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To: MeanWestTexan; Huber
Zoroastrianism, unlike Judaism, is a dualistic system in which two powers of either equal or almost equal strength vie for mastery over the world.

Some cultural anthropologists say that the Jewish concept of the yetzrim - the good and evil impulses in each person - is a cultural borrowing from Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian captivity, since there is evidence of Zoroastrian presence in Babylon.

I don't buy the theory.

Manichaeanism owes something to Zoroastrianism, but it involves an importation from the Greek mystery religions: the demiurge.

In Manichaeanism and in Marcionism, we have the notion imported from Zoroastrianism of an evil power vying against a nearly-matched or equally matched good power, and the evil power is identified with the Greek demiurge: the creator of the physical world, while the good power is the creator of the spiritual world.

In Manichaeanism and Marcionism the evil demiurge is the God of the Hebrew Scriptures.

20 posted on 06/18/2007 1:37:49 PM PDT by wideawake ("Pearl Harbor is all America's fault, right, Mommy?" - Ron Paul, age 6, 12/7/1941)
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To: wideawake

“Zoroastrianism, unlike Judaism, is a dualistic system in which two powers of either equal or almost equal strength vie for mastery over the world.

Some cultural anthropologists say that the Jewish concept of the yetzrim - the good and evil impulses in each person - is a cultural borrowing from Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian captivity, since there is evidence of Zoroastrian presence in Babylon.”

From the fall of Jerusalem to about 1000 AD, the largest population of Jews lived in Babylon. They were there certainly long enough to, as you say, borrow from Zoroastrianism. Strong evidence of their “borrowing” appears in the two sides of the Kabbalistic sephiroth.


31 posted on 06/18/2007 2:58:04 PM PDT by sasportas
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To: wideawake; Huber; MeanWestTexan

Boy...I am impressed with the knowledge you guys have on the history of religion.


47 posted on 06/19/2007 12:56:06 PM PDT by Pharmboy ([She turned me into a] Newt! in '08)
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