ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors aim to determine the circumstances which may have led to the introduction of Iranian religious ideas or forms into Judaism. Many have supposed that any evidence of dualism, such as a reference to light and darkness, or Jewish conceptions similar to Mazdean ones of any period, for example, concerning Satan, Gayomart/Adam, eschatology, angelology, demonology, and the like, indicate Iranian influence. Attention has focused upon Iranian and Jewish relationships, but most of those who studied matters knew little about the problems of working with book-Pahlavi and other Iranian sources. Salo W. Baron is the first major Jewish historian to see the historical task in this period as a social-scientific one. Some Iranists working in pre-Islamic materials take a keen interest in Jewish data, though few are adequately trained to make much use of it. Geo Widengren's contribution is to bring to bear a wide range of knowledge of Babylonian and Iranian data upon specific Jewish issues.
