From the Creation and the Cosmos theme of the Norton Anthology, the texts share some insight on how the world began or how it was created from the “unscientific” oral and written traditions of antiquity. In the Norton Anthology, “The Great Hymn to the Aten” and the excerpts from Genesis offer notions of the beginnings of heaven and earth, however they differ in their cultural contexts, with the hymn praising the sun god Aten for his creation and sustenance of life in Egypt and the excerpts from Genesis describing the sequence of God’s creational universe. Both touch upon how mankind and humanity came to be, but the main similarity of both texts is the emphasis of monotheism. Even in the Rig Veda of India, there is the idea that something greater had existed, before the other gods, that had been involved in the creation of the universe; “But after all, who knows…The gods themselves are later than creation…Whence creation had its origin/ he whether he fashioned it or whether he did not…he knows-or maybe even he does not know.” Now based on the prevalence of monotheism in their explanations, can one assume that monotheism was very dominant during this period in which philosophers were trying to uncover the origins of the world, because as stated in the introduction to the hymn to Aten, Egyptians were against the fact that their religious beliefs in other gods were neglected, and also tried to abandon the capital of the King Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) after his death. This shows that there is much conflict in their religious beliefs during the period. What influence would this have had on Egyptian culture? What role does religion play in the overall explanation of the beginnings of the universe?