The real founder and patriarch of the Jewish religion is considered to be Abraham, who lived in Canaan (modern Israel) around 3700 years ago. He was initiated into a sacred traditional line by Melchizedek, the mysterious Priest-King. It is with Abraham that the essential monotheistic nature of Judaism, which marked it out distinctly from other religions of the time, seems to begin. The later exile of the Israelite people in Egypt may have influenced Egyptian thinking (the Pharaoh Akhenaten attempted to introduce a monotheistic religion some time afterwards) and the Israelites, in turn, assimilated some Egyptian ideas relating to the afterlife and the nature of the Universe. Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, is supposed to have been responsible for the writing of most of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Torah. Another, even later, period of exile in Babylon brought contact with Parsee and Zoroastrian influences.