Quote:
Originally Posted by Dubniumdk1
I believe several passages in the old testament were being written before zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, was even born. Several scholar sources believe the the date of birth for zoroaster to be anywhere from 3000bc - 400bc. The current consensus among scholars point to a birth around 650bc - 500bc. Isaiah was already written by this time. There is also some consensus among scholars that Zoroaster was only a myth. In any case, going by the general consensus of Zoroaster birth, if anything, Zoroastrianism may have borrowed from the bible.
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3000 BC to 400 BC is a pretty big window to accurately pinpoint an author heh heh!
I think it's safe to assume that many parts of the Tanakh were written before Zoroastrianism received it's classical description by Herodotus, in his
Histories. How much older than Herodotus' account was the religion? As Dubniumdk1 points out - we don't really know, so we don't know how much of an influence this pre-historic Zoroastrianism had on the Tanakh or it's pre-history.
We're on more secure ground when we reach the historic time in which both religions were able to interract (whether through political contacts, the exile, or with easy access to written sources) and then we can definately point to Zoroastrianinic influences in the later books of the Tanakh, as Insane points out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fractured_kidult
Fact: Zoroastrianism came before Christianity and oddly enough Christianity shares a lot of things in common. Look up Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Judaism.
Any thoughts?
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The thread question was "What came first: Christianity or Zoroastrianism?" The simple answer is Zoroastranism, since Christianity began in the 1st Century AD, and Zoroastrianism was in existence at least since the 5th Century BC (but, as pointed out elsewhere, is probably even older).
There are definate influences on both the later parts of the Tanakh, and the Christian New Testament - but it must be remembered that the Tanakh is not a Christian book, or even a collection of Christian writings: Christianity may use this as part of their sacred scriptures, but it is also used by Judaism. As long as we're aware that the Tanakh is a pre-Christian collection, the initial question becomes fairly obvious.
The influences, though, are pretty interesting. As is being pointed out in another thread (Evolution of Bible) - the initial idea of 'the satan' possibly stems from Persian influences. In the book of Job, the character of
the satan is suspiciously like one the characters known from Persia as
'the King's Eye' - a royal official who had several roles, including the overseeing of tribute, suppressing rebellions, and also acting as a type of spy who would investigate possibly subversive elements in the kingdom/s that might be dangerous to the King. Herodotus, in the above-mentioned work, mentions these officials, as does Xenophon and others. So in the book of Job, the satan is bringing charges against one of Yahweh's worshippers - he accuses Job of not being faithful to the king, essentially. In this capacity, the satan was not some evil deity, but merely a servant of the King - 'the King's Eye', if you will.
It's the later influence of Zoroastrianism and it's concept of dualism (good deity vs bad deity) that probably most influenced Judaism - and there we can see a definate evolution of the role of the satan as 'the King's Eye' into an actual enemy of the king/God. The satan loses his definite article, morphs into Satan - and voila. Theodicy is handled much better, God is off of the hook as the source of evil, etc, etc.
This seems to have been the most important influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism, and by extension - Christianity.
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