My theory is that the basic premise of Monotheism is "why are the children of God living in poverty?". This is found as a theme of the monotheist Jews vs. the polytheist Egyptian Empire, and as a theme of the monotheist Christians vs the polytheist Roman Empire.
According to archaeological research, there were occasional appearances of Monotheism in Polytheist ancient Egypt (before Judaism), when there were occasional economic collapses during the 7000 years existence of ancient Egypt.
If, during periods of economic prosperity characterized by a Polytheist religion having popularity, the question "why are the children of (whatever God) living in poverty?" is asked, a convenient answer "because the rich are the children of one God and the poor are the children of another God" is used to mitigate that concern.
When the economy collapsed to a desperate enough level and the amount of Poverty within a society becomes overwhelming, the Poor might then benefit from adopting a new religion that states that the Rich and the Poor are children of the same God, (because there is now one God, instead of several Gods). Then the Poor can use the argument, "why are the children of (the new one and only God) living in poverty?", to their advantage to overthrow the oppressive Rich.
It would have been wise for the current Pharaoh of Egypt to lead the resulting transition to Monotheism. This would explain the Pharaoh Ikhnaton changing his name to "Aton", and leading a transition to a Sun God-derived Monotheism in economically depressed ancient Egypt, centuries before the Monotheist religion Judaism (lead by Moses) appeared.
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