Zoroastrianism, Judaism & Christianity
Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek & Zarthosht in Persia and India) founded the religion of Zoroastrianism. Scholars generally date his life between 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE based on his style of writing and he lived in Persia. “There are fewer than 200,000 Zoroastrians in the world today. In spite of its relatively few members, its importance to humanity is much greater than its current numbers might suggest, because:”
1 – Their theology has had a great impact on Judaism, Christianity and other later religions, in the beliefs surrounding God and Satan, the soul, heaven and hell, savior, resurrection, final judgment, etc.
2 – It is one of the oldest religions still in existence.
3 – It may have been the first monotheistic religion.
“Zoroastrian Beliefs”
1 – A single god Ahura Mazada who is supreme and only god worthy of being worshipped.
2 – Communication between himself and humans is by a number of attributes called Amesha Spentas (Angels).
3 – An evil spirit of violence and death called Angra Mainyu who opposes God.
4 – Asha is a form of righteous, all encompassing, natural law.
5 – A Saoshyant (savior) will be born of a virgin but of the lineage of the prophet Zoroaster who will raise the dead and judge everyone in the final judgment.
It was during the Babylonian captivity that the Jews (Israelites) would have first been exposed to these ideas (and this is the time in which most of the Hebrew Bible was composed). Who followed Jesus? Jews and gentile Christians who simply used the system of beliefs of this earlier religion to create the Jesus myth (of course, they used other religions as well
Filed by Frank at September 5th, 2008 under Religion