Someone said:
> >The Hebrew religion was heavily influence by the
> >Zoroastrians of the Achaemenid dynasty.
Glen drolled:
> Sure, but who influenced the Zoroastrians? :)
Good question. Gore Vidal wrote a novel (_Creation_) that peripherally
addressed the question. The idea that members of the "School of Isaiah
(Deutero-to-Trito-Isaiah)", Zoroaster (according to certain
traditional accounts), The Buddha, and Lao-Tse (or was it Confucius,
or was it both) were all more or less contemporaries is interesting.
Among the clerical castes, monotheism seemed to be in the air, from
the Indus to the Nile. The Persians were party to this, and classical
state Zoroastrianism emerged from it, tho' this seems to have come
considerably later than the time of the Achaemenids. The other state
monotheism, Judaism emerged sooner, tho' other views seemed to have
been maintained until shortly after AD 70.
Asking who influenced the Zoroastrians is like asking who influenced
Joseph Smith or H.P. Blavatsky. The ideas were 'in the air'.