Huh. Who’d have thought that an article on Zoroastrianism would generate as much conversation as it has. Here’s the article – by Laurie Goodstein in the NYtimes. Her point – that the ancient religion seems to be dying out. Mollie at Get Religion points out this commentary which accuses Goodstein of having a bllind spot, as in…the reason it’s dying out is because its adherents have and still are persecuted.
But the article completely omits one of the notable reasons behind its decline: severe persecution in Iran, where the religion was founded.If there is any nation in the world where one of the central principles of the Zoroastrians (the sharp distinction between good and evil) might be usefully applied it is Iran-which has mercilessly oppressed its native Zoroastrians (as well as Bahais, Jews, Christians, Sunnis, and Kurds). Will the New York Times ever find any acts by Iran objectionable?
NT Scholar Ben Witherington uses the occasion to clarify some points:
What is of interest to me is that some scholars have been suggesting for well over a hundred years that some of the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity may well derive from Zoroastrianism. Perhaps you will know Friedrich Nietzsche famous and influential book "Thus Spake Zarathustra". For all the hype however, the connections between Zoroastrianism and either Judaism or early Christianity are very tenuous at best, and don’t really explain much. What is however very interesting is that this religion has all along believed women were equal with men and should be able to be fully educated and fully participate in their own religion. In other words, this religion gives the lie to the myth that monotheistic religion is always necessarily patriarchal in the sense that it sets up hierarchies that end up marginalizing women and denying them various roles in society and in their own religion. Certainly, this religion could not be accused of being secular, modern, liberal, or a host of other epithets. It is clearly an ancient religion and yet women have been allowed to play vital roles in the faith including as its priests.
For my purposes what I would like to say is four things: 1) unfortunately we do not have really ancient source documents about this religion, only those which date from after the NT era, so we are not certain what the original forms of this belief system and religion were actually like; 2) it is just possible that when exilic Jews were in Persia during the beginnings of the Persian empire they came in contact with this religion. If so, it is hard to see in what way it influenced Judaism, if at all; 3) it is quite clear that earliest Christianity, being an offshoot of early Judaism in Israel and then elsewhere in the Roman Empire owes no debt to this religion, including not in its celebration of the Lord’s Supper or baptism, which are rituals which derive in part from Passover and water rituals in early Judaism; 4) monotheism was not the exclusive belief of early Jews before the turn of the era. Not only was their Zoroastrianism, there was also a period in Egyptian history when Akenaton was Pharoah that there was a belief in an abstract form of monotheism (the belief in the sun disk being the one and only deity or force ruling all)
But then, at The Corner, Michael Leeden disputes the whole premise:
Thanks to John Miller for the latest silliness from the NYT, which seems not to know that there is a vast Zoroastrian revival under way in Iran. As I have written from time to time, Islam is very unpopular in Iran nowadays (mosques are empty for Friday prayers; a few weeks ago there were less than a dozen people in the main mosque in Shiraz, according to an ayatollah friend of mine), but Zoroastrianism is surging. Just look at the fire festival for No Rooz, the ancient new year celebration, which the regime has been unable to quash.Who knows???
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