Rich
2009-04-30 11:08:38 UTC
ZOROASTRIANISM
"Now it was from this very creed of Zoroaster that the Jews derived
all the angelology of their religion...the belief in a future state;
of rewards and punishments, ...the soul's immortality, and the Last
Judgment - all of them essential parts of the Zoroastrian scheme."
From The Gnostics and Their Remains (London 1887) by King and Moore
quoted at 607a in Peake's Bible Commentary
FROM ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA : "First, the figure of Satan, originally
a servant of God, appointed by Him as His prosecutor, came more and
more to resemble Ahriman, the enemy of God. Secondly, the figure of
the Messiah, originally a future King of Israel who would save his
people from oppression, evolved, in Deutero-Isaiah for instance, into
a universal Savior very similar to the Iranian Saoshyant. Other points
of comparison between Iran and Israel include the doctrine of the
millennia; the Last Judgment; the heavenly book in which human actions
are inscribed; the Resurrection; the final transformation of the
earth; paradise on earth or in heaven; and hell." by J. Duchesne-
Guillemin, University of Liege, Belgium
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MONOTHEISM
Fundamentally the Jews were polytheists. But whatever its date, the
idea of the covenant tells us that the Israelites were not yet
monotheists, since it only made sense in a polytheistic setting. God
stated that there are many gods: "Thou shalt have no other gods before
me"(Exodus 20:3). The full monotheistic conception of God came later
(Isaiah 43:10-13, Jer 10:1-16). The second Isaiah juxtaposes the great
Persian King Cyrus with the first monotheistic declarations in the
Bible. The second Isaiah is the first expression of universalism which
has no antecedent in the Bible, according to the Anchor Bible note at
Isaiah 45. He also first introduces the idea of false gods - a
fundamental and indispensable criteria for monotheism. A universal God
determines that only one is worshiped; a tribal god, of necessity,
implies polytheism since there are other tribes. Before the exile, God
was a vengeful, bloodthirsty, and jealous anthropomorphic tribal God
of fear. After the exile, He became a good, perfect, remote, and
universal God of love: identical to Ahura-Mazda. It needed the
subsequent missions of Nehemiah and Ezra backed by the Achaemenian
Imperial Government's authority to make the Jews ruefully conform to
the new ideal of monotheism.
EZRA, THE SUBVERTER OF JUDAISM
In 397 B.C. Ezra, a courtier of the Persian king, was sent from
Babylon "to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances" (Ezra 7:10). Ezra
had been born and educated as a divine reader in Babylon and was sent
by Artaxerxes to see if the people of Judea "be agreeable to the law
of God". There are explicit indications of widespread religious
conversion in Ezra 6:19-21 and Nehemiah 10:28-29, but why would Jews
have to convert to Judaism? Nehemiah, chapter 8, discusses an event
where Ezra read from the book of law which neither Hebrew speakers nor
Aramaic speakers could understand - the words had to be translated by
priests. What strange language could Ezra have been reading, Avestan
maybe? Ezra's major reform was the prohibition of foreign wives.
Although marrying foreign wives had always been the most favored
Jewish practice, such marriages violate Zoroastrian law (e.g. Denkard,
Book 3, ch 80). The alien nature of other laws to the Jews shows
itself in the distinction between clean and unclean animals in
Leviticus and Ezekial which was derived from the Vendidad, a
Zoroastrian holy book, where alone it is explained. The purification
rituals are identical in the Pentateuch and the older Vendidad. Von
Gall in Brasileia tou Theou, 1926, gives a detailed catalog of Jewish
laws taken from the Persians. Ezra also introduced the new festival of
booths in the seventh month, which is of course the Zoroastrian
holiday of Ayathrem. Finally, in about 400 B.C. the Old Testament was
put in written form when Jerusalem was still under the power of the
Persians.
SADDUCEES VS PHARISEES
The Jews greatly resisted the imposition of Zoroastrianism charading
as Judaism. The construction of the temple designed by the great
Persian king Cyrus for the Jews was delayed by both political and
physical means. "The true Israelis" built their own temple on MT.
Gerizim and wrote Jerusalem out of their Pentateuch. So, whatever the
Persian governors and priests were doing in Jersusalem in the name of
Judaism, it caused a great schism. The Sadducees, the 'purists', made
up over 97% of the population and believed in "no resurrection,
neither angel, nor spirit" (Acts 23:8) - in a word, no Persian ideas.
The Pharisees or Persian faction - Pharisee, Parsee, Farsi - never
numbered very high, not more than 6,000, although only Pharisaism
survived the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
CHRISTIANITY AS A MITHRIC CULT
In addition, Christianity adopted these doctrines from Zoroastrianism:
baptism, communion - the haoma ceremony, guardian angels, the heavenly
journey of the soul, worship on Sunday, the celebration of Mithras'
birthday on December 25th, celibate priests that mediate between man
and God, the Trinity, Zvarnah - the idea that emanations from the sun
are collected in the head and radiate in the form of nimbus and rays,
and asha-arta, "the true prayer". Centuries later in Greece this
became Logos or "true sentence" and like in Persia it was associated
with fire. Mithraism is widely considered to be a syncretistic
religion, that is: a combination of Persian, Babylonian and Greek
influences. However, the Greek influence seems to be limited to the
identification in Greece of Mithras with the Greek god Perseus. The
Babylonian influence seems to have been limited to astrology. Perhaps,
though, the Persian interest in astrology has been overlooked.
Zoroastrians worshipped at alters on hills and had a whole class of
professional Magi or priests who had lots of time on their hands to do
astrological research. Rather than a syncretistic religion, it would
be more proper to call Mithraism a Zoroastrian subcult. The center of
the Mithric cult was in Tarsus in Cilicia, Southeast Turkey. This is
whence Paul, the founder of the Christian church, came from as a young
man. Paul's insight on the road to Damascus was that instead of
treating Jesus as a false savior, he could be identified as the true
savior if combined with the new idea of "the second coming". That
would cure the embarrassing fact that nothing had come of Jesus' time
on earth. The rest was simple, Paul identified Jesus with Mithras and
taught a modified Mithraism. That got Paul branded as a heretic by the
true church and James the brother of Jesus. Eventually it cost Paul
his life. However, the Mithric ideas were so generally attractive that
they eventually won out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOME REFERENCES
Peake's Commentary on the Bible, Matthew Black and H.H. Rowley, ed.,
Revised edition, NY:Nelson 1982, section 607.
Encyclopedia America, Danbury, CT, 1988, vol 29, pp. 813-815, article
by J. Duchesne-Guillemin.
Zarathustra, Philo, The Achaemenids and Israel, Lawrence Mills,
Leipzig, 1903. Lawrence Mills was the brilliant American professor at
Cambridge who not only translated much of the Avesta but published
several books, including Our Own Religion in Ancient Persia, Chicago
1913, giving comprehensive examples of Persian words and ideas in the
Bible. They have been reprinted.
The Mysteries of Mithra, Franz Cumont, Chicago, 1903, also in Dover
Books reprint.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOME LINKS
Vispi Homi Bulsara's Zoroastrianism Page has a gateway to the best
mail list for Zoroastrians.
Avesta Web Server This server provides access to all of the extant
Avesta texts, along with English translations.
A site maintained by a private group of conservative Zoroastrians is
Traditional Zoroastrianism
The Zoroastrian Assembly A site maintained by a group of more liberal
Zoroastrians.
For more information see: Secrets of Zoroastrianism which includes a
link to comments by Mary Boyce on this topic.
Other topics by the author including education reform and legal
reform.
E-mail Mark Willey: ***@hotmail.com.
URL: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/religion/zoro.html
"Now it was from this very creed of Zoroaster that the Jews derived
all the angelology of their religion...the belief in a future state;
of rewards and punishments, ...the soul's immortality, and the Last
Judgment - all of them essential parts of the Zoroastrian scheme."
From The Gnostics and Their Remains (London 1887) by King and Moore
quoted at 607a in Peake's Bible Commentary
FROM ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA : "First, the figure of Satan, originally
a servant of God, appointed by Him as His prosecutor, came more and
more to resemble Ahriman, the enemy of God. Secondly, the figure of
the Messiah, originally a future King of Israel who would save his
people from oppression, evolved, in Deutero-Isaiah for instance, into
a universal Savior very similar to the Iranian Saoshyant. Other points
of comparison between Iran and Israel include the doctrine of the
millennia; the Last Judgment; the heavenly book in which human actions
are inscribed; the Resurrection; the final transformation of the
earth; paradise on earth or in heaven; and hell." by J. Duchesne-
Guillemin, University of Liege, Belgium
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MONOTHEISM
Fundamentally the Jews were polytheists. But whatever its date, the
idea of the covenant tells us that the Israelites were not yet
monotheists, since it only made sense in a polytheistic setting. God
stated that there are many gods: "Thou shalt have no other gods before
me"(Exodus 20:3). The full monotheistic conception of God came later
(Isaiah 43:10-13, Jer 10:1-16). The second Isaiah juxtaposes the great
Persian King Cyrus with the first monotheistic declarations in the
Bible. The second Isaiah is the first expression of universalism which
has no antecedent in the Bible, according to the Anchor Bible note at
Isaiah 45. He also first introduces the idea of false gods - a
fundamental and indispensable criteria for monotheism. A universal God
determines that only one is worshiped; a tribal god, of necessity,
implies polytheism since there are other tribes. Before the exile, God
was a vengeful, bloodthirsty, and jealous anthropomorphic tribal God
of fear. After the exile, He became a good, perfect, remote, and
universal God of love: identical to Ahura-Mazda. It needed the
subsequent missions of Nehemiah and Ezra backed by the Achaemenian
Imperial Government's authority to make the Jews ruefully conform to
the new ideal of monotheism.
EZRA, THE SUBVERTER OF JUDAISM
In 397 B.C. Ezra, a courtier of the Persian king, was sent from
Babylon "to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances" (Ezra 7:10). Ezra
had been born and educated as a divine reader in Babylon and was sent
by Artaxerxes to see if the people of Judea "be agreeable to the law
of God". There are explicit indications of widespread religious
conversion in Ezra 6:19-21 and Nehemiah 10:28-29, but why would Jews
have to convert to Judaism? Nehemiah, chapter 8, discusses an event
where Ezra read from the book of law which neither Hebrew speakers nor
Aramaic speakers could understand - the words had to be translated by
priests. What strange language could Ezra have been reading, Avestan
maybe? Ezra's major reform was the prohibition of foreign wives.
Although marrying foreign wives had always been the most favored
Jewish practice, such marriages violate Zoroastrian law (e.g. Denkard,
Book 3, ch 80). The alien nature of other laws to the Jews shows
itself in the distinction between clean and unclean animals in
Leviticus and Ezekial which was derived from the Vendidad, a
Zoroastrian holy book, where alone it is explained. The purification
rituals are identical in the Pentateuch and the older Vendidad. Von
Gall in Brasileia tou Theou, 1926, gives a detailed catalog of Jewish
laws taken from the Persians. Ezra also introduced the new festival of
booths in the seventh month, which is of course the Zoroastrian
holiday of Ayathrem. Finally, in about 400 B.C. the Old Testament was
put in written form when Jerusalem was still under the power of the
Persians.
SADDUCEES VS PHARISEES
The Jews greatly resisted the imposition of Zoroastrianism charading
as Judaism. The construction of the temple designed by the great
Persian king Cyrus for the Jews was delayed by both political and
physical means. "The true Israelis" built their own temple on MT.
Gerizim and wrote Jerusalem out of their Pentateuch. So, whatever the
Persian governors and priests were doing in Jersusalem in the name of
Judaism, it caused a great schism. The Sadducees, the 'purists', made
up over 97% of the population and believed in "no resurrection,
neither angel, nor spirit" (Acts 23:8) - in a word, no Persian ideas.
The Pharisees or Persian faction - Pharisee, Parsee, Farsi - never
numbered very high, not more than 6,000, although only Pharisaism
survived the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
CHRISTIANITY AS A MITHRIC CULT
In addition, Christianity adopted these doctrines from Zoroastrianism:
baptism, communion - the haoma ceremony, guardian angels, the heavenly
journey of the soul, worship on Sunday, the celebration of Mithras'
birthday on December 25th, celibate priests that mediate between man
and God, the Trinity, Zvarnah - the idea that emanations from the sun
are collected in the head and radiate in the form of nimbus and rays,
and asha-arta, "the true prayer". Centuries later in Greece this
became Logos or "true sentence" and like in Persia it was associated
with fire. Mithraism is widely considered to be a syncretistic
religion, that is: a combination of Persian, Babylonian and Greek
influences. However, the Greek influence seems to be limited to the
identification in Greece of Mithras with the Greek god Perseus. The
Babylonian influence seems to have been limited to astrology. Perhaps,
though, the Persian interest in astrology has been overlooked.
Zoroastrians worshipped at alters on hills and had a whole class of
professional Magi or priests who had lots of time on their hands to do
astrological research. Rather than a syncretistic religion, it would
be more proper to call Mithraism a Zoroastrian subcult. The center of
the Mithric cult was in Tarsus in Cilicia, Southeast Turkey. This is
whence Paul, the founder of the Christian church, came from as a young
man. Paul's insight on the road to Damascus was that instead of
treating Jesus as a false savior, he could be identified as the true
savior if combined with the new idea of "the second coming". That
would cure the embarrassing fact that nothing had come of Jesus' time
on earth. The rest was simple, Paul identified Jesus with Mithras and
taught a modified Mithraism. That got Paul branded as a heretic by the
true church and James the brother of Jesus. Eventually it cost Paul
his life. However, the Mithric ideas were so generally attractive that
they eventually won out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOME REFERENCES
Peake's Commentary on the Bible, Matthew Black and H.H. Rowley, ed.,
Revised edition, NY:Nelson 1982, section 607.
Encyclopedia America, Danbury, CT, 1988, vol 29, pp. 813-815, article
by J. Duchesne-Guillemin.
Zarathustra, Philo, The Achaemenids and Israel, Lawrence Mills,
Leipzig, 1903. Lawrence Mills was the brilliant American professor at
Cambridge who not only translated much of the Avesta but published
several books, including Our Own Religion in Ancient Persia, Chicago
1913, giving comprehensive examples of Persian words and ideas in the
Bible. They have been reprinted.
The Mysteries of Mithra, Franz Cumont, Chicago, 1903, also in Dover
Books reprint.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOME LINKS
Vispi Homi Bulsara's Zoroastrianism Page has a gateway to the best
mail list for Zoroastrians.
Avesta Web Server This server provides access to all of the extant
Avesta texts, along with English translations.
A site maintained by a private group of conservative Zoroastrians is
Traditional Zoroastrianism
The Zoroastrian Assembly A site maintained by a group of more liberal
Zoroastrians.
For more information see: Secrets of Zoroastrianism which includes a
link to comments by Mary Boyce on this topic.
Other topics by the author including education reform and legal
reform.
E-mail Mark Willey: ***@hotmail.com.
URL: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/religion/zoro.html