Hornung 's arguments have greatly influenced other scholars of Egyptian religion , but some still believe that at times the gods was more unified than he allow . Jan Assmann maintain that the notion of a single deity developed slowly through the New Kingdom , beginning with a focus on Amun @-@ Ra as the all @-@ important sun god . In his view , Atenism was an extreme outgrowth of this trend . It equated the single deity with the sun and dismissed all other gods . Then , in the backlash against Atenism , priestly theologians described the universal god in a different way , one that coexisted with traditional polytheism . The one god was believed to transcend the world and all the other deities , while at the same time , the multiple gods was aspects of the one . According to Assmann , this one god was especially equated with Amun , the dominant god in the late New Kingdom , whereas for the rest of Egyptian history the universal deity could be identified with many other gods . James P. Allen say that coexisting notions of one god and many gods would fit well with the " multiplicity of approaches " in Egyptian thought , as well as with the henotheistic practice of ordinary worshippers . He say that the Egyptians may have recognized the unity of the divine by " identifying their uniform notion of ' god ' with a particular god , depending on the particular situation . "