Roland

I don't know it someone has dealt with this issue before, but has anyone studied the effect of Zoroastrianism on Christianity?

From what I gather, this Persian belief system was the blueprint for much of what Christians believe about Satan, eternal life, hell, the Day of Judgement etc., far more, in fact, than the Hebrews who followed the Old Testament.

How reliable is this idea? Thanks for your input.

DrJim

This has come up a few times.

I think the influence on Christian thought was via Persian influence on 2nd Temple Judaism: by the time Christians were on the scene, the Persian ideas had helped give birth to all sorts of Jewish dualistic ideas, such as in the books of Enoch, Jubilees, some Dead Sea Scrolls and so forth.

Also in the mix were much older ideas about "combat myths" that the ancient Israelites shared with other Near Eastern folk: motifs shared with myths of Baal, Marduk etc. These primordial battles of creation were recast as eternal struggles of God against forces of rebelling angels, or spirits of deceit and evil when the Persians were encountered.

I don't know of any reliable links on the subject, but if you can find a copy of Neil Forsyth (sp?) The Old Enemy, Satan and the Combat Myth, Princeton University Press, you will have a rather indepth treatment on the subject. Forsyth is not a professional historian of ancient Israel (he's an English Prof, apparently) but he really did his homework on this one. It got the daylights praised out of it by some serious O.T. scholars, including RP Carroll, who was not the easiest guy in the world to impress.

Hopes this helps.

premjan

is a subbelief of Zoroastrianism, and it appears to have had much the same structure as Christianity, and was the last pagan nonChristian religion of Rome.

Bill

I think it would be interesting to consider a dialectical argument about Christianity and Mithraism since they apparently evolved into a synthesis (clearly, to me anyway, Christianity absorbed a number of beliefs from Mithraism), and it was to this synthesis that the Emperor of Rome converted (changing from Mithraism to Christianity).

If Memetics can ever organize itself as a true science, as opposed to a collection of interesting speculations about how thoughts evolve, then we ought to be able to trace memetic evolution through some mental equivalent of population genetics, and this sort of a study would be a fascinating thing to have for the fourth century.

== Bill

conkermaniac

Zoroastrianism is the granddaddy of all monotheistic religions, as far as I am concerned.

premjan

not clear that Zoroaster predates Moses. Dates on him are not very reliable, but he could have been as late as the Buddha (definitely after Moses in that case).

DrJim

Assuming of course Moses existed, which is a pretty big assumption as far as I'm concerned.

godfry n. glad

I heartily recommend Norman Cohn's _Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come_ as a source on Zoroastrian influence on Judaisam and Christianity.

godfry n. glad

Roland

Thanks, folks, I appreciate all the responses and suggestions.

JoyJuice

I second that reccomendation in regards to the ideal of Zoroasterism and the influence of apocalyptic literature, which all Christians are waiting for in anticipation.