I Have Often Encountered the Claim That the Ancient Hebrews Were the First People to Embrace monotheism, But Didn't the Pharaoh Akhenaten attempt to impose monotheism on the Egyptians Hundreds of Years Before the Earliest Evidence of Hebrew Monotheism?

by DefendedCobra29
EmperorOfMeow

Judaism originated from a polytheistic Semitic religion and it wasn't until the 7th century BCE that the Yahwist faction gained considerable influence and other deities such as Asherah were purposefully removed. Atenism was introduced in the year 1348 or 1346 BCE, and it (obviously) predates Semitic monotheism by ~700 years.

There's also Ahura Mazda, that appeared roughly at the same time as Jews adopted monotheism, to take into account. Beside Judaism, Zoroastrianism also influenced other monotheistic religions that later appeared in the area, such as Christianity, Islam, Gnosticism...

Repeated claims that Judaism was the first monotheistic religion are quite likely (at least partially) a sort of propaganda of Abrahamic religions. Also worth noting is that Atenism only lasted about 20 years before the old gods were brought back after Amenhotep IV's death.

Semitic transition from polytheism to monotheism is pretty sketchy as there's a lot of deities, name changing and such.