Stephen Van Eck- The Forgotten Source
The Forgotten Source
By Stephen Van Eck
"Also Sprach Zarathustra" - This composition by Richard Strauss, featured in "2001", is a piece of powerful drama: rich in majesty, awe-inspiring, and with devastating portent. It is an appropriate memorial to the Persian prophet Zarathustra, whom the Greeks called Zoroaster.
Zarathustra's influence upon Judeo-Christianity and all of Western Civilization is little told, but should not be underestimated. His life and words changed the course of Western Civilization, setting it on a course that departed from the static cultures of the ancient Middle East. Without his impact, Judaism would be hard to recognize, and both Christianity and Islam would probably never have existed.
It is largely to Zarathustra that Western Civilization owes its fundamental concept of linear time, as opposed to the cyclic and essentially static conceptions of ancient times. This concept, which was implicit in Zarathustra's doctrines, makes the notion of progress, reform, and advancement possible. Ancient civilizations to that time, particularly Egyptian, were profoundly conservative, believing that the ideal order had been handed down to them by the gods in some mythical Golden Age. Their task was to adhere to the established traditions as closely as possible; to reform or modify them in any way would be a deviation from and diminution of the ideal.
Zarathusta gave Persian (and through them, Greek) thought a teleological dimension, with a purpose and a goal to history. All people, he declared, were participants in a supernatural battle between Good and Evil, the battleground for which was the Earth, and the very body of the individual man as well.
This essential dualism was adopted by the Jews, who only after exposure to Zoroastrianism incorporated both a demonology and an angelology to their religion. Retroactively, what was only a snake in the Genesis tale came to be irrevocably associated with the Devil, and belief in demonic possession eventually came to be a cultural obsession, as amply reflected in the Gospels.
Zarathustra claimed special Divine revelation, and had attempted to establish the worship of one Supreme God (Athura Mazda) in the 7th Century B.C., but after his death the earlier Aryan polytheism re-emerged. But many other features of his theology endured to the present time, through the religions that superseded it.
The Babylonian Captivity of the 6th Century BC transformed Judaism in a profound way, exposing the Jews to Zoroastrianism, which was virtually the state religion of Babylon at the time. Until then, the Jewish conception of the afterlife was vague. A shadowy existence in Sheol, the underworld, land of the dead, (not to be confused with hell!) was all they had to look forward to. Zarathustra, however, had preached the bodily resurrection of the dead, who would face a Last Judgment (both individual and general) to determine their ultimate fate in the next life, either paradise or torment. Daniel was the first Jewish prophet to refer to resurrection, judgment, and reward or punishment (12:2), and insofar as he was an advisor to King Darius (erroneously referred to as a Mede), he was in a position to know the state religion thoroughly.
The new doctrine of resurrection was not universally accepted by the Jews, and remained a point of contention for centuries until its ultimate acceptance. The Gospels (Matthew 22:23) record that the dispute was still going on during the time of Christ, with the Sadducees denying and the Pharisees affirming it. It may be a mere coincidence, but notice the similarity between the names "Pharisee" and "Farsi" or "Parsee", the Persians from whom the doctrine of resurrection was borrowed.
By Stephen Van Eck
"Also Sprach Zarathustra" - This composition by Richard Strauss, featured in "2001", is a piece of powerful drama: rich in majesty, awe-inspiring, and with devastating portent. It is an appropriate memorial to the Persian prophet Zarathustra, whom the Greeks called Zoroaster.
Zarathustra's influence upon Judeo-Christianity and all of Western Civilization is little told, but should not be underestimated. His life and words changed the course of Western Civilization, setting it on a course that departed from the static cultures of the ancient Middle East. Without his impact, Judaism would be hard to recognize, and both Christianity and Islam would probably never have existed.
It is largely to Zarathustra that Western Civilization owes its fundamental concept of linear time, as opposed to the cyclic and essentially static conceptions of ancient times. This concept, which was implicit in Zarathustra's doctrines, makes the notion of progress, reform, and advancement possible. Ancient civilizations to that time, particularly Egyptian, were profoundly conservative, believing that the ideal order had been handed down to them by the gods in some mythical Golden Age. Their task was to adhere to the established traditions as closely as possible; to reform or modify them in any way would be a deviation from and diminution of the ideal.
Zarathusta gave Persian (and through them, Greek) thought a teleological dimension, with a purpose and a goal to history. All people, he declared, were participants in a supernatural battle between Good and Evil, the battleground for which was the Earth, and the very body of the individual man as well.
This essential dualism was adopted by the Jews, who only after exposure to Zoroastrianism incorporated both a demonology and an angelology to their religion. Retroactively, what was only a snake in the Genesis tale came to be irrevocably associated with the Devil, and belief in demonic possession eventually came to be a cultural obsession, as amply reflected in the Gospels.
Zarathustra claimed special Divine revelation, and had attempted to establish the worship of one Supreme God (Athura Mazda) in the 7th Century B.C., but after his death the earlier Aryan polytheism re-emerged. But many other features of his theology endured to the present time, through the religions that superseded it.
The Babylonian Captivity of the 6th Century BC transformed Judaism in a profound way, exposing the Jews to Zoroastrianism, which was virtually the state religion of Babylon at the time. Until then, the Jewish conception of the afterlife was vague. A shadowy existence in Sheol, the underworld, land of the dead, (not to be confused with hell!) was all they had to look forward to. Zarathustra, however, had preached the bodily resurrection of the dead, who would face a Last Judgment (both individual and general) to determine their ultimate fate in the next life, either paradise or torment. Daniel was the first Jewish prophet to refer to resurrection, judgment, and reward or punishment (12:2), and insofar as he was an advisor to King Darius (erroneously referred to as a Mede), he was in a position to know the state religion thoroughly.
The new doctrine of resurrection was not universally accepted by the Jews, and remained a point of contention for centuries until its ultimate acceptance. The Gospels (Matthew 22:23) record that the dispute was still going on during the time of Christ, with the Sadducees denying and the Pharisees affirming it. It may be a mere coincidence, but notice the similarity between the names "Pharisee" and "Farsi" or "Parsee", the Persians from whom the doctrine of resurrection was borrowed.