About Amon and Aton?

[tychomorpheus]

Hi all. What do you know about the egyptian history of amonites VS atonites?

I have had some resources online that i've studied about Akenaten and the religious reform. Here is a base start:

In an online book about the philosophy of power called Teugma i've read:

"Direct experience – direct knowledge, an intense and painful learning, the coming of the individualised man out of the cocoon of preconceptions and the meeting of the reality beyond its representation – the Path of Aton."

"Energy and creation on the amonite Path, conscience and resorbtion on the atonite Path – the terms used must express the Path. Therefore they cannot be identical."


In an onlin essay of Immanuel Velikovsky:
"One is usually told that Amon was a solar deity and that Aten was also a solar deity. thus it comes to a rather unclear reform: one deity that symbolized the sun was rjeected and another deity that suymbolized also the sun was elected"

In Teugma again:
"Direct experience – direct knowledge, an intense and painful learning, the coming of the individualised man out of the cocoon of preconceptions and the meeting of the reality beyond its representation – the Path of Aton. The road to God is not behind, but only in the front – the old bridges broke and they cannot be used anymore, it is not a reason for sadness, but for joy. Even when going back, we do not take the same way at all.

Individuality implies two distinct aspects: the unity of the being, according to the model of the Supreme Being, and the limitation resulting from the apparent separation from the Supreme Being. The limitation is the obstacle that both the amonite and the atonite practices fight against. The essential difference refers to the respect of the unity of the being. The amonite practices deny individuality, leading to dissolution and involution, while the atonite practices assert individuality as an icon of God’s unity. "

Feedback? Thanks,

 

[wil]

I know nothing, but...

From the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary

Amon (mbd)

Amon, a'-mon (Heb.)–master workman; workman; builder.
This word in its primitive purity referred to the universal Mother, and designated the basic wisdom of God, the architect of the universe. Pliny renders this word as “artifex omnium natura,” the universal artificer, creator, of nature. From these developed the ideas of master craftsman, an architect, a builder, a mason. The Egyptians knew and understood this truth, but their priestcraft allowed it to degenerate into idolatry and nature worship. Amon of No, the Egyptian god, signifies the unmanifest, the uncreated, the mysterious. a An Egyptian god (Jer. 46:25). b An idolatrous king of Judah (II Kings 21:18-26). c A governor of the city of Samaria at the time that Ahab was king of Israel (I Kings 22:26). d There were others by this name.
Meta. Egypt is the realm of substance and life in body consciousness. To the unregenerate soul it is the land of mystery and darkness, yet it is essential to the continuation of the body. When the individual looks upon his body as material and believes that the substance and the life that sustain it are material, a fleshly inheritance, instead of recognizing their true source in Spirit, that individual is worshipping the Egyptian god Amon.
When the will (king) is guided by material belief concerning the body, the will does not become a true builder of the body temple in spiritual substance and life, but decides according to the outer letter, or shadow of the real, a decision that leads to death. The will is a master builder when established in Truth, but not otherwise.
Amon, governor of Samaria, signifies a ruling thought of the intellect. This ruling intellectual thought is also a workman necessary to body building. But in order to do its proper work in building a perfect body, the intellect must be set free from confused mortal reasonings: The Samaritans must come into an understanding of the Christ Truth–the intellect must be illumined by Spirit, that it may base its reasonings on the real instead of the unreal.

Ammonites (mbd)

Ammonites, am'-mon-ites. Descendants of Ben-ammi, son of Lot, and enemies of the Israelites (Deut. 2:3:3; I Sam. 11:11; I Kings 11:5).
Meta. Popular opinion; also the wild, uncultivated states of consciousness that thoughts of sensuality, sin, and ignorance have formed in the outer world. Careless, disorderly thinking weakens the positive, upbuilding power of the mind and opens the way for invasions of error thoughts. Thoughts of similar character congregate and form states of consciousness, just as people who think along similar lines congregate and form organizations. When the central thought is of the power of good, a constructive center in consciousness is formed; when the prevailing thought is evil, a destructive center is formed. There is a constant push and pull between these two states of consciousness, each one striving for supremacy, and the result is weakness in mind and body.
In II Chron. 26:8 the Ammonites refer to the generative region. “The Ammonites gave tribute to IJzziah.” Uzziah symbolizes strength. (See UZZIAH.) The strength center in the body, which is at the small of the back, is connected directly with the physical forces, and when this center is dominant it draws upon all the region below the diaphragm.

 

[wil]

I know nothing, but...

From the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary

Amon (mbd)

Amon, a'-mon (Heb.)–master workman; workman; builder.
This word in its primitive purity referred to the universal Mother, and designated the basic wisdom of God, the architect of the universe. Pliny renders this word as “artifex omnium natura,” the universal artificer, creator, of nature. From these developed the ideas of master craftsman, an architect, a builder, a mason. The Egyptians knew and understood this truth, but their priestcraft allowed it to degenerate into idolatry and nature worship. Amon of No, the Egyptian god, signifies the unmanifest, the uncreated, the mysterious. a An Egyptian god (Jer. 46:25). b An idolatrous king of Judah (II Kings 21:18-26). c A governor of the city of Samaria at the time that Ahab was king of Israel (I Kings 22:26). d There were others by this name.
Meta. Egypt is the realm of substance and life in body consciousness. To the unregenerate soul it is the land of mystery and darkness, yet it is essential to the continuation of the body. When the individual looks upon his body as material and believes that the substance and the life that sustain it are material, a fleshly inheritance, instead of recognizing their true source in Spirit, that individual is worshipping the Egyptian god Amon.
When the will (king) is guided by material belief concerning the body, the will does not become a true builder of the body temple in spiritual substance and life, but decides according to the outer letter, or shadow of the real, a decision that leads to death. The will is a master builder when established in Truth, but not otherwise.
Amon, governor of Samaria, signifies a ruling thought of the intellect. This ruling intellectual thought is also a workman necessary to body building. But in order to do its proper work in building a perfect body, the intellect must be set free from confused mortal reasonings: The Samaritans must come into an understanding of the Christ Truth–the intellect must be illumined by Spirit, that it may base its reasonings on the real instead of the unreal.

Ammonites (mbd)

Ammonites, am'-mon-ites. Descendants of Ben-ammi, son of Lot, and enemies of the Israelites (Deut. 2:3:3; I Sam. 11:11; I Kings 11:5).
Meta. Popular opinion; also the wild, uncultivated states of consciousness that thoughts of sensuality, sin, and ignorance have formed in the outer world. Careless, disorderly thinking weakens the positive, upbuilding power of the mind and opens the way for invasions of error thoughts. Thoughts of similar character congregate and form states of consciousness, just as people who think along similar lines congregate and form organizations. When the central thought is of the power of good, a constructive center in consciousness is formed; when the prevailing thought is evil, a destructive center is formed. There is a constant push and pull between these two states of consciousness, each one striving for supremacy, and the result is weakness in mind and body.
In II Chron. 26:8 the Ammonites refer to the generative region. “The Ammonites gave tribute to IJzziah.” Uzziah symbolizes strength. (See UZZIAH.) The strength center in the body, which is at the small of the back, is connected directly with the physical forces, and when this center is dominant it draws upon all the region below the diaphragm.

 

[iBrian]

Hi tychomorpheus - I'm not quite sure what the question is exactly??

One of the key points, so far as I understand it, is that Amun was part of a pantheon, whereas the Aten was monotheistic.

In which case the uproar Akenaten caused was by his removing the normal use of Egyptian gods and replacing them with a single all-powerful god.

Also note as above, Ammonites are a distinct Canannite tribe, and I don't believe they have anything to do with the Egyptian Amon in terms of beliefs.

 

[bob x]

I know nothing, but...

From the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary

If you want boring linguistics on the names: "Amon" starts with an aleph (the non-consonant, used for a word that begins with a vowel and has no consonant to "carry" it) while "Ammon" (the nation to the east of Israel) starts with an 'ayin (the glottal stop, a weak consonant made with a catch in the throat as in the slangy negative "uh-uh") so they are not actually related words. The root aleph-mem-nun means "to speak truth", as in Hebrew Amen! and Arabic Amin "honest" (not all Semitic roots also are found in Egyptian, which is a little distant from the Semitic group, but this one is). But an older form of the god's name was Min, which just means "sheep", and Amon continued to be represented with a ram's head: probably the god started out just as an animal-totem god (common in Egypt), and got "promoted" to a more profound status as "the god of truth" when Thebes became more politically powerful. When Thebes became the capital of Egypt, the god of Thebes had to be identified with Ra, god of the sun and father to all Pharoahs, so we started to hear of "Amon-Ra"; but he wasn't a "solar" god originally.

'Ammon is from 'am "nation; ethnicity" with an adjectival -n tacked on. The name survives as Amman, capital of Jordan. Anciently it was Rabboth-'Ammon "greatest of Ammon" (rab "great" as in "rabbi"), or if you will, just "capital city of the nation". But for a while it was called "Philadelphia" (under which name it is mentioned in Revelations as one of the Christian centers) a name mistakenly taken to mean the city of "brotherly love" (and therefore copied for William Penn's city in Pennsylvania): it is really named from Ptolemy Philadelphus "loving his sister", a Greek king of Egypt who decided to revive the Pharoanic practice of royal incest (as usual this led to a rash of birth defects and mental infirmities in the subsequent generations). But he did some other important things, besides rebuilding Amman, such as founding the Library of Alexandria, which he insisted should include a copy of every book available (all ships in port were searched for books to be copied: the ship-owner got the copy, the library got the original!) and translations into Greek of the most important books from other languages-- hence he commissioned the "Septuagint" translation of the Torah.

 

[seattlegal]

Aten was a triune god of Ra-Horus-Aten whose worship was only allowed to be carried out by the Pharaoh and his wife, who were considered to be Aten's sole representatives on earth. Everyone else was to worship the Pharoah and his wife. No idols were allowed, except those depicting the Pharoah and his family.

This setup caused the political business of Egypt to be neglected, and the dissolution of the existing religious system, upsetting everyone! No wonder it was abandoned!