ABSTRACT
Zoroastrianism survived under the subsequent Persian Achaemenian dynasty, but its priesthood was taken over by the Median priestly caste called the Magi. These held a religious monopoly in Media, the northwestern portion of the Iranian plateau overlooking the Tigris and Euphrates basins (the Assyria and Babylonia of the ancients, today’s Iraq). When the Medes swooped on to the Mesopotamian plain to destroy the Assyrians, they released Israel from servitude to return to the Holy Land, but not before the fruitful encounter took place between Israel and the monotheistic Zoroastrianism of the Medes. Isaiah was to salute Cyrus, Israel’s liberator, as the Lord’s anointed, and R. Zaehner, the authority on Zoroastrianism, regards it as certain that the Zoroastrian doctrine of eternal rewards and punishments exercised a direct influence on post-exilic Judaism. It appears in Daniel, and replaces the insubstantial doctrine of sheol, that “shadowy and depersonalized existence” common to all. Zaehner points to the belief in the resurrection of the body common to Israel and Zoroastrianism, itself a corollary of the view held by both that body and soul are ultimately inseparable aspects of a single personality.
