 Scholars have long debated whether traditional Egyptian religion ever asserted that the multiple gods were , on a deeper level , unified . Reasons for this debate include the practice of syncretism , which might suggest that all the separate gods could ultimately merge into one , and the tendency of Egyptian texts to credit a particular god with power that surpasses all other deities . Another point of contention is the appearance of the word " god " in wisdom literature , where the term does not refer to a specific deity or group of deities . In the early 20th century , for instance , E. A. Wallis <unk> believed that Egyptian commoners were polytheistic , but knowledge of the true monotheistic nature of the religion was reserved for the elite , who wrote the wisdom literature . His contemporary James Henry <unk> thought Egyptian religion was instead <unk> , with the power of the sun god present in all other gods , while Hermann <unk> argued that Egyptian civilization had been originally monotheistic and became polytheistic in the course of its history . 
