Full Bloom
And a command has gone out from the Lord against those who dwell upon the dry ground that this must be their end. For they have learnt all the secrets of the Angels, and all the wrongdoings of the satans, and all their secret power, and all the power of those who practice magic arts, and the power of enchantments, and the power of those who cast molten images for all the Earth. The Book of Enoch, Chapter 65, v. 6. (compare Revelation 2:24)
Wrongdoings of the satans – The Book of Enoch was probably written sometime around the first century B.C.E. It was certainly circulating during Yeshua’s time and it played an important role in Matthew’s idea of the Son of Man. But what’s more interesting is its connection with later apocalyptic material, particularly John’s Revelation. As you can see from just the one verse, Enoch has a well-developed construction of Satan, devils, the afterlife, and reward and punishment. Enoch is also witness to the growing belief in evil magical powers and secret arts. In other words, Enoch provides the background for the Christian Church’s expanded conflict between good and evil, God and the Devil, and the Marvel Comics portrayal of super-human powers. None of this, by the way, is actually in the Tanakh. Somewhere between the end of the age of the prophets and the development of Second Temple Judaism the Hebrew celestial world was expanded to accommodate creatures and forces that hadn’t been around since the Egyptian captivity. Now, where do you suppose those ideas came from? You might be surprised.
The idea of a single god was not the only essentially Zoroastrian tenet to find its way into other major faiths, most notably the ‘big three’: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The concepts of Heaven and Hell, Judgment Day and the final revelation of the world, and angels and demons all originated in the teachings of Zarathustra, as well as the later canon of Zoroastrian literature they inspired. Even the idea of Satan is a fundamentally Zoroastrian one; in fact, the entire faith of Zoroastrianism is predicated on the struggle between God and the forces of goodness and light (represented by the Holy Spirit, Spenta Manyu) and Ahriman, who presides over the forces of darkness and evil. While man has to choose to which side he belongs, the religion teaches that ultimately, God will prevail, and even those condemned to hellfire will enjoy the blessings of Paradise (an Old Persian word).[1]
I might take exception to the claim that Zarathustra initiated monotheism. There are older Egyptian beginnings. But certainly he influenced the Persians, and Daniel. Subsequently, when Judaism birthed an interest in the mystical, the seedbed was already planted for the growth of an evil empire. The Jews encountered Zarathustra’s teachings in the Captivity. They just carried the ideas back to Israel and modified them to fit the paradigm of the Tanakh. Every idea has a history. It’s just not always the history you imagined. “Zoroaster ‘came to be regarded [in Christian Europe] as a master of magic, a philosopher and an astrologer, especially after the Renaissance,’”[2] He’s gone through another transformation in our time. It’s called Marvel Comics. Is it any wonder that the Bible has been printed as a comic book for young people?
Topical Index: Zoroastrian, Zarathustra, Satan, Enoch 65:6
[1] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170406-this-obscure-religion-shaped-the-west
[2] Ibid.
