ade he transformed Egypt's polytheistic religion – a cultic tradition in existence for over two millennia – negated the pantheon of gods, and declared the Aten (the sun-disk) the sole god responsible for all of creation. His influence is far-reaching, if subtle, and, as some academics argue, is felt in every major western religion and mythology. Before delving into the particulars of his religion , scholarship necessitates a brief description of the various schools of interpretation regarding the "Heresy" of Akhenaten.
             The Different Schools of Interpretation
             The first and oldest school attained prevalence in the decades immediately following the discovery of the lost pharaoh. European scholars obsessed with the historic struggle between Church and State applied this schema to the Amarna period. These academics believed that the priesthood of Amun had become so powerful that the pharaoh's rule was subject and legitimized by the power of the clerics. Akhenaten plays the role of "the liberal, the free-thinker, even the scientist, who defied the encroaching and reactionary power of the priesthood." Another school is that of American Non-Conformist Liberalism, which casts Akhenaten in the role of the "enlightened" revolutionary thinker, far ahead of his time (i.e. Founding Fathers of the US): hence his internationalist and arguably pacifist nature. Most recently, arguments have been made from a decidedly Marxist point of view. These scholars argue that the "Heresy" was not simply a religious, but a political and social upheaval,!
             the direct result of a class struggle. They point to the "new men" of the court of Akhenaten, as evidence that he joined with the common people, installing them in places of power in place of the entrenched, landed aristocracy, and in the end he is defeated by a reactionary priesthood and the displaced nobility, thus restoring ...