Zoroaster

Zoroaster (/ˌzɒroʊˈæstər/ or /ˈzɒroʊˌæstər/, from Greek Ζωροάστρης Zōroastrēs from Persian: زرتشت Zartosht)—also known as Zarathustra (/ˌzɑːrəˈθuːstrə/; Avestan: ���������������������������������������� Zaraθuštra), Zarathushtra Spitama, or Ashu Zarathushtra — was the founder of Zoroastrianism. He was a native speaker of Old Avestan and lived in the eastern part of the Iranian Plateau, but his exact birthplace is uncertain.

Zoroaster dating is uncertain as there is no scholarship consensus, some put him in the 7th and 6th century BCE as a contemporary or near-contemporary of Cyrus the Great and Darius I, while others on linguistic and socio-cultural evidence around 1000 BCE and earlier. Zoroastrianism was already an old religion when was first recorded, and it was the official religion of Persian Empires (Modern Iran) and its distant subdivisions from 6th century BCE to 7th century CE. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrian thinking. Most of his life is known through the Zoroastrian texts.

By any modern standard of historiography there’s no strictly historical evidence about him in any period of time, and the historicization is part of trend from before the 10th century to historicize legends and myths.

To continue reading this Bible article, click here.

Author: Wikipedia

Keywords: Jewish mythology, Zoroastrian, Zoroaster, Zoroastrianism, Dualism

Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Zoroaster,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.