latro and ares

James Jordan · 08 May 2003, 17:11 · from urth-v0305.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) latro and ares
Date: Thu, 08 May 2003 12:11:38 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0305-3368 at digest.urth.net>
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At 12:21 PM 5/8/2003, you wrote:
>On Thu, 2003-05-08 at 09:16, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> > Mark wrote in part...
> >
> >> I am especially interested in the almost random manner in which
> >> Wolfe associates Ares with Ahura Mazda, the singular God that embodies=20
> good
> >> as opposed to the plurality of lesser deities that proliferate on Olym=
pos.
>
> > Slight correction ... Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd, other spellings) is not a
> > "singular" god but one-half of a dualistic pair; the other being, of=20
> course,
> > Ahriman, the god of Evil. The prophecies of Zarathustra suggest that
> > Ahura-Mazda will be victorious in the final battle, but since
> > everything else in the religion posits them as opposite equals,
> > I've never quite understood how that's supposed to work out.
>
>It's not quite accurate. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion.
>
>Check out www.avesta.org.
>
>
>
>J.

         Whatever Z. may be now, or may have been in the 1st century, the=20
question is what it was in Latro's day. Given the friendliness of the=20
Persian rulers to the Jews, it seems that ur-Zoroastrians may have thought=20
they were worshipping the same God under different names. Reading the works=20
of Zarathustra, one wonders if he had not been influenced by diaspora Jews.=20
Recall, for instance, that Yahweh manifests Himself in fire on the altar,=20
and Z. sees fire as the manifestation of A-M. And there are other=20
interesting things. No way to prove it, of course.
         The question is whether Wolfe thinks this so or not, and it is=20
worth considering that he might.

Nutria


--=20

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