[Illustration: AMENHOTEP IV A striking likeness of an Egyptian king (reigned about 1375-1358 B.C.) who endeavored to introduce monotheism in Egypt by abolishing the worship of all gods except the sun god. This religious revolution ended in failure for after the king's death the old deities were restored to honor.] HEBREW MONOTHEISM The Hebrews, alone among the Semitic peoples of antiquity, were to develop the worship of their god, Jehovah, into a lasting monotheism. This was a long and gradual process Jehovah was at first regarded as the peculiar divinity of the Hebrews. His worshipers did not deny the existence of the gods of other nations. From the eighth century onward this narrow conception of Jehovah was transformed by the labors of the Hebrew prophets. They taught that Jehovah was the creator and ruler of the world and the loving father of all mankind. On Hebrew monotheism two world religions have been founded--Mohammedanism and Christianity. EGYPTIAN IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE We do not find among the early Hebrews or any other Oriental people very clear ideas about the life after death. The Egyptians long believed that the soul of the dead man resided in or near the tomb, closely associated with the body. This notion seems to have first led to the practice of embalming the corpse, so that it might never suffer decay. If the body was not preserved, the soul might die, or it might become a wandering ghost, restless and dangerous to the living. Later Egyptian thought regarded the future state as a place of rewards and punishments. One of the chapters of the work called the _Book of the Dead_ describes the judgment of the soul in the spirit world. If a man in the earthly life had not murdered, stolen, coveted the property of others, blasphemed the gods, borne false witness, ill treated his parents, or committed certain other wrongs, his soul would enjoy a blissful immortality. [Illustration: MUMMY AND COVER OF COFFIN (U.S. National Museum, Washington)] BABYLONIAN AND HEBREW IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE Some Oriental peoples kept the primitive belief that after death all men, good and bad alike, suffered the same fate. The Babylonians supposed that the souls of the departed passed a cheerless existence in a gloomy and Hebrew underworld. The early Hebrew idea of Sheol, "the land of darkness and the shadow of death," [16] was very similar. Such thoughts of the future life left nothing for either fear or hope. In later times, however, the Hebrews came to believe in the resurrection of the dead and the last judgment, conceptions afterwards adopted by Christianity. 18. LITERATURE AND ART THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD