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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (235848)	6/4/2005 7:49:00 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571755

INTERACTIONS WITH JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY Zoroastrian ideas have played a vital role in the development of western religious thought. Some theological concepts shared by Zoroastrianism with Judaism and Christianity are: # Belief in one supreme and loving God. # Heaven and Hell, and individual judgement. # Ultimate triumph of good over evil. # Strict moral and ethical code. # The Messiah to come for the final restoration. # The concepts of resurrection, final judgement and life everlasting. # The words "satan", "paradise" and "amen" are of Zoroastrian origin. The interchange of Zoroastrian thought with the Judeo-Christian ideology first took place when Cyrus the Great defeated the Assyrians and released the Jews from Babylonian captivity. They heralded Cyrus as their Messiah, as prophesied two centuries earlier in Isaiah 45:1-3. The Old Testament is replete with references to the Persian emperors Darius, Cyrus and Xerxes. The commemoration of December 25th as the birthday of Christ has its origins in early Mithraic observances. This was the date of a festival in Rome, chosen by the Roman Emperor Aurelian in 274 AD to celebrate natalis solis invicti, the birthday of the unconquered sun, which, following the winter solstice, once again begins to show an increase in light. At some time prior to 336 AD the church in Rome established the commemoration of the birthday of Christ on this same date. It is of interest to note that the three Wise Men (Magi) that heralded the infant Christ, were Zoroastrians. To this day, frankincense and myrrh are offered at the altars of Zoroastrian temples. As Dr. Mary Boyce (Zoroastrians, 1979) writes: "So it was out of a Judaism enriched by five centuries of contact with zoroastrianism that Christianity arose in the Parthian period, a new religion with roots thus in two ancient faiths, one Semitic, the other Persian. Doctrines taught perhaps a millennium and a halt earlier by Zoroaster began in this way to reach fresh hearers." What I find interesting is that there is very little original religious sources predating about 500BC. Thus accurate histories of the rise of these religions and how they influenced each other is not easy to establish. PS. Zubin Mehta, the well known conductor is (was??) Zoroastrian BTW.