Zoroastrianism and Judeo-Christianity

[BVS]

I'm not sure how you go from person to "a force" from these statements. In fact, it seems consistent with the references in Job and Isaiah.

Well this goes along with the argument of limited language. I'm not sure how I would define it either, but I wouldn't ever define God or Satan as a person. I think that would be a little limiting.

 

[Elvis]

I think people who say the Bible is the dictated word of God are being a little naive.

divinely inspired...perhaps

nb...I dont see how it would be shattering to me if the bible were shown NOT to be an authority. Are you saying God can only relate to us through old words?

I recall a time not so long ago when the Catholic Church held to a belief that there was no life outside of Earth.

Boy, what an ironic day it was when the Pope acknowlegded that we found ancient organiz material on Mars.

I was sure the Catholic world was going to collapse... lol. It didn't. Why? Because most people don't even have a clue about the religions/sects they believe in. They are, for the most part, ignorant or naive followers (and I'm not saying that just about Catholics, but about most/all religions and organized belief structures).

 

[Basstrap]

I'm not saying that I have a higher wisdom...just seems it can almost be proved that the words aren't His very own. or at least, that they are greatly different than the original words.

whereas, nobody can prove at all that they are His words.
the only way they could be is if he himself intervened over all the years to force the church and writers and translators to write the exact right words.
that just doesn't seem like something God would do..I don't know

 

[Elvis]

Well this goes along with the argument of limited language. I'm not sure how I would define it either, but I wouldn't ever define God or Satan as a person. I think that would be a little limiting.

Funny isn't it though... that many people see Jesus as God, that statues hang on church walls and in homes? I thought I'd read something about 'Thou Shall Not Worship Idols'

*cough*hypocrisy*cough*

 

[nbcrusader]

Well this goes along with the argument of limited language. I'm not sure how I would define it either, but I wouldn't ever define God or Satan as a person. I think that would be a little limiting.

How so? God, as a person, who is omniscient and omnipotent. I agree we cannot "limit" God.

How do we respond? Do we elevate God and acknowledge that we cannot fully understand what God understands?

 

[nbcrusader]

Funny isn't it though... that many people see Jesus as God, that statues hang on church walls and in homes? I thought I'd read something about 'Thou Shall Not Worship Idols'

*cough*hypocrisy*cough*

While we do not have statutes in our home, I would not point the finger at Catholics who hang crucifixes in their homes. Its existence does not mean it is worshiped.

 

[BVS]

How so? God, as a person, who is omniscient and omnipotent. I agree we cannot "limit" God.

How do we respond? Do we elevate God and acknowledge that we cannot fully understand what God understands?

I guess because I've always thought as the definition of "person" having to do with human. But I see where you're coming from.

 

[nbcrusader]

I'm not saying that I have a higher wisdom...just seems it can almost be proved that the words aren't His very own. or at least, that they are greatly different than the original words.

I would agree that certain translations of the Bible are not authoritative. There are some sects or denominations that treat the 1611 King James as the absolute true source. As with any study, as you dig, you inevitably go back to the earliest known manuscripts.

 

[nbcrusader]

I guess because I've always thought as the definition of "person" having to do with human. But I see where you're coming from.

One thing I've enjoyed doing is a study of the attributes of God. Even with such rich descriptions, there is definitely a sense that God is much greater than what we can comprehend.

 

[BVS]

One thing I've enjoyed doing is a study of the attributes of God. Even with such rich descriptions, there is definitely a sense that God is much greater than what we can comprehend.

Absolutely. That's why I've always had a problem using everyday pronouns to describe God. I always felt using 'He' just as you would any other man never truly defined God. I always felt it lost something. But I think it's just a personal thing for me. I feel like too many often give God human attributes to define God instead of the other way around. But that's probably a whole different discussion.

 

[Basstrap]

God is not a he or a she

 

[nbcrusader]

Absolutely. That's why I've always had a problem using everyday pronouns to describe God. I always felt using 'He' just as you would any other man never truly defined God. I always felt it lost something. But I think it's just a personal thing for me. I feel like too many often give God human attributes to define God instead of the other way around. But that's probably a whole different discussion.

Definitely. The only reason for using "He" is based on how God has revealed himself to us (as the "Father"). It has nothing to do with our own gender.

 

[anitram]

Funny isn't it though... that many people see Jesus as God, that statues hang on church walls and in homes? I thought I'd read something about 'Thou Shall Not Worship Idols'

*cough*hypocrisy*cough*

I have never been to somebody's house where they worshipped the crucifix. Ever. Or statues of the Virgin or one of the saints. Some people put them up because it is cultural (ie. specific Saints are associated with their culture or ethnicity and the feast days of those saints are a huge deal) and not because they are worshipping them in any way.

In any case, growing up, we had all sorts of religious art in our house. We'd have crucifixes in some bedrooms, we'd have Hindu statues or art, Korean Buddhist art, etc. Most of it is quite beautiful.

And no, I don't believe that the Bible is the final authority, nor do I believe that it was penned by God. Inspired, sure, but also filtered and full of human bias. It is certainly an interesting read, but historically inaccurate (ie. the destruction of Jericho). I've never read it literally nor do I have any incentive to.

 

[verte76]

I am Catholic. I have crucifixes hanging in my room. I do not worship these crucifixes. The crucifixes are symbols of Christ dying for our sins. You cannot literally make a statue out of this. These things are merely symbols.

 

[Blacksword]

When I look at the Old Testament I look at it as the story of God's chose people, Israel. And I take theat name very seriously. It means (as I'm sure most of you know) "he who struggles with God". I view the whole Old testament that way. It is one people's struggle to come to grips with the Gd who chose them. And in the end though they do come closer and closer they do not succeed, but neither do they give up.

God is ultimately unknowable (plus we are separtated by our sins). He is too far beyond us to be understood. Yet he has reached out and invited people to come into communion with him. And people have struggled and tried. But the only way for us to reach God was for God to come to us. And thus we have Christ.

But going back there were any number of steps made by God's people to try and come to understanding, from the earliest vague notion sof God to the prophets and witers of the Hebrew cannon. That undrestanding changed and expanded under God's direction and aid and continues today (none of us knew Jesus, and we have been working for centuries fromteh Church Fathers on to understand the full meaning and intricacies of the Incarnation). That is what for me is meant by divine inspiration.

As to God as a person.... I consider him (use that as I'm used to that and I prefer a personla pronoun) to be beyond personality. Yet that does not make him impersonal (something less than personal), rather it makes him superpersonal, more than personal. The best we can do is percieve him as the Trinty, three person who are one being. As personal beings we see God as something somewaht like our selves but more so.

That's all I got for now, not sure how sensical or to the matter at hand that was...

One hting I will agree with you on Elvis, words suck.

 

[melon]

Well, it's been a while since I've commented in this thread, but I have something to add. I read an interesting blurb on this page, which focuses on the ancient people of Mesopotamia, starting with the Sumerians and ending with the Persians. Here's what the site had to say about the relationship between Zoroastrianism and Judaism:

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/PERSIANS.HTM

As one aspect of the religious eclecticism of Zoroastrianism and Cyrus's intentions, the conquest of Babylon led to the immediate freeing of the Hebrews who had been exiled in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. Cyrus claimed to have been visited in a dream by Yahweh, the god of the Hebrews. Aligned with Ahura-Mazda, Yahweh demanded to be worshipped in the land of Judah; Cyrus freed the Hebrews with the specific intent that they reintroduce the proper worship of Yahweh in the Temple at Jerusalem. The Hebrews, however, took several Zoroastrian ideas with them; although these religious ideas simmered and brewed as unorthodox ideas among common people, they would eventually resurface with a vengeance in Christianity.

Very interesting. It should be noted that many of the empires of the day didn't force their conquered peoples to convert to their religion; in fact, they often assimilated their conquered peoples' gods into their own religion. Yahweh, for instance, became added to the Hittites' group of gods, and the Assyrians, who succeeded them, extended equal religious tolerance to Judaism, even if the Assyrians were responsible for starting the exile.

I'm doing on-and-off research currently on pre-Zoroastrian influenced Judaism, and the place to look, at first, is within Sumerian religion. The Sumerians were the inventors of the "great flood" myth, except in Sumerian tradition, the gods ("Elohim," which later became used in a singular form [also Elohim] to refer to God) hated their creation of humans and sent a flood to destroy them...except for the survival of one man who built a boat. It should also be noted that Abraham, the father of Judaism, is said in the Bible to be from Ur, the most powerful of the Sumerian city-states. The Code of Hammurabi, while written by the Amorites (the "Old Babylonians"), is thought to have reproduced Sumerian law quite accurately, and it should be noted that the most (in)famous of those laws, "an eye for an eye," came from the Code of Hammurabi and is (obviously) written in the OT.

All very interesting to me...

Melon

 

[Screaming Flower]

intereresting. i've been facinated with zoroastrianism since i saw a pbs show on the three wise men.

 

[melon]

I've been talking about "subversion" lately, so I have something to add to my old thread here:

http://www.iranchamber.com/religions/secrets_of_zoroastrianism.php

The Subversion of Judaism

In 539 B.C. the great Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon. His government was a Zoroastrian theocracy. Cyrus had a history of pretending to adopt a religion and then subverting it. In Egypt he claimed to be a god on earth. In Babylon his first act was to worship Marduk, claiming Marduk had sought a righteous prince and Cyrus was he. Later Cyrus mocked Marduk and had his image carted off. Likewise he subverted Baal, worshipping him at first, then appointing Baal's priests and finally destroying Baal's monuments and temples. Cyrus repatriated certain grateful Jewish proteges in 532 B.C. The Persian Kings restored them to their land; and designed and helped them build a Zoroastrian-style temple which was completed 516 B.C. after prolonged resistance from native Jews. In 350 B.C. a large number of Jews were exiled from Judea because of opposition to the Persian theocracy. Here was the overwhelming influence of a mighty state religion in a great empire in which the Jews were subjects. Jews were commanded to obey Cyrus in Isaiah 44 and 45. Not only did the Persian kings select the Jewish high priests, Persian Magi even masqueraded as Jewish Priests (Isaiah 66:21). The Pharisees had all the positions of power, gave the law, and wrote the holy books. Some Jews like Ezra and Daniel (Daniel 6:1-2) were paid agents of the Persians. "It needed the subsequent missions of Nehemiah and Ezra backed by the Achaemenian Imperial Government's authority to make them ruefully conform to the new ideals of monotheism and nationalism that had been conceived in adversity by the diaspora in Babylonia."[5] This interest by the Persian kings in the religion of his subjects was not limited to Jews. They seemed to put great importance on all of his subjects conforming to their religion - perhaps they regarded it as a glue to empire, perhaps they were religious fanatics. The Persians subverted Jewish theology, history, law, and even their language.

And...

The myths and religious ideas of Genesis are nothing but borrowings from Zoroastrianism according to Dr. Friedrich Spiegal in Avesta die Heiligen Schriften der Persens (Wien 1853). Persian influence on post-exilic history was extreme. The post-exilic prophets acted as spokesmen for the Persian kings. Ezra and the others not only dated events by Persian reigns, but recorded the kings' edicts. In the Exilic books the name of Cyrus occurs 14 times, Darius 13 times, Xerxes 7 times and Artaxerxes about the same. There is no other religious book in the world that so honored foreign princes.

The total subordination can be shown in the extraordinary statements made about Persian officials in the Bible. Artaxerxes was requested to mediate Jewish prayers. Haggai in chapter 2:23 quotes God as calling Zerubbabel, the Persian governor of Judah, his "chosen one". Darius is revered second only to Cyrus and in Isaiah 45:1 Cyrus is called the "Anointed of the Lord," or "Messiah," or "Christ". There are more than one hundred Persian words in the Old Testament. Section after section of the Bible dates from the reigns of the Persian kings. At least Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel were written originally in Aramaic, an official language of the Persian Empire, but possibly all the books of the Old Testament were. LAW The official version of how the Jews got their present code of laws is that a long-lost document of Moses' was found and original laws were "reintroduced". "At the present time, the Pentatuech contains a vast body of elaborate law, but this is almost all the work of priests in the exilic and post-exilic period of Israel's history."[10] These laws took centuries to produce, and therefore had to have been practised widely and long, but they were never practiced by the Jews. The impossibility of Moses writing a document of God's law and then ignoring it and centuries of priests also ignoring it is absurd. The fact that this transparent ruse had just been tried by Josiah a few years previously completely destroys the myth. Josiah's "newly discovered" laws of Moses were believed by the educated of the time to be the secret creation of High Priest Hilkiah, secretary Shapan, and the prophetess Huldah.[11] What language could they have been written in, since Moses wouldn't have known the canaanite language of Hebrew? A point should be made that Ezra's laws were not only different but more numerous than Joshiah's by a factor of fourteen.

And yet again...

The Sadduccees were the vast majority of Jews. The politically connected Pharisees were the Persian faction. The word "Pharisee"; as well as "Parsee", Persians in India; and "Farsi" or "Pharsee" (Persian), are all derived from the name of the Persian town or region of Fars. The connotation given Pharisee was separated from the people of the land, the am ha-aretz. The people of the land were never in exile and therefore practiced true Judaism. There was mutual hostility between the Pharisees and the am ha-aretz. The Pharisees may not even have been Jews but Persian Magi, if Isaiah 66:21 means anything. That would explain "separated" as well as the mutual hostility with the true Jews. The Pharisees never numbered more than 6000 according to Josephus. "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 latter carried on in a fiery lake;...the soul's immortality, and the Last Judgment-all of them essential parts of the Zoroastrian scheme, and recognized by Josephus as the fundamental doctrines of the Judaism of his own times."[12]

Only Pharisaism survived the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 A.D. "Present-day Judaism is Pharisaic Judaism."[13] It was able to survive because of its Zoroastrian pacifism. Only the traitorous act of Rabbi Johann ben Zakkai's concordat with the Romans which allowed him to leave his fellow Jews to their deaths and remove himself to Jamnia kept Pharisaic Judaism alive.

I'd suggest reading the whole article. It's pretty interesting for people interested in Bible scholarship.

And, just to note, I've seen this article posted on several Zoroastrian websites. The "Iran Chamber" (unaffiliated with the government of Iran) has merely reposted it.

It makes me all the more wish that the Biblical canon of the Sadducees still existed. I would love to do a compare and contrast!

Melon

 

[hiphop]

What I'm getting to, melon, is that perhaps instead of questioning how the Zoroastrian beliefs may have influenced Judaism, and Christianity, you should be questioning how Kabbalah perhaps influenced Zoroastrian beliefs, and how Kabbalah influenced others.

Now, if you go poking around on the net, or even most books, you're going to find that Kabbalah surfaces after the exile... but don't be mislead. Kabbalah was not to be taught or discussed among those that did not pursue it on their own. It is something within, which leads me to this...

Personally, I feel that most people can't understand what Kabbalah really is, there are currently tooooo many misdirections (which is ironic, seeing as though it's not supposed to be taught, etc). BUT... if you want a pretty good interpretation, just look at George Lucas' The Force.

Unfortunately, as far as Kabbalah goes, I've got no great web sites to quote for you melon, no great books to quote either... what's written is misleading, fiction, assumption, flat out wrong, and is simply that... written.

Language is mans gift, and tragedy.

Ah, the Kabbalah...

now we´re getting somewhere.

I had no idea you were interested in that kind of spiritual topics, Elvis

 

[XHendrix24]

Wow. This thread is definately one of the most impressive and enlightening things that I've read in FYM. Congratulations, everyone. Very nice thread indeed.

 

[melon]

The Avesta is most interesting to read, if you can ever come across it. They have their own section called the "Purity Codes," which reads a lot like the "Purity Codes" of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, just as the canon of the Sadducees is lost, as far as I know, the Avesta took a huge beating with the Islamic conquest of Persia and large portions of it are forever lost, as well.

What's interesting, as well, is that if Zoroastrianism subverted Judaism into the faith of the Pharisees, Jesus subverted the Pharisees, only to be resubverted by Zoroastrian Mithraism by St. Paul.

Not all the "subversion" is bad. Jewish Christianity suffered from too much exclusivity, whereas St. Paul opened wide the doors to faith.

Melon