manu dibango

It is often said that the jews got many of the ideas contained in their prophetic writings from Zoroastrian teachings they encountered in babylon.

To what period or date can we conclusively date (a) Zoroastrianism and (b) those ideas appropriated (or so it seems) by the jews?

premjan

Isn't Zoroaster somewhere between 1500BC and 600BC? I think the Zoroastrian ideas in Judaism may date to after their release from captivity in Babylon by Cyrus.

shunyadragon

I consider Zoraster to be closer to 800 to 600 BC and Zorastrainism/Mithrism to have older roots. Zoraster is considered to be the Incarnate word of God like Christ.

I am interested in any reference anyone may have concerning Mithrite and Zorastrian prophecy for the time of Christ and other events.

Frank

judge

This online review of R.C Zaehner's book The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism, makes the following comment.

Zaehner goes to the very beginning: Zoroaster himself. He dates him to the traditional, but mostly now discredited, time of about 250 years before Alexander's conquest. The evidence for this comes from a single unreliable source, and most of the evidence indicates a time between 1600 and 1300 BCE. The primary line of evidence comes from the language and manner in which the Gathas, the songs of Zoroastrianism and the Avesta, the first scriptures are written: they indicate an undeveloped pastoral culture that had not yet begun to coalesce into a dominant Persian culture.

Celluloid Sunburn

This is from the zoroastriansim section at religious tolerance:

"The religion was founded by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster in Greek; Zarthosht in India and Persia). Conservative Zoroastrians assign a date of 6000 BCE to the founding of the religion; other followers estimate 600 BCE. Historians and religious scholars generally date his life sometime between 1500 and 1000 BCE on the basis of his style of writing."