THE QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: THE CASE OF

ZOROASTRIANISM, JUDAISM, AND CHRISTIANITY

JAMES BARR
It is customary to connect certain phenomena of the later Old Testament and of
postbiblical Judaism with Iranian influence. The development within Jewish religion
of such matters as angels, dualism, eschatology, and the resurrection of the body is
commonly attributed to the impact of Iranian religion. This would not be surprising,
at least in theory; for the Jews lived about two centuries under the Pax Persica, and
some of their most important books were written in that time.
It therefore is striking that, on the whole, biblical and Jewish studies have
remained very much aloof from the study of Iranian language, literature, and
religion. For most biblical scholars, the Oriental background of the Old Testament
has meant the Semitic background, perhaps also the Egyptian and the Hittite, but
much less the Iranian. The energetic effort invested in work on Akkadian and
Ugaritic parallels stands in surprising contrast to the absence of similar attention to
Persian materials. Part of the explanation for this circumstance lies in the attraction
of novelty. The Avesta was known in the West from the end of the eighteenth
century, and it therefore provided materials for exploration long before Akkadian,
and still longer before Ugaritic, evidence was known. As usual, some of the theories
built upon Avestan evidence came to seem highly unlikely, and it was doubtless felt
that the resources of this literature had been fully exploited. Much of Old Testament
scholarship in the 1980s shows little greater consciousness of the Iranian sources
than existed before the mid-nineteenth century.
One also must consider the problem of linguistic difficulty. For the student
starting from Hebrew, the natural path of expansion is that opened up by Semitic
linguistics, and the passage from Hebrew to Ugaritic or even Akkadian is a fairly
easy and natural one. But Hebrew has practically nothing in common with Avestan
or Pahlavi, and Iranian and Indo-European linguistics are unfamiliar and difficult for
the Hebraist.
There are, of course, scholars who have studied both Hebrew and
James Barr is Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University.
Iranian materials together. Scandinavia in particular has a tradition that linked the
two and related them to the history of religions; the names of Soderblom, Nyberg,
and Widengren come particularly to mind. Among Iranianists who have made
significant contributions to biblical study, one thinks of H. H. Schaeder and, more
recently, M. J. Dresden.
Yet comparatively few Old Testament scholars seriously study Iranian
materials. Books like I. Scheftelowitz, Die altpersische Religion und das Judentum,
are now little read. That bible of the oriental environment, Pritchard's Ancient Near
Eastern Texts, contains no Iranian materials. It does include one or two inscriptions
of Cyrus and Xerxes, but, characteristically, these are translated from their Akkadian
version, not from the Old Persian, and handled by Assyriologists. I know of no fresh
examination of the question of Iranian influence by any major Old Testament
scholar in recent years. Actually, more has been done by some New Testament scholars (Reicke: 1960). Moreover, a number
of new studies of Zoroastrianism have appeared, some of which make reference to contacts with the Old Testament and
Judaism. I think particularly of the work of Mary Boyce, whose scholarship is enhanced in profundity and in interest because
her knowledge of Zoroastrianism derives not only from books but also from her living in the midst of the Zoroastrian
community. The significance of these studies has still to be noticed by many biblical scholars. There is room, therefore, for a
fresh look at the subject by an Old Testament scholar.1
The purpose of this paper is not to offer any precise answer to the question of the influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism
(and thereby Christianity). Rather, it aims to investigate the problems, and the kinds of evidence and argument, that are
involved in studying the question at all. In particular, it seeks to address three issues. First, what sorts of comparative
arguments are effective when it is not certain that the religions concerned have actually influenced one another? Second, to
what degree is detailed linguistic evidence effective in solving these more general problems? Third, can we arrive at any
statement of a kind of perception of another's religion that can help to explain the sort of interactions that may have taken
place?
It may be useful at the outset to say something about the impact of theological and other ideological positions. On the
whole, the question of Iranian influence upon Judaism appears less affected by ideology than do some other questions of the
same kind. Many scholars of the biblical theology period, for example, were very anxious to make it clear that biblical
thought was entirely distinct from, and owed nothing to, Greek

1 The lack of expert knowledge in Iranian matters will be

sufficiently evident in what follows. I can only say that I have
done what I could to gain some slight competence in the languages
concerned and to take advantage of discussion with Iranian
specialists where I could do so.
 thought. The absence of Greek influence was for them almost a matter of
principle. But these same scholars were often willing to admit Iranian influence upon
Jewish and biblical eschatology. For them, Greek thought was closer and more real,
and the idea of its influence upon the biblical tradition represented a sort of challenge
and danger. Iranian influence, however, seemed more remote and less of a threat; it
therefore could be freely discussed and, if necessary, acknowledged. 2 In this respect
the question of Iranian influence seems to be a more open one ideologically.
Nevertheless, this is not always so, and the effect of ideological considerations
upon our question can often be traced. Scheftelowitz has been criticized on the ground
that he could not bring himself to admit, despite his long studies of the question, that
Judaism, his own religion, really owed anything to any foreign religion. 3 J. H.
Moulton, better known among biblical scholars for his work on the Greek papyri and
the vocabulary of the New Testament, had a complicated set of religious values, which
much affected his handling of the Zoroastrian evidence.4 R. C. Zaehner (1970:1-39,
especially 30-31) displayed in his later works
2
O. Cullmann is an obvious example. As I pointed out (1969:165n.), Cullmann strongly
insisted on the complete contrast between the biblical view and all religious and philosophical
systems. Yet he found it possible and even natural to admit that Iranian religion agreed with biblical
in seeing time as a line.
3
According to Duchesne-Guillemin (1958:87), Scheftelowitz, if he finds the same fact on
both sides, refuses to deduce from it an Iranian origin even if it is attested much later on the Jewish
side.
4
Duchesne-Guillemin (ibid.) says that Moulton found it difficult, as a Christian, to admit a
large Iranian influence on his religion. It is doubtful, however, that Moulton is rightly assessed by him.
As I understand it, Moultons type of liberal Christianity (accompanied by missionary zeal!) worked in
a different way from what this suggests. Moulton had an extremely high opinion of Zoroastrianism and
assigned it a sort of validity close to that of his own Christianity. Zoroastrianism properly understood,
and taken at its best, had therefore a positive role in relation to Christianity similar to that whichon
traditional Christian understandingsthe Old Testament had had. Nevertheless Israel learnt a
profounder lesson still (Moulton, 1913:331). If Moulton was cautious in recognizing clear Zoroastrian
influences upon Israel and thereby upon Christianity, therefore, this was not because he was unwilling
to assign Iranian religion a position of comparability with his own religion. The contrary was the case.
Moulton wanted to accord to Zoroastrianism a greater degree of comparability with Christianity than
was historically justifiable through the influence of latish Iranian religion upon latish Judaism. He
makes this clear in his disagreement with Bousset (ibid.: 321). If Iranian influence was to be explained
through historical channels, it would mean practically that Zarathushtra himself is to be struck out of
the list of the prophets who contributed to the development of Israels religion (ibid.). Zoroasters own
work was for Moulton of primary significance; but it was not accessible through historical channels to
Jews of the last four decades B.C., who knew Iranian religion only through the distorted forms produced
by the Magi, the villains of Moultons drama. Hence the relation of Zoroastrianism to Christianity for
Moulton had to be a relation of essences rather than one of historical derivation. Moultons case is a
good example of the complications involved in relating the religion of the modern scholar to his
understanding of ancient religious comparison.
a deep hostility toward the Old Testament, which he contrasted with Christian values.
Such a gradation of values could easily have induced him to assign to Iranian
influence, rather than to inner development starting in the Old Testament, elements he
judged to be of positive importance in later Christianity.
Theological and other ideological convictions, then, do have a certain influence
on people's judgment of the probability of Iranian influence on Judaism and
Christianity. Nevertheless, for many the question remains a fairly open one; they do
not feel that their religious convictions will be compromised if Iranian influence is
admitted, or if, on the contrary, it proves not to have been effective after all.
If these remarks may suffice as preamble, we may turn to the discussion of our
question itself. The arguments for Iranian influence on the later Old Testament and on
postbiblical Judaism proceed on two levels, one particular and one general. The
particular argument depends on detailed pieces of evidence, such as the name of the
demon Asmodeus in Tobit. We shall consider it later on. The general argument works
from wide probabilities. On one side, it comes from the general feeling that a religion
as great and noble as Zoroastrianism simply must have had an effect on Judaism and
Christianity. Mary Boyce expresses it thus: 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
Iranian(1979:99) . Similarly, Zaehner (1961:57), writing about rewards and pun-
ishments, heaven and hell, says that the similarities are so great and the historical
context so neatly apposite that it would be carrying scepticism altogether too far to
refuse to draw the obvious conclusion that, in this area at least, Judaism and
Christianity are dependent on Zoroastrianism. According to this viewpoint, the
importance and the influence of Zoroastrianism are so obvious that, on these quite
general grounds, it is unreasonable scepticism to doubt that important elements in
Judaism and Christianity had their ultimate origins in Iran.
However, the general argument also commonly depends on another factor, the
confidence that the development known in the later Old Testament and in Judaism is
not intelligible except on the basis of external influences. In other words, it implies that
the internal dynamics of Israelite-Judaic religion could not possibly alone have led to
the phenomena we find in the later sources. A good example of this is the influential
and widely esteemed article of K. G. Kuhn, Die Sektenschrift und die iranische
Religion.2 Of it Martin Hengel (1974: I, 230) writes, The Iranian derivation of this
conception [i.e., that of two spirits, the evil spirit and the spirit of truth] has been
demonstrated since the fundamental studies of K. G. K u h n . 6
Kuhn works in a simple way. He lines up the marked similarities between Iranian
texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls and then argues that the conceptions shared by the two
could not possibly have developed out of the earlier Old Testament religion. He
indicates the differences and thus, as he sees it, shows how these conceptions,
borrowed from Iran, were developed in a peculiarly Jewish way. But his claim that the
conceptions could not possibly derive from a purely Jewish origin is, of course, easily
subject to challenge. All that is required is a hypothesis that could account for the same
facts on an inner-Jewish basis. Such an argument would not have to prove that its
hypothesis is right; it would need only to show that there is a reasonable hypothesis
that can provide an explanation through internal Jewish development. Such a
hypothesis would make it impossible to claim that the phenomena can only be the
result of Iranian influence.7

2 Cf. similarly Dupont-Sommer.

 6
But Hengel goes on at once to note the prevalence of similar dualistic traditions in the
Hellenistic world; and this in principle opens up the possibility that the Qumran ideas derive from other
channels than direct contact with Iran.
7
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has had an ambiguous effect on the entire discussion
of our question. On the one hand it has, in the minds of some scholarsKuhn, Dupont-Sommer, Gaster
greatly confirmed the idea of Iranian influence on Judaism and thereby the validity of the
comparative approach based upon it. The same time, however, saw an increase in the degree of doubt
about such influence and caution in the assessment of evidence alleged to exemplify it. Among Iranian
specialists, Widengren and Zaehner appear to take the evidence as clear confirmation of active
influence; Frye (1962), by contrast, is very negative on precisely this question. He points out that
precise textual analogies, like the pair children of light and children of darkness, are lacking; that the
occurrence of Iranian loanwords proves nothing about religious influences; and he ends up with the
question, May not the unorthodox Jewish beliefs of the Essenes be traceable to the soil of Palestine, to
the Judaism of that period with the apocryphal books, and above all to the Zeitgeist? Similarly, Colpe
had asserted that the Iranian and the Jewish evidence in both cases rested upon a spontaneous process
of hypostatization, so that there was no transference from one circle of religion and tradition to another.
Among less well- known scholars, if D. Winston affirms that Persian literary sources had already made
their mark on 2 Isaiah and on Daniel, that a spate(!) of Iranian doctrines found their way into the
apocrypha (187), and that the Qumran material is definitely of Iranian origin, even though the Iranian
impact seems to have been along the periphery of Judaism only (210: surely a contradiction, if it was
as pervasive as he himself maintains!), R. G. Jones at about that same time was arguing mainly in favor
of caution and and against what he called a priori acceptance of external influence. Duchesne-
Guillemin (1958:93) makes the further point that, if the Dead Sea documents derive from Iranian
religion, it is strange that they should reflect so clearly the very early Zoroastrianism of the Gathas,
considering the great changes that Iranian religion had undergone since thena point similar to
Moultons sentiments mentioned above. The survival of a pure Gathic doctrine up to the time of the
Manual [of Discipline] would be something of an enigma, knowing what changes had intervened in
Iranian religion since the days of the prophet. Kuhn, however, had sought to defend himself against
this argument on the grounds that the Gathas were
It seems, in fact, that the tendency to offer inner-Jewish explanations is
increasing, so that developments in Jewish apocalyptic are understood as, shall we say,
reactivations of ancient Canaanite myth rather than as products of late and Iranian
influence. Thus Paul Hanson writes, The basic schema of apocalyptic eschatology has
evolved in Israel and the whole development is perfectly comprehensible within the
history of Israel's own community and cult. Hasty recourse to late Persian influence is
therefore unnecessary and u n j u s t i f i a b l e 6 0 ) ).
This may be right or wrong in itself, but obviously the merely general argument
that Iranian influence must be invoked is insufficient. At this point the general
argument necessarily becomes dependent on the particular argument, that is, on the
provision of some detailed evidence to show that Iranian influence really did take
place.
To put it in another way, the general argument that Iranian influence must have
taken place needs to be supplemented by information about mechanism and
motivation. What was the mechanism through which Iranian religious influence
worked upon the Jews? And what was the motivation that led Jews to suppose that
Iranian religion and its categories had something positive to offer them? At least some
sort of hypothesis about mechanism and motivation is required if the bare bones of the
argument for Iranian influence are to be filled out with flesh. Conversely, it seems that
in these comparative discussions the character of Iranian religion has often been
presented selectively, in a way that emphasizes the elements that people deem most
relevant for Jewish (or Christian) religion. But such a procedure does not well explain
why these elements were selected from the totality of the Iranian religious world-
picture and why other elements within that religious totality were neglected and
ignored. It is possible that Old Testament studies may offer some suggestions in these
regards, and to these we now turn.
We begin with the example of a biblical passage that might, at least in theory,
benefit from explanation against an Iranian background. I refer to the story of creation
as told in Genesis 1. Iranian religion, as will be suggested again below, appears to have
a strongly cosmological character. Could aspects of Genesis 1 be understood as
reflecting this background? Mary Boyce (1979:52; 1982:43-47) suggests that the idea
of creation in the Old Testament arose through contact with Iran. 3 The
liberal acts of Cyrus meant that the Jews afterwards entertained warm feelings for the
Persians, and this made them more receptive to Zoroas- trian influences. The
evidence is in Deutero-Isaiah: Cyrus was hailed as Messiahcertainly a highly
abnormal procedure in Jewish religious practiceand, she goes on, the same prophet
celebrates Yahweh for the first time in Jewish literature as Creator, as Ahura Mazda
had been celebrated by Zoroaster. As soon, therefore, as the Jews came into contact
with Iranian religion, this new encounter served as a catalyst for the doctrine of
creation.
Professor Boyce does not discuss Genesis 1, but it is an obvious continuation of
her ideas to do so.4 It is at least arguable that Genesis 1 represents a later stage of
thought about creation and a response to the questions raised in Isaiah 40-66 (Barr,
1968-69, 1974?). I do not doubt that the main origins of the ideas of Genesis 1 lie in
Mesopotamia on the one hand and in indigenous Jewish problems and discussions on
the other. Nevertheless, there are aspects of this important and impressive passage that

3 The second volume of her History became

available to the writer only after the argu-
ment of this paper was complete, and it was
possible to take account of it only in the
notes and in minor modifications. She supposes
(46f.) that a Zoroastrian agent of Cyrus may
well have travelled to Babylon to converse
with Second Isaiah about these religious
matters, which were of political importance to
Cyrus in his campaigns. In this she follows in
part Morton Smith. The main point of Morton
Smiths article, indeed, is not the dem-
onstration of Iranian religious influence as
such, but the use by 2 Isaiah of Persian
literary
4 But see now, briefly, Boyce (1982:192).
are not fully explained on these bases. For example, is there any Mesopotamian
precedent for the tightly schematized and numerically controlled account of creation in
Genesis 1? If the account came from the Persian period, certain aspects of it could
have been framed in response to Iranian cosmological ideas, In standard Zoroastriari
conceptions, Ahura Mazda through Spenta Mainyu (Augmentative Spirit) brings into
being the six e n t i t i e s 1 : . Vohu Manah (Good Mind), 2. Asa Vahista ([best]
Truth), 3. Xsathra (Dominion), 4. Armaiti (Devotion), 5. Haurvatat (Wholeness), 6.
Ameretat (Immortality). These, the Amesa Spentas, have respective connections with
the series of creations, namely, (1) cattle, (2) fire, (3) metals, (4) earth, (5) water, (6)
plants (Boyce, 1979:21-24). There may be, behind the scheme, a seventh; Gershevitch
considers that Ahura Mazda himself had his own special creation, that of man, who
comes at the beginning of the series (11-12). Thus we have a clear numerical grouping
around the figures six or seven. This could have suggested the clear numerical
classification of creation in Genesis. If this were so, then the Israelite account could
have responded to the Iranian plurality of creations, each under its separate entity, by
organizing all under one finite and complete creation by the one God.
Moreover, consider the conspicuous absence of angels from Genesis 1. In this
carefully organized chapter, there is only God and the created world. The existence of
what we call angels seems to be there on the margin and to be assumed; but angels do
not create anything, and their own creation is not related. Could this be a negative
reaction against the idea that each stage of creation was presided over by a particular
mediate superhuman entity?
Finally, why is there emphasis, so evident in Genesis 1, on the fact that the
creation was goodan element for which, so far as I know, no close Mesopotamian
parallel has been found, and which is so strongly emphasized nowhere else in the Old
Testamentand why is there strong interest in the difference between the kinds of
animals? In the Zoroas- trian conception, not all things are good; some are good, some
are mixtures of good and bad, some are really bad. Among animals, some, like the dog,
are ahuric and belong to the realm of the good. Indeed, to this day in Zoroastrianism
the dog receives not just the leavings of human food, but the best of the food before
the humans get any.5 On the other hand there are the daevic animals, which belong to
the side of darkness, the so-called xrafstra (Boyce, 1979:44). Something analogous
was known to the Greeks already through Herodotus (with Plutarch it is water r a t s 6 :

5 On this, see the vivid portrayal of Boyce

(1977:139-46 and passim, along with Plate lb).
6 Herodotus i. 140 reads: The magi with their
own hands kill everything except for dog and
man, and make great rivalry therein, killing
alike ants, snakes, and other creeping things
and flying things. Cf. Boyce (1979:76).
Moulton characteristically considers this to
be an aspect purely belonging the the Magian
( the more one kills of such animals, the better, for the physical destruction of such
animals literally reduces the total power of evil in the world. Could this furnish a
reason why Genesis 1 shows an interest in the creeping things, which, though
unclean for Jews to eat, are expressly stated to be good creations of God?
Thus it is not difficult for the imaginative interpreter to think of ways in which
creation passages in the Old Testament could be illuminated if they were seen against
an Iranian background. If this were to be accepted, however, it would not necessarily
mean that Jewish religion took over large elements from Iranian; rather, it would
suggest that Iranian religion acted as a catalyst and caused the Jewish religion to define
itself by contrast as much as by imitation. Such an interpretation would follow
Professor Boyce in agreeing that the presence of Iranian religion affected the
formulation of developed Jewish literature about creation, but without suggesting that
there was no Jewish idea of creation before that time.

deformation of the religion: It is purely

Magian, alien alike from genuine Persian
religion and from Zarathushtras Reform
(398). Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 46 (Griffiths, ed.:
192), expresses much the same idea, but
clearly related to Zoroastrian dualism: They
believe that among plants too some belong to
the good god and others to the evil daemon,
and that among animals some, such as dogs,
birds, and land hedgehogs, belong to the good
god, whereas water rats belong to the bad
deity, and for this reason they regard as
happy whoever kills a great number of them.
For the killing of such creatures, notably of
frogs, in more modern times, see Boyce (1977:
179).
 As an imaginative exercise, such an interpretation may be quite stimulating.
Before we go farther with it, however, we should stop and face a body of Old
Testament evidence that points in the opposite direction. Whatever may be the case
with the creation story, we have to consider the striking indifference of other parts of
the Old Testament to the religion of Iran.7
The rise of the Persian Empire brought into the Middle East a religion that in
structure and type was entirely different from the religions, of basically Semitic
peoples, with which the Hebrews were reasonably familiar. But it is very difficult to
find in the Bible any recognition of the fact. What is noticed, and clearly referred to, is
the change of power that affected the position and destiny of the Jews. Belshazzar was
slain and Darius the Mede took the kingdom; Cyrus came to say that Jerusalem would
be rebuilt and the temple re-founded. Clearly the rise of Persia proved fortunate for the
Jews, and for this reason it is noted that the blessing and favor of the God of Israel
rests upon the Iranian monarchs.8
But this does not mean that the Old Testament is interested in their religion.
Indeed, it manifestly is not. Nowhere does the reader of the Old Testament learn that
these monarchs are worshippers of Ahura Mazda and derive their power from him.
Nehemiah was the cupbearer of Arta- xerxes I and presumably in a position to know,
in the colloquial phrase, what made him tick, but he gives no indication of the king's
religion. What was Nehemiahs reaction to the emblem of Ahura Mazda prominently
displayed on the palace walls of Persepolis (Zaehner, 1961: plate 2)? What did he
make of the kings inscription: All that was built by me was built by the favor of
Ahura Mazda. Me may Ahura Mazda together with the gods protect, and my kingdom,
and what has been built by me. . . (Kent: 153, A!Pa = 148,XPb, 26-30)? Moreover, the
Zoroastrian calendar appears to commence in 441 B.C., three years or so after
Nehemiahs conversation with the king, but again Nehemiahs memoirs leave no hint
of such a development.9 And what would Nehemiah, presumably a monotheistic Jew,
have said had he seen the following inscription of Artaxerxes II at Susa, where he
himself had served: By the favor of Ahura Mazda, Anaitis and Mithras this palace I

7 This aspect seems to have received much less

attention in scholarship.
8 Dandamaev (1976:233) says that the biblical
writers exaggerate the goodwill of the Persian
monarchs towards the Jewish religion, wishing
to encourage their own people by telling them
that the great kings of Media and Persia had
recognized their God and given protection to
those who believed in him.
9 On the calendar see Duchesne-Guillemin
(1962:120-25) and Boyce (1979:70-74, 92-93;
1982:243-50).
built. May Ahura Mazda, Anaitis and Mithras protect me from all evil, and that which I
have built may they not shatter nor harm (Kent: 154)?
If Nehemiah knew about this sort of development, or about the religious structure
that undergirded it, he said nothing about it. In the Bible the Persian emperors speak in
terms not of the actual name of their own god, Ahura Mazda, and still less of the other
gods,10 but of the most High God or the God of Heaven, terms readily assimilable
to Jewish religion. It was open to Jews to understand this as if it referred to the one
true God, the God of Israel. This was no mere fiction of biblical style, for the Ele-
phantine letters show that it was actual and normal in correspondence. For example,
the letter 302, addressed to Bigvai, reads The Health of your lordship may the God of
Heaven seek after exceedingly at all times (Cowley: 111, 113)). This usage concealed
rather than disclosed the actual personality and structure of the emperor's own religion.
What impressed the biblical writers about the Persian empire was not the religion
that it believed and practiced but its court ceremonial and its means of power. Cyrus
writing his decree for the rebuilding of the temple, Darius digging it out of the archives
and confirming it (Ezra 6), Nehemiah taking wine to the king and being frightened
when asked why he was sad, Darius wanting to support Daniel but unable to do so
because he had been tricked into making his decision unalterable, Ahasuerus with his
127 provinces and his court rules, that a woman had to have a beauty treatment of
great complexity, that petitioners must be instantly put to death unless the king
stretches out his sceptre to them all these are the sort of thing that interested the
biblical writers when they wrote about the Persian empire. Its actual religious
structures, as we know them from Iranian sources, are left largely unnoticed. Daniel
talks in the same civil way to Nebuchadnezzar and to Darius, and there is no
recognition or comment that Darius' religion is a world apart from that of ancient
Babylonia. Of course, all these stories of good relations with foreign potentates were
stylistically modeled on that one great pattern, Joseph's relations with Pharaoh in
Genesis. The fact remains that the Daniel traditions, which doubtless go back to
memories of Persian times, show no vivid interest in the religious peculiarity of the
Iranian world. The main impact made by life in the Persian empire is that it provided
colorful pictures of how things were at the imperial court, from the viewpoint of power
and ceremony.
This is not to say that the religious atmosphere had no effect at all, for it may well
have generated some legends and motifs of the tales. Take, for instance, the idea that
the laws of the Medes and Persians were unchangeable. There seems to be no
evidence that their laws were any more free from amendment and adjustment than
those of any other people. The motif may be a legend rather than a reflection of the

10 Anaitis or Anahita and Mithras may be

construed as older Indo-European deities who
had been thrust into the background by the
original Zoroastrian monotheistic impulse, but
who were now coming back into recognition
within the religion.
realities of life in Iran. It might be a relic of older Indo-Iranian myth, for the God
Varuna, one of the greatest of the Veda, was dhrtavrata whose laws are established';
his ordinances are constantly said to be fixed (Ger- shevitch: 6; Boyce, 1979:23). A
feature of mythology may thus have been transferred to the actual Persian constitution
by the Hebrew storyteller or the tradition before him; for him it hardly mattered
whether or not it was an accurate account of Persian life. In any case, Darius in Daniel
6 was dealing not with a law, but with an administrative ruling only just made by
himself. The point was that ill-wishers inveigled the innocent monarch into a position
from which, even when his policy produced unintended results, absolutely no reversal
could be considered. Such a legend may have a religious background, but it tells us
nothing about the actual religion of Darius's time.11
To this consideration of literary content in the Old Testament we may add the
more detailed evidence of loanwords from Persian. These occur in both Hebrew and
Aramaic, but within the Bible there are probably more in the Aramaic sections,
depending on how one counts them. Naturally, even if a word of Persian origin appears
in Hebrew, this does not necessarily mean actual contact of Jews with Iranians; for
many Persian words may have been adopted first into Aramaic and then from there
into Hebrew. In adopting them, Jews may not have known anything of their origin or

11 If it should be true that the relation of

the four world-empires to a scheme of four
different metals (Daniel 2) came from a
Persian source, I would tend to class it also
in this way. The scheme was a literary figure,
hardly an actual element in Persian religion.
In any case, it seems still uncertain in what
way the author of Daniel came upon this
figure. In an impressive article, Momigliano
(1980: especially 161) judges that the scheme
of metals, as applied to a series of reigns or
historical periods, may be Persian, but that
the scheme of four world-empires is Greek, and
that there is no Persian precedent for the
attachment of the metals to world-empires as
distinct from Persian internal events. The
connection was more probably the original idea
of the author of Daniel. Also see Flusser, and
Collins. Collins takes the Persian parallels
as good illustrations for the Daniel material but
seems to imply that Iran is not the basic
source of the imagery.
their context and meaning within Iranian society.12 Even without this caution, it seems
that Persian loanwords in Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic of this earlier period are seldom
terms of the Iranian religious world and seldom show signs of acquaintance with the
major ideological systems of the Iranian people. Thus, there is no loanword, so far as I
know, from ahura lord', or from drug lie, or from arta, asa truth', or from magu
*Magian',13 or from fravasi guardian spirit'. The element arta- is found in names like
Artaxerxes, artahsasta, which occurs in the Bible, but there is no evidence that
anyone knew what the arta- element represented. It is quite likely that Hebrew din at
Esther 1:13, kol yodece dat wa-dln, is from Avestan daena *religion' and therefore
distinct from the Semitic din judge, judgment'.14 But even if so, it is an isolated
example, and the actual meaning of the word continued to be *judgment' in Hebrew;
the Syriac cases with the sense *religion' are much later. As for dat itself, this is
certainly a Persian loanword in Hebrew and later became the dominant Jewish word
for *religion'. In this it corresponds to Arabic din, but in the Bible it does not mean

12 Frye seems to have a different emphasis in

his article in the Eilers Festschrift
(1967:78) where he says that the adoption of
loanwords shows that ideas and concepts are
often borrowed along with the words and his
article on Qumran (1962:26) where he says that
Iranian words in the Dead Sea Scrolls would
not be extraordinary and then would prove
nothing about religious influence. The latter
point of view is on the whole followed here,
except where there is a special reason to the
contrary.
13 The term rab-mag of Jeremiah 39:3, 13 is
certainly not Iranian, and is related to
Akkadian rab-mugi (von Soden: 667b), as is
obvious from the fact that the reference is to
Babylonian functionaries. It was in fact used,
nevertheless, by Moulton as evidence of the
presence of Magi (187f., 230, 430).
14 So G. R. Driver (1955:90, n. 2). The suggestion is one of Drivers best, and is doubtless followed by
The New English Bible with its all who were versed in law and religion. The idea was doubtless
suggested by Syriac din religion, dinig, ascetic, both from this Iranian root, and cited already in
Brockelman (151b), as acknowledged by Driver, and perhaps also by still earlier discussions, such as
Scheftelowitz (1901: 82ff.), which discusses dmaye at Ezra 4:9, and implies the same Iranian root for
it. For more recent comment, which, however, does not speculate about the religious judgements
involved, see Porten (55).
For instance, Duchesne-Guillemin (1963:84) says it is difficult to explain the name in any other way,
but admits that la correspondance phonetique nest pas rigoureuse, mais cela est courant dans les
emprunts. Widengren (1957:215) accepts the equation. Frye (1962:266) says that Asmodeus is an
*religion' but *law, decree', even *practice', and so in the **laws'' of the Medes and
Persians; this was, of course, the actual Persian meaning. So it was not borrowed with
a specifically religious meaning.
In later times, by contrast, borrowings directly dependent on Zoroas- trian religion
appear in Aramaic/Syriac. A striking example is the Syriac daywa *devil', daywana
*demoniac', found in the Gospels, for example, Matthew 4:24. This comes from post-
Christian times and is readily explicable as such; the Syriac-speaking church sought
for a term for the demons and demoniacs of the Gospels and found one that was
intelligible in their milieu.
Thus the evidence of loanwords, for what it is worth, seems to show no strong
evidence of Jewish awareness of the Iranian religious structures. Conversely,
loanwords do demonstrate the point already made on the basis of literary content,
namely that Jews knew a lot about the administrative workings and court procedures of
the empire. Thus we have words for *satrap', for *magistrate' (detabraya [Daniel 3:2],
from data- *law' and bar- *bear'), for heralds and for assorted astrologers and the like;
there are also phrases for legal sanctions and punishments, like having one's limbs
removed (Daniel 2:5) or having one's house made a dunghill (Daniel 2:5). Tirshatha, a
title used in the Nehemiah cycle, is another administrative title or mark of respect
(*venerable, reverend' or the like); although the Iranian basis for it does not seem very
clear, it can hardly be anything else.20 Some other words are rather general terms: raz
secret' in the Aramaic of Daniel,21 zan sort, kind (Psalms 144:12, 2 Chronicles
16:14?), pit gam word' (Qohelet 8:11, Esther 1:20), nahsir pursuit, persecution,
battle', or the like (1QM 1.9).22 All this suggests that linguistically, at least, Persian
contact with Jews was slow to take effect and in the long run rather slight.
It is interesting to think again of Nehemiah in this connection. Presumably he
could speak Old Persian 23 since he could hardly have carried on his conversation with
Artaxerxes without it. But there are few Persian words in Nehemiah's own memoirs.
Perhaps he is the first to use pardes park' in Hebrew; and he was not using the word
generally but speaking of an actual Persian pairidaeza, the king's enclosed forest
(Nehemiah 2:8; the word occurs also in Canticles and Qohelet, once each). The
technical terms used by Nehemiah tend to be Akkadian rather than Persian. Tirshatha
is used of him, but not by him in his firstperson memoir. On the whole Nehemiah's
speech and writing is rather pure Hebrew.
So far, then, these arguments suggest that, at least in the first century
20
The word is usually explained as related to a form that would in Avestan be tarsta-, passive
participle of the root fear, cognate with Sanskrit tras-, and hence the meaning would be
reverend, venerable or the like; so, for instance, Scheftelowitz (1901: 93), who has been
generally followed by lexicographers, though his actual argumentation is far from
convincing: the putative Iranian form is not at all similar to the Hebrew, and the analogous
Sanskrit trasta means frightened, not reverend (Macdonell: 112). But until something
better is suggested, Scheftelowitzs suggestion may have to be allowed to stand.

example of a direct, tangible influence from texts and adds that an Iranian etymology is the most
satisfying explanationhardly an enthusiastic support.
21
Frye (1967:79) raises questions about the meaning of raz, which he translates as Mys-
terium. He says that the original sense in Avestan is loneliness, remoteness, hiddenness,
that the transition to mystery is still unexplained, and that the real meaning of the word in
the Scrolls is still unclear. Since secret is the Pahlavi meaning (Mackenzie: 71, 132),
however, one may question whether this doubt is justified. Widengren (1960:55) says it
goes back to a non-Persian form.
22
Frye (ibid.) discusses this word and appears to hold that, even if adopted from Iranian, it is
no sign of profound influence of the thought of Iran upon the Qumran community. He
seems to favor Rabins suggestion (132) that the word is of Hittite origin, saying that the
sense thus arrived at, terror, panic, fits better than the Iranian sense hunt, hunting.
Nevertheless, the Hittite derivation seems a very remote and unlikely suggestion. The term
seems clearly Iranian, and perhaps only a development of sense at Qumran has to be
supposed. Other Jewish sources use it with the sense hunt, e.g., Targum Onkelos to
Genesis 25:27, here in the form nahsirakan or nahsirkan (so pointed in the Targum)
hunter. See, against Carmignac (363), who doubted the existence of this word, de
Menasce (213-14) and Yadin (260). Syriac has, for instance, nhsyrtn hunter (Peshitta
Genesis 10:9), cf. the Syriac senses in general (Brockelmann; 424). The most interesting
study is by Asmussen. He thinks that the word indicates an ecstatic and almost orgiastic
devotion to the hunt, quite unlike the biblical tradition of thought on the subject, and that for
this reason the term was adopted into Hebrew; it was evidence of a Hellenistic- Parthian
influence in Palestine.
23
It is often said that Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Persian Empire, but this can
hardly mean that the emperors themselves spoke it in their own palace.
or so of Persian rule, Jews who were in contact with Iran paid rather little attention,
favorable or unfavorable, to the religion of the dominant nation. If they knew the
peculiar characteristics of that religion, they kept them to themselves and said nothing
about them. The picture is not much different in the Elephantine community. These
Jews had come to Egypt with Cambyses in 525 and had been there as soldiers of the
Persian power for about one hundred and twenty years when the letters were written;
and they had to deal with Persian governors with names like Bagohi and Waidrang.
But, though religious problems arose in several ways, there seems to be little influence
of Iranian religion on Jews: the difficult problems for religious interpretation in the
names containing elements like Bethel, Herem, Anat, and the like are problems within
Semitic and Canaanite religion.
There is nevertheless certainly contact with Iranian religion. We have a broken
piece in Elephantine 37.6 (Cowley: 133) which comments that a certain man,
appointed over a province, is a mzdyzn, a word identical with the Persian mazdayasna
worshipper of [Ahura] Mazda'.24 A break in the letter unfortunately leaves us ignorant
what more was said about him, though the impression given is not favorable and rather
suggests that, because he was a Mazda-worshipper, the governor could not be relied on
to support Jewish interests and property. The evidence is compatible with the
supposition that in general Jews liked best to know very little of the religion of the
imperial authorities and to keep only very limited contact with it.
At this point we may introduce the evidence of the book of Tobit, both one
particular piece of evidence and the general purport of the book as a whole. A citation
from T. W. Manson may be a good starting point:
The clearest evidence of Persian influence on Jewish theology, apart from the general
similarity of the two systems, is the use of the name Asmodeus for the chief of the
demons. This name is borrowed directly from the Persian Aeshma Daeva, the demon
of violence and wrath in the later A vesta. (154)
In Mansons case, this argument serves to demonstrate that the organization of many
evil spirits into a spiritual kingdom of evil is mainly due to the influence of ideas taken
from Iranian religion. The general similarity of the two systems is a major point that
will be considered later. First, however, we may concentrate on the detailed argument
from the name Asmodeus.
The philological problems are complicated, and not every detail can be treated
here. In particular, it should not be assumed that all Iranian

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 specialists affirm the Iranian derivation of the name Asmodeus; on the contrary, a
number of them remark on uncertainties in it.25
The actual name of the Iranian demon is Aesma, and the element daeva demon
is another word. The supposition that the name in Tobit derives from this requires that
the two words should be taken together, the d of daeva providing the d of Asmodeus.
But, though Aesma is a daeva, it appears that in early Iranian sources he is usually
called only Aesma, not Aesma daeva; the Pahlavi form of the name is, similarly, esm 15
The customary theory depends, therefore, on taking as one name two words, one of
which is a name in the original and the other a description; but these two words in
Iranian sources apparently do not normally occur together in this way. This is not an
insuperable difficulty, but it makes the identity of the two terms less obvious than
might at first be supposed.16
There is some phonological difficulty in tracing back the form Asmodeus (the
Greek forms are BA A<r!xobav9; S Ao/xo8aio9; Tobit 3:8,17) to an Iranian original
Aesma. One would have expected the Hebrew/Aramaic form to have a first vowel e or
I. If din is really religion and derived from daena in Esther, this would well illustrate
the expectation of an I vowel here, while the -e- of pardes likewise comes from this
diphthong (Persian pairidaeza). The initial a vowel is therefore puzzling.17
The uncertainties of the Iranian derivation have to be compared with the
possibilities of a Semitic derivation. Asmodeus in Tobit must be the same demon who
in Targum and Talmud is asmeday malka de-sede Ashmeday king of the demons. He
is associated particularly with King Solomon, whom he attacks and causes to be
removed from his throne because of his overweening behavior. It was during this time
of disgrace that Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, a good and rational expla-

15 It is noteworthy that in the Avesta, as we

have it, the actual collocation Aelma daeva does not
occur, though it does in the Bundahish, which
is based on a mass of lost Avestan matterso
Moulton (251).
16 In any case, one can assuredly exclude the
position taken by A. Wikgren (1962:661b), who
declares the word to be Persian because the
latter part comes from daeva, but then leaves it
vague what the rest of the word might be,
whether from Iranian Aesma or from the Semitic
root s-m-d. There is absolutely no ground for the
Iranian explanation unless the two words are
taken as one collocation.
17 These considerations are no doubt what was
intended by Duchesne-Guillemin (1963:84) in
his caution about the phonetic correspondence.
nation of how that happened. Therefore, if the name as found in Tobit is derived from
Persian, then the Talmudic/Targumic name must be derived from it too. But the latter
form also invites consideration of the Semitic root s-m-d destroy', and all the more so
since a demon with the name Shimadon appears in the Midrash, Genesis Rabbah 36.
Shimadon is explicable as deriving from s-m-d *destroy' but hardly as deriving from
the Iranian Aesma. The name Asmodeus could be explained as a name built upon a
verbal noun form belonging to the hiphil (aphel); the -ay ending might be as in names
like Borqay. There is a difference between the o of the Greek form and the shewa of
the Aramaic, but that difference is there on any explanation.18
If the provenance of this name is somewhat uncertain, one might next ask if
names given to demons in Jewish literature appear commonly to be Iranian in origin. 19
Such names will not necessarily be either Semitic or Iranian; in principle they could be
Mesopotamian or even Egyptian. If many Jewish names of demons appeared to be
Iranian, this would confirm the Iranian explanation of Asmodeus. But I do not find,
from limited soundings made, that Iranian provenance is probable for other such
names. In the Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 111, some terms like Zerada, Palga, Shide,
Rishpe are obviously Hebrew/Aramaic, as is Qeteb, while some others, like Izlath,
Asya, and Belusia, could be almost anything. Another important demon is Agrath or
Igrath bath Mahalath, the queen of the demons in the Talmud. It has been suggested
that this name came from Angra (Mainyu) and thus from the principal evil agency of
Zoroastrianism. If this were true, it would strongly support the Iranian theory of
Asmodeus; but it does not seem very likely.31
The purely philological analysis of the name Asmodeus seems, therefore, to be
indecisive in its results. One might say that the Semitic and Iranian explanations are
roughly equally balanced in probability, with the Semitic rather more likely on the
whole, and the possibility remaining that it is neither. If the matter is not certain, then
this name in itself is not enough to support the idea of a wide-ranging influence of
Persian religion upon Jewish demonology or Jewish religion in general.

18 F. Zimmerman, in his edition of Tobit

(63n.), simply dismisses the Iranian
derivation without argument and declares the
word to be Hebraic. Further folklore about
Ashmedai can be found in the encyclopaedias.
The name of the demon in the Midrash is often
given as Shamdon: I follow the spelling of the
Soncino edition. For the o of the Greek form,
one might consider comparison with words like
Sodom which have an o in the LXX (and at
Qumran), where the Masoretic form has shewa.
19 For some general information about names of
demons, see Gaster (1962) and Encyclopedia Judaiea (V:
1521-28).
 To this we may add features of the character of this unpleasant demon. His role
and function seem remote from what might be derived from Aesma, who in
Zoroastrianism is the wrath and violence, often under intoxication, of those who do
injury to innocent cattle and the structure of the world. The only thing Asmodeus does
is to kill Sarah's husbands on their wedding-night, and such occasional evil-doing on a
limited scale is all that we know about him. He seems to be more a Jewish devil than
an Iranian one bent on undermining the cosmos. He is a very demythologized devil,
and a dose of fish liver paste, suitably burnt, sends him off with his tail between his
legs. It is, of course, to Upper Egypt that he goes, certainly a place for demons but not
particularly for those from Iran. He evokes neither the ultimate war between evil and
good powers in Zoroastrianism nor the deadly sin-related power of demons in the
Gospels, but something closer to the world of spirits and demons in the Talmud
essentially trouble-making beings, but no serious threat to the stability of the religious
world.20
Once we see this, we observe that the general cultural and religious atmosphere of
Tobit does not necessarily have very much to do with Iran at all. Even if the book
originated there, which is possible, and even allowing that it is set in Media and that
Tobit had left his large deposit of money at Rages (now Ray, only a few miles from
Teheran), there is no manifest reflection of any aspect of Iranian religion if the name
Asmodeus is not such. If the setting is genuinely from Iran, it is the setting of Jewish
life in Iran rather than a depiction of Iranian life and society for itself. Thus a number
of scholars, including the great Noldeke (Simpson: 185), thought that the book came
from Egypt, and this is the position taken in D. C. Simpson's commentary in the
Charles edition. In view of the Qumran fragments, this now seems less likely, and one
would think rather of a Palestinian provenance in which folk tales coming from Jewish
experience in Iran were used. In any case the motifs and features that have been
connected with Iranian religion seem precarious evidence: the angel Raphael is a very
Jewish angel; the fact that a dog goes with Tobias and the angel is hardly evidence of
Zoroastrian honoring of the dog; the emphasis on the burial of Israelite victims of war

20 Miss Erica Frank, a graduate student at the

University of Melbourne, kindly called my
attention to the artistic representations of
Asmodeus which appear in Syriac manuscripts,
with a legend such as hn sdy smdy this is the
demon Asmodeus. I am not sure whether this
inclines the balance in favor of the Iranian
or the Semitic explanation; on the whole, I
think, in favor of the Iranian. On the general
question, however, Frye writes (1962:266) that
none of the stories about this demon can be
traced to either an Iranian prototype or even
compared with an Iranian parallel.
or sickness has nothing to do directly with the peculiar disposal of the dead in
Zoroastrian practice; that Raphael is one of the seven holy angels" (Tobit 12:15) is
hardly a hint at the system of the Amesa Spentas. At the most, one might suppose that
the peculiarities of Iranian religion had done something to suggest these motifs; but the
content of the motifs as developed in the book seems to derive nothing from Iranian
religion. An important emphasis of the book is the insistence that on the day of the
Lord's anger Media will be a much better place to be than Assyria. So far as the text
tells us, this seems to come not from any suggestion that Media has a better sort of
religion than Assyrianothing at all is said about thatbut out of the denunciations of
Assyria by certain Hebrew prophets.21 Besides, the intellectual source clearly specified
by the book itself is the Sayings of Ahikar, a Semitic document, whose hero turns out
to have been a Jew.
To summarize: the Jewish evidence lacks any indication of curiosity about the
distinctive character of Persian religion. The Persians seem accepted in it as de facto
authorities with whom one could negotiate on a basis of respect and even friendship,
but the actual nature of their religious belief and practice is left aside. Jewish
assessment of the Persian regime depended not on understanding its religion but on the
quite different criterion of the extent to which its actions favored the interests of the
Jewish community. This kind of assessment was encouraged by the policy of the
Persian emperors themselves, who generally did not seek to Iranicize the empire
outside the Iranian lands. Affairs abroad were conducted in Aramaic and, on the whole,
Iranian culture and religion were not for export.
The contrast between the Jewish attitude to the Persians and that of the Greeks is
instructive. Unlike the Jews, the Greeks were intensely curious about Persian culture
and religion. Herodotus passed on a great deal of information about them. Considering
the circumstances, in De Iside et Osiride Plutarch provides a remarkably well-
informed account of certain aspects of Zoroastrianism. In particular, he mentions the
opposition between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman and the six gods, as he calls them,
the Amesa Spentas, created by the former.22 But this material did not come from
Plutarch's own experience; he got it from earlier sources like Theopompus, Eudoxus,
and Hermodorus 23 That is, during the same century, Nehemiah, from the Persian court
itself, revealed nothing about contemporary local religion, but Greeks in distant

21 It must be noted that the places where the

prophets call upon Media to assault a
Mesopotamian power seem all to refer to
Babylon rather than Assyria (cf. Isaiah 13:17,
21:2; Jeremiah 25:25, 51:11, 28); this is
probably well covered by the fact of numerous
anachronisms in the book.
22 Much the best source for study of this is
J. Griffiths. The essential chapters are 46-
47, with his annotation on pp. 470-82.
Europe could already provide a reasonably recognizable account of at least parts of it.
This was partly a result of their natural curiosity, well exemplified by Herodotus, and
partly because they thought it might be philosophically important.
Thus the Greeks, and not the Persians, may have been the missionaries who made
the Iranian religious world known to non-Iranians, including the Jews. In this respect,
Greek thought worked in two different directions. Through its own curiosity it spread
the knowledge of Iranian conceptions. The Hellenized Zoroaster tradition disseminated
these ideas very widely, and the Greek-speaking Judaism of Alexandria apparently
knew of them. There were people who identified Zoroaster with Ezekiel, with Nimrod,
and with Balaam.24 The evidence for this, of course, comes from a later time, but it is
the result of a long process.
The Iranian material was significant not only because of the Greeks curiosity, but
even more because of the oriental reaction against Greek cultural expansionism.
Indeed, it may have been as part of this oriental anti-Hellenistic reaction that the Jews
cameif they didto find Iranian conceptions useful for the expression of their own
religion. I do not claim that this is certain, but such a supposition does fit many of the
facts. The features that can most plausibly be understood to derive from Iranian
religious influence emerge not in the Persian period but in the Greek. For the usual list
of supposedly Persian ideasperiodization of the worlds duration, resurrection,
angels, and demonsthe most likely evidence is in Daniel, Enoch, Jubilees, and
various Dead Sea Scrolls. But we find very little sign of the same ideas in the material
generally assigned to the Persian period that Persian itself. The same is true of the
loanwords. It is in the Greek period that Persian loanwords become more common, just
as it is in the Persian period that Akkadian loans are frequent, and in the Roman that
Greek loans are most obvious, and not earlier. I do not seek to prove that Iranian
influence actually operated in this way, but, supposing such influence, to supply a
plausible hypothesis for its transmission.
Moreover, this hypothesis is by no means novel. Kuhn thought that Iranian
influence could not have come earlier than the latter half of the Persian period, ca. 430-

23 Theopompus of Chios was a historian, born

about 378 B.C.; Eudoxus of Cnidus, a
mathematician, lived about 390-340 and knew
Plato; Hermodorus was a mathematician, from
Syracuse, and also a disciple of Plato. This
last is credited with the chronology followed
by Plutarch, according to which Zoroaster
lived five thousand years before the siege of
Troy.
24 I here follow Hengel (11:154, n. 777). For
a detailed problem in this see Neusner (1965)
and Winston (213-16).
330 B.C., and he thought that it must have been mediated by Babylonian culture25
Hengel, commenting on this, says that the mode of communicating Iranian influence
remains an open question. In his view, the Babylonian intermediary is hypothetical,
and its existence remains to be demonstrated. Furthermore, he suggests that we might
consider the possibility that an Alexandrian Jewish source was involved (i:230).
Whether or not we have to be so specific as to look for an Alexandrian Jewish source,
we may perhaps consider that Hellenism as a whole provided the channel through
which this sort of knowledge of Iranian ideas was diffused.
This brings us to the deeper questions of religious comparison. T. W. Manson
(above, p. 214) regarded the name Asmodeus as the particular evidence for Iranian
religious influence and the general similarity of the two systems as the general
reason for its acceptance among the Jews. But is it true that the two religions had a
similar structure? If Jews thought they perceived something akin in the Iranian
religious worldand we hardly have found clear evidence that they diddid they
correctly discern the structure of that religion and the lines of dependence and
causation that connected one element with another? It is here, I suggest, that arguments
for Iranian influence upon Judaism have often suffered from the gross fault of much
comparison between religions, the isolation of similar elements and the ignoring of the
structural reasons why these elements are important within one religion as distinct
from another. It is one thing to make a list of things that seem similar in Judaism and
Zoroastrianismdualism, hell, resurrection, and so onand quite another to say that
the structures and internal dynamics of the two religions are similar. The structural
question does not merely ask if both religions have a resurrection, or a hell, or angels,
or whatever it may be. Rather, it seeks the reasons within each religion why a
resurrection, or a hell, or angels, or dualism, is significant.
To approach this question we must attempt a sort of holistic description of some
elements of Iranian religion, a depiction that highlights their interdependencies and
interconnections. The description that follows reflects the perspective of a biblical
scholar and will obviously be vulnerable to the criticism of a competent Iranologist,
but that risk must be run.
One also has to take account of the substantial differences among Iranologist.
Those who despair the inability of biblical scholarship to produce consensus on
anything will find their spirit lifted when they turn their attention to ancient Iran. 26 The
date of Zoroaster himself is symptomatic. Although most Iranologists seem to place
him about the seventh to sixth centuries B.C., Nyberg treated him as a sort of

25influence might have acted directly on

Christianity without having to pass through
Judaism.
26 The wide divergences in the understanding
of Zoroaster are well illustrated in W. B.
Henning's critique of the ideas of E. E.
Herzfeld and H. S. Nyberg, conveniently
accessible in Zaehner (1961:349-59).
prehistoric man,27 and Mary Boyce elevates him to the hoary date of 1500 B.C.
Numerous other differences emerge at every turn.
In addition, one must be clear at the outset that there is no single Iranian religion.
Five different stages or sets of phenomena may have to be considered: (1) the ancient
inheritance of pre-Zoroastrian Indo- Iranian religion; (2) the religion of Zoroaster
himself; (3) the religion of the Achaemenid emperors, from Cyrus to the coming of
Alexander which at least has the advantage of tangible and datable inscriptional
evidence; (4) the later Zoroastrianism, in whichas many see itdeities and
mythological elements thrown out by Zoroaster found their way back into the religion;
(5) the religion of the Magi, if that is something different. There may be further later
stages, but these fall into a period too late for the purposes of this essay.
The obvious question for our purposes is: if the Jews had actually known the
nature of Iranian religion (in any or all of its forms), would they have regarded it with
sympathy? Would they have seen in it something in common with their own religion?
Might they, for instance, have perceived it as another basically monotheistic religion,
largely aniconic, with one single prophet comparable to Moses, and with a strong
emphasis on ritual cleanness? The answer to such a question depends, among other
things, on the stage of Iranian religion under consideration and the forms of it that
were available to the consciousness of the observer. For example, there could well be a
difference between a time at which Ahura Mazda appeared clearly as sole, supreme
god and a period in which his association with other gods such as Anahita and Mithra
was more manifest.
One final historical remark is apposite. This essay deals primarily with contacts
between Iranian religion and Judaism before the rise of apocalyptic and the coming of
Christianity. Contacts as late as Sasanian and Talmudic times have been well surveyed
and have produced much interesting evidence. It is possible that these later contacts
resemble those of several centuries earlier, but caution is necessary in supposing that
this is usually the case. By the time of the Sasanians, the various religions concerned,
including Christianity, appear to have fixed themselves into rather clear and distinct
forms, and their interrelationships presupposed these forms. This is particularly
evident for Judaism; by 200 A.D. the shape of Judaism was much more firmly

27 Frye (1952:48-54) seems similarly vague about the time when the prophet may have lived: After
so many years of research we do not know when or where he lived or even precisely his teachings
(48f.); It is highly probable that Zarathushtra is not a figment of the imagination and that he did
exist. ... To determine the date of Z. we have no historical data to help us, and we can only say that
most probably he lived before the Achaemenid empire (49). Again: From the Greek sources, a date
of, say, 1000 B.C. might seem a shade more reasonable for Zoroaster than 600 B.C., but this is
speculative (50). Cf., for example, Neusner (1976). He finds certain significant signs of contact but
nowhere a great deal that is very definite. The rabbis do not seem to have known much about Iranian
religion and culture (148)a position rather in line with what we have said about the Old Testament.
The rabbis give evidence of knowing what they should have known: those few aspects of Iranian
culture, law and religion, which impinged upon the practical affairs of the Jewish community (149).
Also see Neusner (1982), which appeared after this essay had been completed. Similarly, Frye seems to
place the main locus of contact and influence in this later period, but even here finds rather little that is
both central and definite (1952, 1967).
established than had been the case in 350 B.C. Moreover, even in this much later period
the extent of contact with, and real understanding of, another religion seems not to
have been very much greater than it was earlier.40
Let us now return to the questions we posed above and consider some significant
features of Iranian religion. The first obvious feature is the aspect of abstraction and
intention that attaches to the great Amesa Spentas. Wholeness or Immortality are
abstract qualities, at least when compared with concepts known from the Old
Testament. Good Mind' and Dominion seem close to mental attitudes. This is
important because the system of the Amesa Spentas is often taken to have been part of
the model upon which Hebrew angelology developed. But the names and functions of
the Amesa Spentas, and the nature of the entities as revealed by them, are very far
removed from what counted as angels in most stages of Judaism. The Jewish angel
develops from the side of being a man sent by God: just as it was three men who came
to Abraham in Genesis 18, so even in Tobit Raphael is a man from God who walks
with Tobias; and when angels have names they have human names: Gabriel, Raphael,
Uriel. The more developed angelology of Enoch may come closer to the Iranian style,
in that each of the watchers, the fallen angels, controls a science, like astrology or
the making of swords. The names, though extended from the style of human names,
become names that no humans would ordinarily have: Shamsiel, Kokabiel, Barqiel.
Neither the total structure of the Enochic angelology, nor the style of the names, shows
great similarity to the system of the Amesa Spentas.
The idea of angels is also sometimes traced back to another aspect of Iranian
religion, namely the fravasis or guardian spirits that attend individuals and maintain
the bounty and prosperity of the world. Certain New Testament passages seem to come
close to this Iranian conception, in particular the word of Jesus in Matthew 18:10 about
the angels of the children looking continually upon the face of the heavenly father (cf.
also Acts 12:15). This idea of the guardian angel attendant upon the individual is,
however, less characteristic or typical of the major Jewish and Christian ideas of
angels.
In general, then, there seems to be no manifest relation between the underlying
structure of Iranian thought, whether about the Amesa Spen- tas or about the fravasis,
and the underlying structures of Hebrew ideas about angels. This does not make
impossible the idea that Iranian angel- ology influenced Hebrew, but it means that, if
this did happen, the ideas must have been seen quite out of their Iranian context and
detached from it. The result must have been that the ideas were formalized.
A second main characteristic that, I suggest, seems manifest to the biblical scholar
when he looks at Zoroastrianism is the strongly cosmological character of its nucleus.28

28 I feel some doubt in pressing this point,

for it might be argued that cosmology is not
so central to the Iranian concept of God as
appears to a biblical scholar. Is it rather a
sophisticated account of deity, which is then
provided with cosmological connections? Yet,
The six or seven main entities on the side of truth are related to the various major
elements of the universe. The other main structure is the opposition between Truth and
the Lie, with the supporters, human and superhuman, of each. Thus the elements of the
universe are related not to personal, if irrational, beings like the gods of many
pantheons, but to entities that in a way are qualities, purposes, and abstractions and
that because of this character provide a sort of rational interpretation of the universe.
The problematic and changing nature of the universe is accounted for by a mixture of
contraries; for the creations were made good but forces from the opposition side man-
aged afterwards to make their way in. Fire is pure and ahuric, but smoke is daevic.
Similar interpretations of the universe in terms of mixture and separation are known to
us, of course, from early Greek philosophy. The idea that Zoroaster was a philosopher
and therefore to be aligned with Pythagoras and Plato is not completely fanciful;
indeed, it is less fanciful than the alignment of Moses with the same company.
The features of Iranian religion most often identified as influences on Jewish
religion appear to be meaningful within this Iranian cosmological context and,
therefore, are not intelligible apart from it. The belief in resurrection is a good
example, which I illustrate from the writing of Zaehner. It is certainly not enough to
say, as he does (1961:57), that both Jew and Zoroastrian regarded soul and body as
being two aspects, ultimately inseparable, of the one human personality. 42 In the Old
Testament and earlier Judaism, even if soul and body were two aspects of the human
personality, this was not an adequate reason for a belief in resurrection; indeed, over
long centuries it had not led to such a belief. Even in the time of Jesus it was still
uncertain that resurrection was a valid and necessary part of the religion at all, and
resurrection was considered to be a very surprising thing. In Zoroastrianism the roots
of these ideas seem to have been quite different: the different aspects of the material
world are different creations derived from the various creating principles. As Zaehner
puts it, Zoroaster saw the spiritual and material worlds as being the opposite poles of
a unitary whole intimately linked together . . . physical life in its perfection is the
mirror of the divine life (1961:47). Thus, if I understand him rightly, the resurrection
of the body is the corollary of the fact that the spiritual reality should and must
manifest itself in the physical reality, a doctrine that much later, in the Pahlavi books,
was systematized in the distinction between menog and getig, the spiritual and the
material (Boyce, 1979:25; Zaehner, 1961: 200f.; and especially Shaked, 1971). If this
is right, the basis of the resurrection idea is cosmological: spirit strives to manifest
itself in created matter. But, if this is the framework within which resurrection operates
in Iranian religion, it is quite different from that in which it operates in Judaism. And

even if the latter is the case, it seems to

support a cosmological character for the
system as a whole. In seeing it in this way, I
am influenced by the presentation of it given
by Mary Boyce; clearly, one might have to
think differently if one followed the account
given by some other Iranologists.
this must mean that, if the resurrection idea was taken over from Iranian religion, it can
have been taken over only on a basis of inner-Jewish reasonings and motivations,
adopted formally, but with no idea of the underlying reasons within Iranian religion. 29
The same seems to be the case with the periodization of the world's duration, an
important part of eschatological schemes. The tradition that the world existed for a
fixed time divided into periods is old; Plutarch has it from Theopompus in a form that
fits quite well with the Pahlavi books (Griffiths, ed.; 192-93, 480f.). 44 There are three
or four periods, each of 3,000 years. If there are four, then one belongs to the gradual
manifestation of the creations; the next is dominated by Ahura Mazda; the next is a
mixture in which Angra Mainyu is interfering; and then there is a final one in which
we are led up to the Rehabilitation of the cosmos. Zoroaster is understood to have
come along at the beginning of the final period of 3,000 years. The system is a
cosmological one, dominated by the principle of expressing how evil got into the
cosmos and has to be got out again, and the very round figures express this
cosmological character. In the Hebrew apocalyptic schemes the content is provided by
indigenous Hebrew tradition, with important periods like the time from the creation to
the flood, the period of the kings, the duration of the exile. Hebrew chronologies are
on the whole much less rounded, and their figures are commonly jagged and
uncomfortable blocks, like the 1,656 years from creation to the flood, or the Danielic
numbers of days to the end, 1,290 and 1,335 (Daniel 12:11-13). Scholars have often
attempted to make sense of the Hebrew figures by suggesting that they are really based
upon some round number, like 4,000, and that the various detailed figures are attempts
to bring the date into conformity with such a total. But all such attempts depend either
on shifting between one text and another (e.g., the Masoretic and the Samaritan) or on
forming a hypothesis about the original intentions behind the scheme of numbers,
intentions which are not realized in any of the texts that we have. Moreover, where
clear examples of round numbers can be discerned, they sometimes represent not a
round number for the duration of the world, but a round number for a particular period
of history. An obvious case is the chronology of Jubilees, with 2,450 years, i.e., 50
jubilees of 49 years, from creation to the entry into Canaan. On the whole, biblical
chronology was most positively and clearly worked out as a statement of the times
from the beginning down to the events of early history, especially, of course, the flood,
but also the Abrahamic migration, the Exodus, and the like. Once it got farther down

29 G. F. Moore expressed himself somewhat

similarly. Accepting an unmistakable affin-
ity between Iranian and Jewish ideas in the
area of eschatology and resurrection, he
concludes, The Persian scheme must have been
most strongly commended by the fact that it
seemed to be the logical culmination of
conceptions of retribution which were deeply
rooted in Judaism itself (11:395).
into biblical times, after Solomons construction of the temple, it became distinctly
more vague and uncertain. No express and clearly stated doctrine of the total duration
of the world in years existed in late biblical times. Once again, then, if the idea of the
periodization of the worlds duration came to Israel from Iran, it seems to have come
in a way that greatly altered the scope, character, and motivation of that idea.
Again and again we find that the supposition of Iranian influence behind Jewish
notions, though entirely conceivable and possible, remains intangible and
undemonstrable. Sometimes scholarship has really been more favorable towards that
supposition than the evidence, carefully examined, warrants. It has been widely
accepted that the Qumran documents display some effect of the dualistic Iranian
opposition between Truth and the Lie. I have already pointed out that the essential
Iranian concept drug or druj the Lie was not borrowed as a loanword into Hebrew. It
would be possible, however, that the Iranian contrast Truth/ Lie was indeed borrowed
but was expressed in Hebrew words; these Hebrew words would then enjoy a sort of
semantic growth into a pattern formed by the Iranian ideas. This is exactly what T. H.
Gaster, a devoted comparativist, says of *emet truth': Asha, [the principle] of truth
and normalcy [represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls as emetY (1962a:134).
The facts of the texts, however, make it seem unlikely that Iranian metaphysical
dualism is being reproduced here. Although *emet truth' is common in the Scrolls, the
obvious contrary terms do not occur in anything like the same distribution, nor do they
stand in the abstract and absolute sort of syntactical position that would satisfy the
conditions for a clear semantic borrowing from Iranian religion. Among the Hebrew
terms, seqer lie* is not very common: Kuhn lists 10 places, including one of the verb;
of kazab he lists 15, including two of the verb. On the other hand, emet occurs far over
100 times. Most cases of the noun kazab are in collections like the man of lies, the
speaker of lies, and similarly with seqer. The placing of truth' and lie' in central
thematic positions of opposition, e.g., in antithetical parallelism, is actually rather rare.
This means that the traces of genuine Iranian dualism in these terms are fainter than
has generally been recognized.30 The position is not altered much if we take into
consideration the terms for deceit' like mirmah, rerrtiyyah. The basic opposition in the
Dead Sea Scrolls seems to be that between truth' and iniquity' rather than that
between truth' and lie': cf. the central passages about the two Spirits (IQS 3:18:
rwhwt Kmt wKwl). In the Scrolls, as elsewhere, evil men tell lies, and the evil oppo-
30 This is essentially the same point on which Frye has already been quoted, n. 7 above: the textual
evidence very often fails to provide the exact systematic analogies that are required if a real agreement
of concepts between Iranian and Jewish sources is to be proved. Neither do the Iranian sources offer us
children of light and children of darkness, nor do Jewish sources offer us the same systematic
opposition of truth and lie. Boyce (1982:189f., 200) says that Nehemiah, in order to serve as
cupbearer to the king of kings, must have had to keep the Zoroastrian purity laws, so as not to bring
pollution upon his royal master. After years of this it would not be surprising that he, returning to
Jerusalem, concerned himself with questions of purity among the Jews. It is therefore not overbold to
suppose that it was Zoroastrian example that led to the gradual transformation of the Jewish purity
code so that it came to be a set of laws applicable to every individual in his daily life. As the reader of
this article will have realized, Professor Boyces reconstructions of what may have happened on the
Jewish side are often highly adventurous.
nents of the Qumran sect had told a lot of them. The lie as such, however, does not
seem to have been a quasi-independent metaphysical entity as in Iran. Again, when the
opposite of truth is Belial or Mastema or the like, the similarity to Iran is again less
clear. Taking the question as a whole, with openness towards either possibility, one is
inclined to conclude that the dualism of the Two Spirits at Qumran, with the
accompanying paraphernalia of light and darkness, truth and iniquity, could have
evolved from inner-Jewish developments. Moreover, it is possible to consider that the
Qumran phenomena can be explained as part of a common process of hypostatization
that similarly affected a number of religions at the same time, rather than as a process
of influence beginning in one and then passing from it to another (Colpe: 480).
The place of fire furnishes another interesting case. The veneration of fire in
Zoroastrianism is something that might perhaps have escaped the censure of Jews as
falling short of idolatry; it would be comparable with the Greek perception of the
Persians as setting up no statues or images of the gods, nor worshipping them in
temples. An interest in fire could also have been linked with the important function of
light, which, whether coming from Iranian sources or not, is very evident in the
Scrolls.46 In Iranian belief, fire was the purest element and belonged especially to the
supreme god; the maintenance of it was a cosmic necessity and a duty laid upon
believers. In the Scrolls, however, there seems to be no sign that fire was so conceived;
as in the older biblical tradition, it is a threatening force, used as a symbol for divine
judgment and destruction. The same is the implication of a phrase like Our God is a
consuming fire in the New Testament (Hebrews 12:29).
There are yet other aspects of Iranian religion that invite consideration, even if the
results are likely to be negative in the end. The importance of ritual purity has not been
noticed as much as other aspects. Scholars have been quick to fasten attention upon the
more philosophical features, such as dualism, or the more eschatological, such as
resurrection, so that the importance of complicated measures of ritual purification may
well have escaped many biblical scholars. The recent works of Mary Boyce have
brought these vividly to attention. It is a common position in Old Testament studies
that the texts about Levitical purity,
46
Winston, who like Morton Smith sees substantial Iranian influence in 2 Isaiah, considers (187) the
references to fire in Isaiah 50:10-11 to apply to Jews who had turned to the Persian cult of fire. The
phrase qodehe *es igniters of fire is, he tells us, a verbatim translation of puraithoi, the designation
of the Magi in Strabo 15.3.15 and equivalent to Avestan athravan. This whole interpretation seems
very unlikely.
A more rewarding case for discussion is 2 Maccabees 1.19, 22, 33-34, the story of the
concealment of the temple fire and its rediscovery in the form of a thick liquid, which proved to be
naphtha. Winston (199f.) quotes Brownlee as saying that this is a clear case of identifying the sacred
fire of the Persians with the exiled fire of the temple altar in Jerusalem. Yes, but this is something
other than Iranian influence on Jewish religion; it is more like a Jewish take-over of Iranian religion.
The Jerusalem temple fire was hidden in Persia and eventually discovered with impressive results.
When the king of Persia heard of this and had verified it, he enclosed the site with a wall and declared
it sacred. The effect of the legend on the reader will be, among other things, the following: if there is
somewhere in Iran a sacred fire, authorized as such by the emperor and carefully walled off as a holy
site, it is actually, if one only knew it, a Jewish fire, taken originally from the Jerusalem temple. This
all-important feature of Iranian religion is thus an unknowing and secondary observance of a central
feature of Jewish religion. There is some analogy with Pauls picture of Greek religion: Whom
therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you (Acts 17:23). This entire aspect of the story,
however, is evident only to such readers as are interested in Iranian religion at all, and one cannot say
that that interest is pressed upon the reader by the author of 2 Maccabees. The Iranian religious
background could easily be entirely missed by the reader. The story is set in Persia because Nehemiah
was in Persia and because the Persia of the time contained the territory (originally Babylonia) to which
the exiles had been sent. The idea of a hidden fire, eventually regained, could perhaps equally well
have had a Jewish or a Greek background. Even if the semi-etymological word-play on naphtha
through nephthar, explained as purification, should have some sort of Iranian basis, the allusion and
its meaning had almost certainly been lost from an early time.
mainly in the books of Leviticus and Numbers, belong to the Persian period. If there
was reason, therefore, on other grounds, to believe that Iranian religion deeply affected
Jewish, then one would have to consider the possibility that it stimulated some of the
interest in ritual purity.47 Once again, however, it may well be that the Jewish ritual
texts rest entirely on inner Jewish tradition. Perhaps comparative studies of the details
of the rituals might lead to some useful conclusions.
That the name Mithra means contract', covenant', will hardly fail to attract at
least the momentary notice of Old Testament specialists, especially at a time when it is
argued that the covenant terminology of the Bible itself comes from a rather late stage,
and when we have seen (above, p. 000) that the deity Mithra receives recognition from
Arta- xerxes II in the early fourth century. Perhaps, however, this is no more than mere
coincidence.
Rather more convincing is the idea that an Iranian source lies behind the role of
the fallen angels, the watchers of apocalyptic. In Zoroastrianism the dethroned gods
seem to cast a constant shadow. In India the devas became the great gods and the
asuras sank to the rank of demons; in Iran the cognate term, ahura, was the name of
the supreme god, and the daevas became demonic anti-gods. The fallen angels of the
Bible have a basis in older Hebrew story: in Isaiah 14:12 Lucifer is fallen from heaven,
and in Ezekiel 28:12-19 the king of Tyre had had a sort of angelic existence in Eden
before he was thrown out. It is not clear, however, that these angelic falls and
expulsions had always been the beginning of quite catastrophic evil. Even in Genesis 6
the same is true of the angelic marriages as described in the earlier sources, for it is not
expressly stated that the offspring of these unions were great sinners, as they were later
to become: they were mighty men of old, men of renown, which could be taken, if
alone, in a rather praiseworthy sense. It could be the Iranian influence that identified
all this as a uniquely bad breakdown of the cosmic order, with the ancient evil and
daevic powers getting back in, where they were supposed to keep out. This conception
would lead to the reading of the passage in a totally unfavorable light, as suggested by
our text of Genesis 6:5-7, and still more clearly expressed in apocalyptic.
228 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

This very tentative and uncertain survey must now come to an end. 31 The
question, whether Jewish religion was really influenced by Iranian, has not been
answered. On the whole, the most probable thing seems to be the suggestion that
Iranian religious influence, if it did come in, came in through the admixture of Oriental
ideas in the Hellenistic world and was adopted because it was part of the anti-
Hellenistic reaction: if so, then in Judaism this did not occur until the second century
B.C. and really after 170 or so, with the later sections of Daniel, with Enoch, and with
other comparable works. Substantial and convincing evidence of Iranian influence on
earlier strata of the Old Testament seems to be lacking.
As for the mental operation of this influence, we may perhaps consider the following
model. Faced with a religion quite different from ones own, one may react in two or
more ways. One way is to say that, since this is a different religion, no points in
common and no points of comparison exist at all. One may deny, or one may ignore,
but there is nothing to discuss and no point in seeking to understand. The second way
is to recognize that there are certain common concepts and elements, even if their
place and function is quite different in one's own religion and in another. One can then
say, yes, we also have one supreme god, we also have a resurrection, we also have
one great prophet back in the beginning of time. This second way is not necessarily
one of accceptance of another religion or of submission to its ideas; but it is a
recognition that there are certain comparable elements. This is of interest to our
question in two ways. First, it may suggest how another religion can influence one's
own without one's making any actual surrender to the other's claims. By accepting that
there is some sort of comparability, one may begin to cast the expression of one's own
religion in part in terms intelligible in that other, or in imagery meaningful in that
other, even while resisting all the time the actual claims of that other. Jews in the
Greek world, one may suggest, were doing this much of the time; Philo of Alexandria

31 There are indeed a number of other features of Iranian religion that deserve to be taken into
consideration in a full account; but some of these seem more marginal, or else are probably too late in
date to count for the question as here posed. One striking passage is 2 Enoch 58:6, which tells how the
beasts will not perish, nor all souls of beasts which the Lord created, until the great judgment, and they
will accuse man, if he feed them ill. This is remarkably like Zoroastrian conceptions (cf. Videvdat 13,
and, among modern scholars, Duchesne-Guillemin [1963:84]). Winston (197) says that this is perhaps
the most strikingly characteristic Iranian doctrine in the Apocrypha. This is right, but of course it is
equally striking that no other so completely characteristic Iranian doctrine is to be found in them. This
leads on to the question of the date of 2 Enoch. Although it is built upon early Jewish tradition, much
of it is Christian and very late. Milik, in a highly learned argument, maintains that this document
originated as late as the ninth or tenth century, while its longer text is even later (109-112). The striking
nature of its doctrine arises therefore from the fact that it is much too late for our period.More
probability might attach to the idea that the interest in the calendar, so obvious in Enoch and Jubilees,
had something to do with the Persian calendar (as also, no doubt, with the Greek calendars)if only in
the sense that the awareness of foreign calendars might have made more clear to Jews that there was a
real question what the true calendar was and how it operated.
So already G. F. Moore, Borrowings in religion, however, at least in the field of ideas, are usually in
the nature of the appropriation of things in the possession of another which the borrower recognizes in
all good faith as belonging to him, ideas which, when once they become known to him, are seen to be
the necessary implications of complements of his own (11.394).
is the chief example. Secondly, comparison of this kind may help to explain how one
religion can influence another even if the inner connections and causations of the
source religion are neglected or unknown.49 Through this model of comparison, it is
intelligible that Jews might find stimulus in an element or pattern of Iranian religion,
such as its dualism, its idea of resurrection, or its picture of the dethroned powers
penetrating back into the cosmos, even if they did not take over or even understand the
inner bonds of cause and meaning that held these same things together within Iranian
religion itself.50
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the only text concerning which there was agreement in dating (310, n. 1).
forms. Nevertheless, by implication his article also supports the idea that the cosmological interest
of 2 Isaiah comes from Persian sources. In that case the motivation comes through the rhetorical
effects caused by political needs.
37
Kuhn (310) actually specified the time roughly from the fifth to the third centuries. He thought
(309) that the influence of Iranian religion was not suddenly broken off with the beginning of the
Greek domination but continued thereafter to work for some timein contrast to our own
suggestion that the Greek period was the real time of Iranian influence. Hinnells (1969) carries us to
a still later point of time. He considers that there is no substantial evidence of contact in Achaemenid
times, that the real time of influence was during the Parthian invasion of Palestine-Syria in 40 B.C.,
and that Iranian