
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Akhenaten’s religious revolution was radical.
He closed temples, sidelined Egypt’s old gods, and placed the sun-disc Aten at the centre of worship.
It was not quite monotheism as we understand it today, but it was a shocking attempt to narrow divine power into one source.
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In the 14th century BC, Pharaoh Akhenaten tried to overturn Egyptian religion by worshipping one supreme god: the Aten.
Centuries later, Freud asked a provocative question:
Did that idea help shape early Judaism?
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Did monotheism originate in Ancient Egypt?
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Jun 15
👇👇👇
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Wow totally unexpected!
Jun 15
I couldn't be happier to welcome the singular @DouglasKMurray to @TheFP as a weekly columnist.
thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-j…
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How did Tutankhamun die? 🤔
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There is zero excuse for this. None. I taught children on the very land this settlement was built on. I habe been to the horrific site where they were forcibly displaced to next to Jerusalem's garbage dump. This is a war crime.
Homes in illegal Israeli settlements promoted at London property show
trib.al/7zZD1uK
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That’s not true. Israel stripped Arabic of its official status in 2018 through the Nation-State Law.
Most people don't know that Arabic is an official language of Israel.
Yup. The "ethnostate" runs on two official languages, one of which belongs to the minority it's supposedly excluding.
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New from @EmpirePodUK
THE ORIGINS OF GOD
Where did the idea of one God come from? Not the God of any particular faith — but the very concept that there is only one, that all others are false, that monotheism itself is possible? This week on Empire, we go looking for the answer. It leads somewhere extraordinary.
linktr.ee/empirepoduk
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2,427
What if the God of Abraham — worshipped today by half the human race — is the product not of a single revelation but of three thousand years of borrowing, struggle and transformation, from the sun-temples of Egypt to the rivers of Babylon? What if the origins of God are stranger and richer than any of the faiths that claim him imagine?
New episode out now. 🎙️
linktr.ee/empirepoduk
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367. Ancient Egypt: The Origin of Abrahamic Religions?
–Empire: World History – Apple Podcasts share.google/l7xkZIPy82gLO80…
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To make sense of all of this — Akhenaten, Asherah, Zoroaster, and the long strange journey to monotheism — we called @ProfFrancesca, whose book God: An Anatomy transformed how we understand the origins of the Hebrew God. Joining me for one of the most remarkable conversations we've ever had on Empire.
linktr.ee/empirepoduk
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367. Ancient Egypt: The Origin of Abrahamic Religions?
…–Empire: World History – Apple Podcasts share.google/l7xkZIPy82gLO80…
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