"He is the king of heaven...whose body is unknown" (qtd. in Redford 162). In the New Kingdom of Egypt, in the 14th century BC, a man attempted 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 intentions and not for political or personal gain. He chose one God, Aten, and it was this deity that was the center of attention during Amenhotep's reign. Amenhotep IV, who would later take the name Akhenaten, led a controversial reign that ended in failure. He would eventually be considered the “heretic king” (Assmann 149), but what earned him this title? Was Amenhotep IV really a “heretical king”? What kind of man was Aten's “first prophet”? Thanks to 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 the prime revealer of religious truth, a positive power . (Reeves 8- 9). Amenhotep IV was born in c. 1365 BC during the 18th Dynasty in Egypt to Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye (Aldred 11). It was named in honor of the gods Amun and Re of whom Amenhotep III sought to be the earthly representative (Bratton 17). Amun-Re was the creator God and Re was the sun God (Assmann 485-6). Together, these two deities were the most powerful God and are therefore normally referred to by the joint name of Amun-Re (Redford 97). Although Re 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 the card... completely devoid of their complicated and cruel theologies. By implementing this revolutionary ideal, the heretical king hastened the end of his empire and his own tragic fate. But his failure earned him a reputation so unique in the history of civilization that Breasted, the great Egyptologist, called him “history's first individual” (Bratton 49-50). Works Cited Aldred, Cyril. Akhenaten, king of Egypt. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1988.Assmann, Jan. The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs. New York: Metropolitan, 2002. Bratton, Fred Gladstone. The first heretic; the life and times of Ikhnaton the king. Boston: Beacon, 1961. Redford, Donald B. Akhenaten: The Heretic King. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1984. Reeves, C. N. Akhenaten, Egypt's False Prophet. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001