Is Zoroastrianism the most ancient monotheistic religion we have historical accounts of?

Is Zoroastrianism the most ancient monotheistic religion we have historical accounts of?

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No, Judaism is, and Zoroastrianism was also polytheistic before contact with Judaism.

[citation needed]

No.
Akhenaten Amenhotep IV was the first to introduce monotheism amongst the Egyptian against the wishes of the priestly class. His wife Nefertiti continued the tradition but it fell out of favour after their death and obscurity from the records.
His reign was 1351–1334 BC, almost 300 years earlier than the purported myth of Exodus.

Zoroastrianism has roots in the same time period of 1st millennium BCE with finalized form completed around 8-7th century BCE and noticed by Europeans and Middle-East historians about 6-5th century BCE.

Judaism was polytheistic up until 536 BC. There are all kinds of historical and archaeological evidences for that. And Judaism discovered heaven and hell from the Zoroastrians not the other way around.

Akhenaten's was a meme religion. I mean actual religions, not some made up shit by some pharaoh.

New to the thread, but there's no real evidence that the Zoroastrians maintained a monotheistic tradition from their founding until such time as we have actual texts of theirs (which is well into the Sassanid era). I mean, sure, they say they do, but the Jews also say they were monotheists from day one, and there's really 0 reason to believe either of them.

Then you should specify the categorization of what you understand as a religion. Every organized religion is a meme. The difference is that some religions live, some are syncretized and some die out.

You can easily say Akhenaten "made up" a religion because it didn't survive. But we do have records of its origin and its survival.

Mithraism died in Byzantium but half of its element are in Christianity. Would we call it a meme?

Judaism is a streamlined exaltation of patron god and negation of neighbouring gods in the exact same model as the Babylonians. Would we call it a meme?

Hinduism went through cycle of Vedic Pantheism->Vedic Monotheism->Pre-Hindu Trinitism->Hindu Monotheism->Hindu Pantheism. Should we also call it a meme?

People make up shit everytime and some shit survive more than others.

Also, the answer to your Question, Every society has a phase when Monotheism arises against and as antithetical to Polytheism.
Judeo-Christian faith are the result of that said evolution. It is in a quasi-second stage where one branch is allowing syncretism while others are resisting.

That is why I wrote, "roots". I highly doubt it was monotheistic or even entertained the idea.
While there were tolerant views on other deities, the central deity Ahura Mazda was given much importance because of the geography (Iran is rather dry) as opposed to their eastern cousins the Vedics who gave importance to Indra.
The antithetical reformation was most likely the same time as in and around the Biblical redaction of the Jews. The very close association by ideology found both in Biblical and Avestan records of that time is a tell-tale sign.

I was more disputing the claim that it was in its finalized form around the 8th-7th century B.C. Again, there's really not much to support that.

It is very similar to the problem that earlier Biblical Scholars were facing, lotsa claim from the book but none from the rocks.

While Iran is somewhat respectful towards their past and archaeology, I think it is useless to expect something from Iraq. You are right in that we may never be able to narrow down the finalization phases.

But if it was anything like the Rig Veda i.e. centuries of oral form and then later written then I subscribe to the earlier dates.

Isn't it all made up shit?

t. edgelord

Good post.
Are you one of the guys from the thread from the other day discussing how the major western pantheons all came from the Sumerian one? It was super interesting and honestly gave me hope for this board.

Yeah. I was the one writing in layman's language.

that would be Iknathon religion in Egypt

nah that was just a forced meme

Zoroastrianism is the purest Aryan religion, (non-mongoloid) Whites should go back to their Aryan roots.

the difference is that nobody liked Akhenaton and his forced meme tier god. The other religions had actual followers who actually believed in those gods

No.

If he had absolutely zero people willing to go along with it he wouldn't have been able to keep it going for his whole reign. The failure of it doesn't necessarily point to unpopularity (not that I think it ever had near a majority of support in Egypt), just to the power of the priests of Thebes who lost all of their power and livelihood from his religion. Judaism could be called a meme religion for the same reason since the cult centralization under Hezekiah and Josiah to the Jerusalem temple was a purely political move

Iknathon religion got a wide base, mostly students (they were all low clergy priests back then), menial workers and slaves, since it preached equality. It lost the power struggle against the clergy and the army, which hated it for being pacifist

SHHHHhhhh, christcucks can't handle that.

...

Aryan =/= White

>anyone who shrugs off religion is a fedorafag!!
almost as tired a meme as fedorafags themselves. step out of your binary, kid.

>pshhhh
>nothin personnel... kid...

Only kids call people kid, kid.

Are you that retard that always claims that Cyrus got a hold of a copy of Isaiah and changed the entire state religion of Persia overnight to fit with Judaism, erasing all the historical records about it, and the powerful priesthood of the magi somehow was totally okay with this, all because he believed in Isaiah, instead of just converting to Judaism, which would be a lot easier? Yeah, you're retarded.

If Jews can get disqualified from being monotheistic since they only transitioned to it over time based on textual evidence, then the same applies to Zoroastrianism.

There's Old Persian inscriptions that mention Ahuramazda while also mentioning other deities --both those later mention in later eras in Zoroastrians and contemporary local deities. Zoroastrianism is inherently henotheistic and duelist, and grew from polytheistic roots that existed in the religion.

Yes, the two are very alike.

Zoroastrianism is henotheistic.

The Abrahamic faiths are largely based off Zoroastrianism. The ideas of paradise (Avestan word pairidaēza), transcendental moral dualism, light = goodness & darkness = evil metaphors, angels (yazatas), personified evil figures (e.g., Asmodeus is based off daeva Aēšma), eschatological reward and punishment (Chinvat Bridge), Day of Judgment (Frashokereti), rigid duality between truth (asha) and lie (druj), savior of light (Saoshyant), and the resurrection of the dead (Yasna 19) descended from Zoroastrian influence. Read Chapter 7 of Michael Stausberg's Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism for the most up-to-date scholarly research regarding this topic.

The words paradise and magic have Persian origin.

Not so unusual. Many muslims also believe in Jinn, or in parts of Africa or Indonesia/Malaysia, various nature or ancestor spirits still play a role in daily beliefs for Christians and Muslims alike. OK, they aren't afforded the same top dog status of Abrahamic God, but they clearly have influence.

That Zoroastrianism, like most religions, absorbed local customs as it spread and consolidated its power, is not so unusual.

No.

Zoroastrianism is a religion based on a scroll written by Isaiah (a Hebrew, Jewish prophet).

It's essentially a rip-off of the real deal (the Bible).

no, ever heard of the old testament?

why is Veeky Forums filled with so many retards who buy into pseudo history like the "yahweh was a canaanite god" myth that no scholar takes seriously. abraham was the first monotheist when he was called out of babylon. if we're gonna be technical it's actually adam, the first man that ever lived was a monotheist.

Theology and theological opinions are respectable for their historical significance but they are not real history user. We are not asking you to believe it. But the reverse is always true isn't it? Contrarian evidences must be called names like retards and liar and so forth and so on. Why? I've seen many like you claiming in this board that
>"yahweh was a canaanite god" myth that no scholar takes seriously

I have yet to see any factual scholarly article. And don't dare post some random blog that infers archaeological excavations hamfisted into a theological description. History doesn't work like that. Only one source that is "'Tis written in the Bible" argument does not work.

Veeky Forums has people that know their field and there have been many boards which provides academic data from time to time.

Adam and Abraham never existed

Proof?

0/10 bad troll

because this is a board for amateur historians who like to think they're smart but are too lazy to do some actual research

conti...
History is always cross checked. If it is written in Bible than it isn't automatically true - there MUST be a physical evidence from that time period to authenticate it's claim or it is no different than a historical fiction.

>no, ever heard of the old testament?
>... if we're gonna be technical it's actually Adam, the first man that ever lived was a monotheist

OT in its earlier chapters is the easiest of them all to prove that it contains the Polytheistic Past. Before we begin, it must be known that these facts are from original Hebrew texts, not the translations!

The Book of Genesis 1 and 2 are written in different time periods - a fact made clear by the nature of language and literary metering (for example how Shakespeare might seem different from Orwell).
Book 1 is written by a different priestly sect (Probably Elohist, the evidence is weak, however - yes true scholars concede when they have weak evidence) than the Yahwist sect who have edited Book 2 during their exile.
Book one uses Elohim in dual parameters. Yes, I have seen the theological explanations that it could be royal "we" but even the royal 'we' follow traditional grammar laws - the book 1 gives plurality to both pronouns and the verbs. A grammatical nuance which is suppressed in book 2 where every instance of Elohim is compounded by Yahweh - when this name should not have been known to the actual audience of Genesis.


The Elohim isn't even a Biblical uniqueness. The name appears outside Bible in many archaeological excavations, in many variants of the Semitic language as Ilahin, Elohin, Ilaaha, Ilim etc.
The original texts are very clear in the nature of narrative - a fact which early Greek translators ignored. The Genesis chapters are written in a dual-contention mode where the characters in contention are not named individually (even if they were once named, it was probably redacted in later times; until we find a rock somewhere with Genesis on it, we may never know)

conti

Conti...

The dual-contention narrative is the reason of the schizophrenic nature of "God" who is angry at one time for eating the forbidden fruit and then pitiful when he provides for exiled couple.

jstor.org/ - This is a place where you can find all sorts of articles on archaeological, linguistic and historical studies done on Near-East, Israel and Bible

Also, stop looking at Wikipedia to read the summary and then contest - start reading the annotations and the sources. Every one of them. Half of the time you cry "Citation", you could be searching a relevant book or research paper provided neatly at one place.

>Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?
This book will tell you how archaeology and linguistics are used as a tool to investigate something. You and I won't have to then argue as to what is Pseudo-History and what isn't.

Can't prove a negative m8. The task is to prove Adam and Abraham existed. Good luck.

Somebody says they exist. You claim they don't. Why? Do you doubt John Smith of the Mormons eixsted?

There are ancient text and scrolls that talk about them and what they went through.

The burden of proof is on you to claim otherwise, my butthurt edgy fedora friend.

For a wannabe Iranian who wants to be white it is.

Julius Caesar never existed.
Proof? I can't prove a negative.

This is how retarded you sound

stop replying to him.

he's an obvious troll, he's just fishing for (You)s

Not that guy, it's just logical practice. Trying to prove a negative... I.e. prove that bigfoot doesn't exist. Done and done, but retards will always say shit like "yea, but the search is not done yet".

*Joseph* Smith is historically documented less than 200 years ago. Adam is a myth and Abraham is beyond historical accountability.

False equivalency. Julius Caesar is (fairly) reliably historically attested.

The same ancient texts and scrolls filled with supernatural fairy tale shit and fireside spooky stories. People talking to angels and demons, humans who lived several hundred years, magical trumpets and LOTR-tier counts of enemy troops defeated. Get the fuck outta Veeky Forums with that shit.

> my butthurt edgy fedora friend
I love you fags just assume anyone who you disagrees with you is some 2008-era meme. For the record, I'm not an atheist.

0/10

Post more memes, that will surely make you look smarter.

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you can wish it out of existence.

You sound like a 12 year old kid throwing a temper tantrum.
>Waahhh I hate you God!

Last reply you'll get from me, you irrational tool.

Straight out of kindergarten. A new low even for this dumb board. Shameful.

lolwut. Looks like you're the one getting angry and stomping his feet, m8.

As I just said (), I'm not an atheist. And you're still retarded if you not only consider Adam and Abraham historical people, but are MAD about people saying they're not. You're the fool if your belief hinges on pointless shit like that.

>b-but the bible sais he existed!