Discovering an Egyptian Treasure - The Remarkable Ikhnaton - With Derek Samaras

This week we have a special episode planned with our own Derek Samaras. Derek passionately delves into modern discoveries of the ancient world, and he shares his keen insights on our program. Recently, he wrote an article on Ikhnaton, who was the father of King Tut. The Urantia Book deems him "The Remarkable Ikhnaton" and gives him his own section in the book. 80 years ago, the UB said this about Ikhnaton (known commonly as Akhenaten): "Never in all history did any king so methodically proceed to swing a whole nation from polytheism to monotheism as did this extraordinary Ikhnaton. With the most amazing determination this young ruler broke with the past, changed his name, abandoned his capital, built an entirely new city, and created a new art and literature for a whole people." Derek correlates this with modern discoveries. In his article, Derek writes: Akhenaten, the son of Amenhotep III was the young king of Egypt who ruled from around 1353 B.C. until 1336 B.C. and might be considered a revolutionary by today’s standards. During his short reign he successfully changed his name, relocated the capitol of Egypt from Thebes to a newly built Amarna, and united his people under monotheism. His writings were prolific as some are now immortalized in the Old Testament under Hebrew authorship. Akhenaten’s only problem was that his new religion based on morality and righteousness under one God was too much for most people to grasp at the time. When his short reign was over, there was an immediate reversion back to the old ways of worshiping Isis and Osiris. All of Akhenaten’s writings were subsequently destroyed, and his name has ever since been the subject of many speculations and wild tales by professional Egyptologists, Theologians, and Alien theorists. Join us this week as we explore with Derek his research and insights on this remarkable human leader.