mopc

In the 500s before Christ, the Iranian ("persian")Empire conquered all of the Near East and much of North India, Central Asia.

The emperor which conquered the middle east, Kurosh (Cyrus), set the hebrews enslaved in Babylon free and let them return to Israel, the Tanakh/Bible calls Kurosh thus mashiakh (messiah), the anointed one.

The Iranians did not impose their religion (Zoroastrism) to others, but usually tried to subvert them. Ezra and Daniel were employees of the Empire and especially Ezra or people associated with him are the most likely to have put hebrew oral tradition in written form and edit those writings into the first issue of what we call the Old Testament/Tanakh: Torah, Neviim and Ketuvim (Law, Prophets and Writings), of course some of the books in Ketuvim appeared later.

Elements such as angels, good vs. evil, heaven vs. hell, judgment day were absent from the Torah, which tells the oldest hebrew/Abrahamic traditions. In the Torah, the souls of the dead went to Sheol, no matter what.

Zoroastrism had angels, good vs. evil, heaven and hell and judgment. Those elements thus probably got into hebrew belief by Iranian influence. The very belief that there is only one God and all others are imagined is more Zoroastrian than early Abrahamic, since the Torah and some other books hint at the interpretation that only one god is worthy of praise, the other gods exist but are unworthy.

Well, this is a theory I read in the following links:

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/63...gion/zoro.html

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/63...n/zorobig.html


What do you think?

badger3k

That's one of the basic theories on the development. During the Babylonian captivity, the Jews were exposed to many ideas that they hadn't been before. I think the basic monotheist bent came from Egyptian sources, but the rest (good/evil dualism, etc) were probably absorbed from Zoroaster.

mopc

What boggles me is that Zoroastrism and its influence are so little known even by scholars of religion. Take Karen Armstrong's "A History of God". The only history of God worth researching for her is the Abrahamic one - the subtitle says already "3000 thousand years of search by Christianity, Judaism and Islam". That I call Abrahamic Chauvinism.

The Zoroastrian influence I mentioned above is not even mentioned by Mrs. Armstrong, probably due to ignorance.

badger3k

But ignorance can be willfull and deliberate as well as unintentional . I'm surprised - well, not really - but most of the books by scholars that I have read at least mentions that connection - but then I tend to read the more "open" works, I guess. I do agree that Chauvanism plays a part, since how could such a huge religion have been influenced by such a pagan belief? (sarcasm there). I think it also has do deal with people's ego and basis of belief.

An interesting book that mentions the influence of Zoroaster on many beliefs is "Sacred Origins of Profound Things: The stories behind the rites and rituals of the world's religions"; Charles Panati, Penguin, 1996; ISBN 0-14-019533-5. The "world's religions are mainly the three Abrahamic ones, but Hindu, Taoism, and Buddhist beliefs are briefly mentioned. There are chapters on heaven/hell and the devil and the author relates the concepts to Zoaraster. It occasionally shows a Christian bias to me, but overall it carries some interesting rebuttals to many myths used by apologetics and others.

Another interesting site that has some Zoroastran texts is: http://www.sacred-texts.com/zor/index.htm

mopc

Good point, badger3k...

I also have books to recomend: In Search of Zarathustra (Paul Kriwaczek) and The Zoroastrians (Mary Boyce), the latter I havent read yet, its a scholarly work, whereas Search is a traveler's log with profound analysis though.... Kriwaczek was a BBC documentarist and his book is both easy to read and insightful, well researched.

badger3k

Thanks for the references - I'll have to add them to my list of things to look for.

Toto

In Search of Zarathustra (Paul Kriwaczek) searchable on Amazon, also cheap used copies

The Zoroastrians (Mary Boyce), also searchable

CX

Having read the book in question and being somewhat familiar with Ms. Armstrong's work I suspect it is not a question so much of ignorance nor chauvinism, but rather scope. Firstly, Ms. Armstrong is a journalist not a biblical scholar. Secondly the purview of the cited book is not comparative religion, but an outline of abrahamic monotheism for a lay audience. There are numerous connection points and syntheses she fails to mention but to do so would be to create a wholly different work. Lastly I'm not sure what scholarly references you've been reading, but the connection between Judaism and Perso-Iranian mythology is extremely well known and has been discussed at length in the scholarly literature as well as a few popularizations.

CX

The connection between Perso-Iranian mythology, particularly with respect to its stark duality, is well established. Additionally that the early proto-israelites were polytheistic, while not completely uncontroversial is nonetheless a widely accepted premise. Do you have any thoughts to contribute on one side or the other?

mopc

Well, the Bible itself mentions all the time that the israelis insist in worshipping many gods... there is a difference between a religion says and what the common people actually do.

That the populace was polytheistic is pretty ok, but was the bible originally a polytheistic or henotheistic (only one of the many gods is worthy of worship) text? Difficult to say. Probably yes.