Sunday, February 17, 2002
The Rev. Gretchen Woods
READING
from The New Testament:
an Introduction by Norman Perrin
and Dennis C. Duling (pp. 15-16.)
The Hebrews had settled the land
of Canaan in the late second millennium B.C.; in about 1000 B.C. there emerged
the monarchy of King David and his son King Solomon. About 921 the united
monarchy split. First the northern kingdom (“Israel”) was crushed by the
Assyrians in 721 B.C., and the resulting population created by deportations and
importations of peoples became eventually what the New Testament calls the
Samaritans, who had a rival holy place, Mt. Gerizim. Then the southern kingdom
(‘Judah”) was destroyed by Neobabylonia which deported its leaders (“the
Babylonian Exile”) and in 587 destroyed Jerusalem and its Holy Temple. Thus
began the “dispersion” of Jews from the homeland (Greek Diaspora ), a
phenomenon that continued throughout history.
The Babylonian Exile marked
a major turning point in the history of the Jewish people. Many Jews elected to
stay in Babylonia and it remained a center of Jewish life and thought for a
thousand years. But when Cyrus the Great of Persia overcame Neobabylonia and
permitted the Jews to return home by his Edict of Toleration in 538 B.C.,
groups of exiles returned periodically. First they laid the Temple foundations.
They also hoped for the reestablishment of the monarchy under Zerubbabel upon
whom they pinned messianic hopes. . . About 515 B.C. a modest Temple was
dedicated. Despite Samaritan opposition Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem
(437 B.C.). Finally – or perhaps earlier – Ezra, “a scribe skilled in the Law
of Moses” came, bringing with him the sacred Law, or Torah, which included the sacred
traditions which embodied the very life of the people. By now, the people no
longer spoke its language, Hebrew, but a sister language which had become the
standardized international language of administration in the Persian Empire,
Aramaic.
…Indeed, Babylonian ideas of
wisdom, astrology, and magic, as well as Persian views of resurrection of the
dead and final judgment, made their way into Jewish thinking. Perhaps most
important, this was a period of intense literary activity during which time
much of what later became Scripture in Judaism was collected, edited, written.
When I answered the call to
ministry and enrolled in John Carroll University (a Jesuit institution in
Cleveland, OH), I had the choice of either taking the graduate record exams to
go directly into a Masters program or of taking four prerequisite classes in
Religious Studies, one in each major area of study: systematic theology,
ethics, religious education, and biblical studies. I chose to take the classes.
I felt they would do me great good in preparation for the expectations at this
university and would also ground me for further study. I never regret that
choice.
The class in biblical
studies that was available was “Introduction to the New Testament,” taught by
Dr. John Spenser. In this class I discovered that my intuitions while reading
the Bible as a child were closer to contemporary biblical scholarship than the
catechetical classes of my Calvinist Dutch Reformed church. But I was surprised
when Dr. Spenser asserted that, before the Babylonian Exile, the Jews had no
creation story, no heaven and hell, no devil, no angels, and generally were a
bucolic bunch of sheep herders. How, I wondered, did they pick all of that up through
being deported to another country? Dr. Spenser suggested that the influence of
Zoroastrianism was far stronger in Judaism than acknowledged and that
syncretism, i.e., the adoption and adaptation of religious practices from one
culture to another, was far more influential in all religions than usually
accepted by the religions themselves. Thus began my curiosity about syncretism
and Zoroastrianism.
This morning, I should like
to share some of the results of my research about Zoroastrianism and its impact
upon Judaism and, by extension, Christianity and Unitarian Universalism. For
those of you who find history and syncretism deadly, let me suggest that you
read through the hymnbook or examine the subtle hints of spring coming through
our windows or engage in your own form of meditation. The rest of us will press
forward into this field which I find fraught with insights as well as
conundrums.
First, the story of
Zoroaster: In John B. Noss’s “Man’s Religions,” Zoroastrianism comes first in
the section on “The Religions of the Near East,” which includes Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. I think this is quite intentional, though most of us
may not have heard of Zoroastrianism at all before. Zoroaster laid a foundation
for the great religions of the world today.
Before Zoroaster, the people
of the Iranian region followed the religion of the Rig-Veda of India,
worshipping daevas or “shining
ones.” “These were associated with the powers of nature – sun, moon, stars,
earth, fire, water, and winds.” (Noss, p. 333.) There was an hierarchy of gods,
which included Indara (the Vedic Indra); Mithra, giver of cattle and sons and
know as the god of light; and Uruwana, the god of the domed sky and lord of the
moral order.
Sometime between 1,000 and
660 BCE (during a period that Karen Armstong calls the Axial Age), Zoroaster
began to preach a reformation of religion in his area, in response to the
reality that it was becoming too burdensome to continue animal sacrifices at
the level required by the religion of the times. Soil depletion and earth’s
degeneration had already begun.
Zoroaster seems to have been
struck by religious fervor early in life. At the age of fifteen, he showed
great compassion for cattle and the aged. By the age of twenty he had left his
father, mother, and wife to seek answers to his deep religious questions. At
the critical age of thirty (so often a time of crisis in the lives of religious
geniuses) he received a revelation:
A figure “nine times as large
as a man” appeared before Zoroaster. It was the archangel Vohu Manah (Good
Thought). Vohu Manah questioned Zoroaster and then bade him lay aside the
“vesture” of his material body and, as a disembodied soul, mount to the
presence of Ahura Mazda, “the Wise Lord” and Supreme Being, holding court among
his attendant angels. . . Ahura Mazda then instructed Zoroaster, called now to
be a prophet, in the doctrines and duties of the true religion. The story goes
on to say that during the next eight years he met in vision each of the six
principal archangels, and each conference made more complete the original
revelation. (Noss, p. 335.)
These revelations are
recorded in the Gathas. After a few years of ongoing frustration,
Zoroaster was finally able to convert Vishtaspa, an Aryan prince of eastern
Iran, to his religious ideals. This was partly the result of wondrously curing
Vishtaspa’s favorite black horse and earning the sympathy of Hutaosa,
Vishtaspa’s consort. The whole court followed Zoroaster and Vishtaspa into the
new religion. Much of Iran became Zoroastrian and flourished as such. During
the second of two holy wars to promulgate this new faith and deter invading
nomads from the north, Zoroaster died at the age of seventy-seven. The religion
grew in the region and continues to this day. There are 1,903,182 Zoroastrians
in Iran alone (Lester, “Oh, Gods,” The Atlantic Monthly, February, 2002,
p. 38.), despite the efforts of Muslims to drive them into extinction.
Zoroaster was a monotheist,
totally devoted to Ahura Masda, yet his legacy is a powerful dualism that
includes oppositions of good and evil. Mazda expresses his will through a Holy
Spirit (Spenta Mainyu) and various modes of ethical activity with names such as
Vohu Manah (Good Thought or Sense), Asha (Right), Kshathra (Power or Dominion),
Haurvatat (Prosperity), Armaiti (Piety), and Ameretat (Immortality). It is
unclear if he viewed these as actual entities or abstractions, but it is clear
that dualism was essential to the faith. Against Asha (Right or Truth) is Druj
(the Lie). Against Life is Death. Zoroaster saw all this as a function of free
choice: “Of these twain Spirits he that followed the Lie chose doing the worst things; the holiest
Spirit chose Right.” (Noss, p.
337.) Good people followed his religion, the bad people followed the religion
of the daevas.
The
good – and here is an insight into Zoroaster’s practical common sense - till
the soil, raise grain, grow fruits, root out weeds, reclaim wasteland, irrigate
the barren ground, and treat kindly the animals, especially the cow, that are
of service to the farmers. In their personal relations they are truth speakers;
they never lie. The evil have no agriculture. That is their condemnation.(Ibid.
p.338.)
Zoroaster purged his
religion of magic and idolatry. He was highly ethical and quite forward
thinking for his time. Perhaps most interesting, not only did he create the
idea of a final judgment of every human soul, but the guilty, staggered by the
weight of their own consciences, fall to their doom, not through an act
of Ahura Mazda, but through their own choices.
What does any of this have
to do with the Jews? As indicated in our reading, before the Jews were driven
into exile in Babylon, they lacked the notions of a “Genesis” story, and most
dualistic concepts such as heaven and hell, angels and devils, and the notion
of Armegeddon. While possibly not directly influenced by Zoroastrian, they were
probably deeply infected with the Magian synthesis of Zoroastrianism. Cyrus the
Great, a Zoroastrian, overthrew Babylon in 538 BCE and his successors, Darius I
and Xerxes I honored Ahura Mazda and carried that synthesis with them on their
conquests east and west. (Noss, p. 338.) Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy probably became the Torah in about 400 BCE, after return from
exile, thanks to Cyrus and his tolerance, and after the period that made
the Jews “people of the book.” (Perrin, p. 437.)
I am particularly struck by
a segment of the Gathas in which
Zoroaster says:
Who is by generation the
Father of Right (Asha) at the first? Who determined the path of sun an stars?
Who is it by whom the moon waxes and wanes again? . . . Who upheld the earth
beneath and the firmament from falling? Who made the water and the plants? Who
yoked swiftness to winds and clouds? . . . What artist made light and darkness,
sleep and waking? Who made morning, noon, and night, that call the
understanding man to his duty? . . . I strive to recognize by these things
thee, O Mazda, creator of all things through the holy spirit. (Noss. P. 337.)
Sounds like the Book of Job
to me!
Some contemporary biblical
scholars see a line of thought that emphasizes monotheism, strong ethical
concern, and general dualism that moves from Zoroaster through Babylon to the
Jews and on to Christianity. Dr. Spenser taught me that Christianity would not
include the dualism of God and Satan,
angels and devils, heaven and hell, resurrection, or Armegeddon (the end of the
world and eschatology as the study of “last things”), were it not for the time
the Jews spent influenced by Zoroastrianism. More deeply to be considered: the
Jews were not so seriously polarized in their thinking as they were after the
Exile. The pain of separation and the notions of either/or infect our thought to
this day.
What are the connections for
Unitarian Universalists. Well, we certainly emphasize the oneness in and of
God, even if some of us find it through a scientific “unified field theory” or
“Theory of Everything.” We would do well to see that oneness, not as dualism,
but as a rainbow of possibilities and opportunities for creative expression.
As UUs, we assert the
importance of values in our religious movement. Our Purposes and Principles set
out values to guide our choices in every day life. Further, we are a religion
of deeds, not creeds. We understand religion that values good thought and good
sense, right actions, caring for the earth, and concern for creatures as well
as human beings. And most of all, our sense that we have the right and the duty
to choose well in what we do, and that how we choose, rather than some
predestined plan, determines the value of each of our lives,
Our world calls us to
different challenges than those of the ancient near East. If Toby Lester is
correct in his Atlantic article, “Oh, Gods,” we face, not the death of
god and religion, but a burgeoning of religion that makes a babble of competing
claims on human lives that may prove cacaphonous and deafening. We must choose
and choose well, using our own experience of mystery and wonder and our best
understanding of ethics as our guides.
We are not about to revert to the dualism of Zoroastrianism, and we could do
far worse than the simple Principles of our chosen faith, Unitarian Universalism.
May we choose well, with respect, responsibility, and relish for the process.
So Be It! Blessed Be!