Thanks for this information, Minimalist. And thank you all for your thoughts here. If anybody has any more or any web sites I can visit to find out when these first thoughts of physical dead bodies coming out of the ground came into being, please let me know.
(September 18, 2011 at 10:13 pm)Minimalist Wrote: http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/4zoroa94.html
Quote:The Babylonian captivity of the 6th century B. C. transformed Judaism in a profound way, exposing the Jews to Zoroastrianism, which was virtually the state religion of Babylon at the time. Until then, the Jewish conception of the afterlife was vague. A shadowy existence in Sheol, the underworld, land of the dead (not to be confused with Hell) was all they had to look forward to. Zarathustra, however, had preached the bodily resurrection of the dead, who would face a last judgment (both individual and general) to determine their ultimate fate in the next life: either Paradise or torment. Daniel was the first Jewish prophet to refer to resurrection, judgment, and reward or punishment (12:2 ), and insofar as he was an advisor to King Darius (erroneously referred to as a Mede), he was in a position to know the religion thoroughly.
The new doctrine of resurrection was not universally accepted by the Jews and remained a point of contention for centuries until its ultimate acceptance. The Gospels (Matthew 22:23 ) record that the dispute was still going on during the time of Christ, with the Sadducees denying and the Pharisees affirming it. It may be a mere coincidence, but note the similarity between the names Pharisee and Farsi or Parsee, the Persians from whom the doctrine of resurrection was borrowed. In addition to incorporating the doctrines of resurrection and judgment, exposure to Zoroastrianism substantially altered Jewish Messianism as well. Zarathustra predicted the imminent arrival of a World Savior (Saoshyant), who would be born of a virgin and who would lead humanity in the final battle against Evil. Jewish Messianism grafted these conceptions onto their preexisting expectations of a Davidic king who would redeem the Jewish nation from foreign oppression.
Religious shits in the West would do well to study Zoroastrianism to learn from whence their silly bullshit came!
