Religion: Zoroastrianism

Religion: Zoroastrianism

The faith of the Persian kings — and the careful question of what, if anything, it shared with Israel

When the Jews came home from exile, they found themselves under a new kind of ruler. These kings were not idol-worshippers of the Babylonian kind. They were not followers of the God of Israel either. They belonged to a third thing entirely: an Iranian religion centered on a single great god of light and truth — a faith with no temple statues, honoring fire on open-air altars. We call it Zoroastrianism. It was the faith of Cyrus’s heirs, and understanding it clears up much about the Persian world of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel. It also raises one of the most delicate questions in the study of the Bible — one this page will handle carefully and honestly. Did Persian religion influence Judaism?

Ahura Mazda and Zarathustra

Open the inscriptions of the Persian kings, and one god stands at the center: Ahura Mazda (“the Wise Lord”). Darius the Great opens his great Behistun inscription by crediting him for everything: “By the favor of Ahura Mazda I am king; Ahura Mazda bestowed the kingdom upon me.” And notice what Ahura Mazda is not. He is not a statue. He is portrayed as the maker of heaven and earth, of humankind, and of happiness for humankind — a high creator-god of truth and light. His opposite is drauga, “the Lie.”

The prophet behind this faith was Zarathustra (Greek Zoroaster), an Iranian religious teacher. When did he live? Nobody is sure — estimates range widely, from around 1200 BC to around 600 BC. His hymns, the Gathas, are preserved in Avestan, the faith’s sacred language. They call people to worship Ahura Mazda and to choose truth (asha) over the Lie, in a cosmos understood as a moral struggle. Classic Zoroastrianism came to frame that struggle as a great cosmic contest: Ahura Mazda on one side, and a hostile spirit of darkness, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), on the other. This is dualism — good and evil locked in conflict, moving toward a final resolution in which good triumphs.

What Persian Worship Looked Like

Persian religion in the Achaemenid period had a distinctive shape. To a Judean, some of it would have felt familiar — and some of it strange:

• No cult statues. Like Israel, and unlike Babylon, the Persians did not worship carved images of their gods in temples. Herodotus noted with interest that the Persians “have no images of the gods, no temples nor altars, and consider the use of them a sign of folly.” A returning exile who had grown up amid Babylon’s idol-processions (see the Babylon guide) would have noticed the difference immediately.
• Fire and open-air altars. Worship centered on tending a sacred fire — a symbol of Ahura Mazda’s purity and truth, not a god itself. It burned on raised altars, often on hilltops, out in the open rather than inside a temple. That open-air setting is why Herodotus reported that the Persians had “no altars”: to a Greek expecting a roofed temple with a statue inside, a bare fire-platform simply did not look like an altar. The priests who tended the fire were called magi — the word behind “magic,” and behind the “wise men” of Matthew 2 — the Gospel’s magoi, eastern priest-astronomers of just this kind, though it never says exactly where in the east they came from.
• Purity and ethics. Zoroastrian practice put great weight on ritual purity and on the moral triad “good thoughts, good words, good deeds.”

The Bible never describes Persian worship directly. But it does show the priesthood at work: Daniel is set over “the wise men of Babylon” including “the magicians” and “the Chaldeans” (Daniel 2:48) — the Babylonian scholar-priests, whose Persian counterparts were the magi — without ever adopting their arts.

Understanding the comparison

Before asking whether Persian religion influenced Jewish thought, we need to distinguish beliefs about divine unity from beliefs about good and evil.

Monotheism means belief in one God. In traditional Jewish teaching, there is only one God; heavenly beings such as angels are His servants, not additional gods. Classical Trinitarian Christianity also affirms one God, understood as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These traditions can acknowledge a populated heaven while still teaching that there is only one God. Jewish teaching; Trinitarian teaching.

Ancient Israel’s scriptures do not all describe the divine world in the same way. Psalm 82:1, 6 uses the language of an assembly and “gods.” Micaiah sees the Lord enthroned among the host of heaven (1 Kings 22:19). Other passages strongly affirm the Lord’s uniqueness (Isaiah 45:5). The command to worship the Lord alone tells Israel where its loyalty belongs; by itself, that command does not say that no other divine beings exist. Scholars debate how these different passages should be understood and how Israelite beliefs changed over time. We should therefore explain what a particular passage says before assigning it a later theological label. Discussion of the biblical evidence.

Latter-day Saints understand divine unity differently from classical Trinitarian Christianity. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three separate beings, perfectly united in purpose. That distinction matters here: people can use the words “one God” while understanding divine unity differently. We should not assume that an ancient biblical writer, a modern Jewish reader, and a Latter-day Saint reader all mean exactly the same thing. Godhead.

These different understandings of divine unity leave another issue to consider: the place of evil. Knowing whether a tradition recognizes one God or a council of divine beings does not yet tell us what it believes about evil’s origin, power, or eventual defeat.

Dualism describes good and evil as opposing principles or powers. In Zoroastrian traditions, this includes teachings about truth and falsehood and the spirits associated with them. Different texts explain their relationship to Ahura Mazda differently. Monotheistic beliefs and some forms of dualism can coexist, because the terms describe different aspects of religion. Iranica, “Dualism”.

The influence question

Some scholars propose that Persian religion helped shape Jewish thought during and after the exile. The discussion concerns teachings about angels and demons, good and evil, resurrection, final judgment, and the renewal of the world. Similarities make the comparison worth exploring, but each proposed connection needs its own evidence.

Three considerations help us assess those connections:

• Dates of texts and traditions. Some detailed Zoroastrian accounts survive in written forms compiled long after the Achaemenid period. Those compilations can preserve much older oral teachings. A late written source therefore does not establish that an idea began late, just as an earlier surviving document does not by itself prove the direction of influence. We need to distinguish the age of a tradition from the date of the text or manuscript preserving it. Iranica, “Avesta”.

• Israel’s own scriptural traditions. The divine council appears in 1 Kings 22:19 and Job 1:6. Hope for resurrection is expressed in Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:2. These passages belong in the comparison alongside Persian sources. A theme becoming more explicit over time does not, by itself, establish that it was imported.

• Divine authority and opposition. In Job, the adversary acts within limits God establishes (Job 1:12). Isaiah likewise places light and darkness under the Lord’s authority (Isaiah 45:7). These are specific claims about divine sovereignty. Comparing them with particular Persian teachings is more useful than treating either tradition as a single, unchanging system. Reading Isaiah’s words as a direct response to Persian dualism remains an interpretation to examine, rather than a conclusion the verse establishes by itself.

Contact makes cultural exchange likely. Jews and Persians lived alongside one another for about two centuries, in Babylon, Susa, and Yehud. That shared setting makes exchanges of religious language and ideas likely.

This period was also an important stage in the collecting, copying, and shaping of Israel’s scriptures. Older records and traditions were being preserved and arranged, while some biblical books continued to take shape. Parts of the Old Testament therefore give us a window into this world and the communities preserving Israel’s sacred inheritance. David Carr, The Formation of the Hebrew Bible, chapter 7.

Similarities may reflect direct influence, older shared traditions, or developments within each community. Resemblance alone does not establish who borrowed from whom.

A Latter-day Saint perspective

Latter-day Saints believe that truths about the plan of salvation, the adversary, resurrection, and judgment were revealed from the beginning. Moses describes Adam receiving instruction about repentance, redemption, and the Holy Ghost (Moses 6:51–68).

From this perspective, genuine parallels in other ancient traditions can be understood as possible echoes of shared revealed truth. That belief gives us reason to study these traditions with interest and respect. Historical research can then examine the evidence for particular connections, including how teachings were preserved, expressed, and exchanged.

Reading the biblical accounts

Ezra and Nehemiah speak of the “God of heaven” (Ezra 1:2; Nehemiah 1:4). Ezra presents Cyrus as acknowledging that God’s authority and authorizing the rebuilding of His temple. In Isaiah’s account of Cyrus, the emphasis falls on the Lord’s ability to act through a foreign ruler for His people’s deliverance.

Persian religious history helps us understand that setting. The comparison becomes clearer when we examine particular claims about divine authority, opposition, and salvation, while allowing both Jewish and Persian traditions their historical complexity.