never been there

Oooh! Oooh! I just thought of a question on this topic, if anyone knows the answer - does the Bible ever actually use the word "Magi" to describe the 3 wise men from the East who visited baby Jesus? I can't find it, even with a concordance.

It was only when I read the Thousand and One Nights that I learned that "Magians" meant Zoroastrians. The implication of "Magi" visiting Jesus is to claim the stamp of approval of the major non-Abrahamic monotheist religion.

Boshko

for the best source on zoroastrianism check out <a href="http://www.avesta.org" target="_blank">www.avesta.org</a> its got all their holy texts and a lot of them are really intresting.

Zoroastrianism is definately an interesting religion but a lot of problems stem for it, namely the fact that before I came in contact with Zoroastrianism Judaism isn't really have the concept of armageddon, the messiah, the concept of telling people from different religions that they all worshipped the devil or even hell for that matter. And we all know what annoyances those ideas have caused.

But as far as Zoroastrians being the source of Jewish/Christian/Muslim belief in hordes of angels and devils, while true its not really their fault. The oldest texts (the gathas) simply give Ormazd a list of seven attributes and people later personified each of them as an angel and things went downhill from there in the standard pattern that we see in a lot of religions to proliferate mini-gods.

"I keep promoting that informing current Christians of the origins of their religions would be our most significant tool against fundamentalism."
Doesn't work, I've tried it all that happens is they blather at you about how Zoroaster ripped off Judaism

Also its actually fairly doubtful that Mithraism is based at all closely on Zoroastrianism, its quite possible that it was an astrological cult that just grabbed Mithras because it was a cool sounding oriental name. David Ulansey makes a very good case for that here:

<a href="http://www.well.com/user/davidu/mithras.html" target="_blank">http://www.well.com/user/davidu/mithras.html</a>

never been there

Sorry for wandering off-topic, but it turns out I was being KJV-centric. I checked at biblegateway.com and "magi" turns up in French, Spanish and of course their Vulgate source. We now return you to your non-Abrahamic programming.

The point of claiming non-Abrahamic support for JC stands, of course. It just goes back earlier than I though.

Anti-Creedance Front

Boshko, there is some great great evidence to support that Mithraism was HEAVILY influenced by Zoroastrians. It goes back to the Indo-Aryan tribes (no, this doesn't have anything to do with nazis). They had reached all the way up to where Anatolia, Russia is, near Turkey, and their two prime gods were Mitra and Varuna. And, like many other pagan religions, Mitra had a specific cult. This worship spread into Persia, where Mitra became an essential part of their pantheon. And Persians are Indo-Aryan to begin with, so he might already have been around. Anyway, he was pictured as the messenger of heavenly light, somewhat like Hermes to the Greeks, between the gods and humanity.

I have no doubt that this carried through when the Persian pantheon was transformed into Zoroastrianism. And the Mithraic cult couldn't survive, so they mixed their beliefs with Zoroastrianism so they could still carry it out. Much like how African tribal religion and South American pagan traditions became melded onto Christianity in certain places. The Day of the Dead and Kwanzaa. I think you get the picture.
Anyway, like I said before, showing Christians (and maybe Muslims) this evidence, they may decide for themselves, based on innate logic, that there's things behind the scenes. I am going to deliver a speech about this for my Speech Writing class and my Lutheran-to-end-all-Lutherans teacher in 2 weeks. I would like to see what kind of effects it has on them.

Sarpedon

I have always favored the theory that monotheism came from Egyptian Aten worship under Akhenaten. I view the two "captivities" that the bible mentions as being more representative of cultural influence brought by exiles from this or that country. After all, it is easier to believe that exiles from Egypt and Babylon influenced the less sophisticated people of judah than that the entire people were several times in their history, picked up and resettled. Though this sort of thing did happen occasionally, as is shown in the records of the Assyrian empire, to believe that it happened many times to the same people is stretching it. I would rather think that it may have happened once, and then became a popular literary motif. Back to the subject of Zoroastrianism, I certainly find the Zend Avesta to be the most boring religious book ever. It is worse than even Leviticus. At least L. has its unwittingly funny moments. Gotta go, more later.

Anti-Creedance Front

Ahhh yes, the story of Aton. Some people relate it to Amon, which could draw some similarities to the Christian "amen" said at the end of prayers. Does anyone really know what that means? Have they ever delved into it? I wonder. There are a lot of rituals that religious people seem to engage in without knowing where they came from or why they do them.

Sarpedon

Also there is the question of how much hinduism influenced Zoroastrianism (and vice versa). The hindu Devas become Devils in Z-ism whereas the Z-ist Ahuras become Asuras (demons) in Hinduism. I am always fascinated when I find Hindu/buddhist ideas cropping up in more western religions. Z-ism and mystery cults like that of Mithra appear to be the vector of transmittal

Greg2003

Do you have any website sources for comparison of the Hindu-Zism influences. This is a very interesting subject.

PandaJoe

I'm pretty sure "Amen" simply means "So be it", though I doubt many people ever consider it's meaning.

Sarpedon

I have little time for in depth web surfing. If you ever find one, let me know