Subject: (urth) Zoroastrianism
From: Josh Geller 
Date: 08 May 2003 11:36:51 -0700

On Thu, 2003-05-08 at 10:11, James Jordan wrote:

>          Whatever Z. may be now, or may have been in the 1st century, the 
> question is what it was in Latro's day. Given the friendliness of the 
> Persian rulers to the Jews, it seems that ur-Zoroastrians may have thought 
> they were worshipping the same God under different names. 

Those were not ur-Zoroastrians, in Cyrus the Great's time. Zoroaster 
preached about a thousand years before this.

>                                                         Reading the works 
> of Zarathustra, one wonders if he had not been influenced by diaspora Jews.

That would have been quite a trick.
 
The influence is all the other way, as near as I can tell. 

Cyrus the Great conquered Iraq, and sent the Jews home. These Jews that
he sent home were sent there to run Palestine for him. They got up a 
committee to rewrite their scriptures, coincidentally making them more
Zoroastrianlike in the process.

Josh



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