From Sun to Sunday

The Hymn to the Aten

To some extent, the ancient Egyptian hymn to Aten (which can be found here: http://www.touregypt.net/hymntoaten.htm) is very comparable to Psalm 104. Both pieces are very similar in many ways. If you read the two side by side, it is very obvious that these two pieces are practically the same with praise to "God" instead of "Aten." Though, the wording is not exactly the same and of course and any purely Egyptian religious idea in the Aten Hymn is removed in the Psalm 104 rendition. In overall structure that are nearly identical and share similar ideas of creation of the earth, and praising God.

However, it seems interesting that the people who wrote Psalm 104 would use the Egyptian hymn as a model to write a psalm off of. Especially considering the fact that this comes from a totally different Religious context and it comes from the a polytheistic religion. Although it is interesting that this Egyptian Hymn comes out of a movement in Egyptian religion of reformation. Names of the many other Egyptian Gods were etched out of the writings on the temple walls throughout the land. This was all by order of the king Amen-Hotep–who later changed his name to Akhenaten ("Amen" is the name of a previous Egyptian God). This is (debatably) a movement of monotheism. So perhaps is does seem at least somewhat appropriate that this would be used as a model of a monotheistic psalm thousands of years ago. But did the writer of Psalm 104 have that idea in mind; the idea that this hymn is from a (once again, debatably) era of monotheism in Egyptian religion. I guess we cannot really know the answer to that that question. But Perhaps that is the case since this seems to be the only Egyptian Hymn that is borrowed for the creation of a Psalm; and also since this is probably one of few monotheistic Egyptian hymns, it makes sense that this is the one to be used for a psalm. And not mention, the similar themes of praise and creation, etc. that come from the hymn that make this a tempting piece for psalmist to imitate.