Contrast dualism of zoroastrianism with monotheism of judaism and islam?

Answer 1

Some scholars have concluded that Zoroastrianism was monotheistic and that this may have influenced Judaism.

However, the Jewish King Josiah was destroying the idols of wayward Jews several decades before any Jews were exiled to Babylonia. And these wayward Jews who experimented in polytheism were sinners, not representative of normative Judaism even then. Judaism, according to tradition, had always been monotheistic. Many of the kings before Josiah had been praised by the prophetic writers as having done "what was right in God's eyes": Asa (1 Kings 15:11), Yehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:43), Yehoash (2 Kings 12:3), Amatziah (2 Kings 14:3), Azariah (2 Kings 15:3), Yotam (2 Kings 15:34), and Hizkiah (2 Kings 18:3). Even at the height of the unfortunate spread of idolatry among the less-loyal Ten Tribes, there were thousands who remained loyal to God (1 Kings 19:18).

Moreover, the Jewish Sages who redacted the Talmud in the early centuries of the Common Era lived in Babylonia and witnessed the practices of the Zoroastrians. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 39a) states that Zoroastrianism believed in two gods, not one. In any case, Zoroastrianism is unlike Judaism in that:

• its deity is not immanent
• it believes in worship through intermediaries, who are themselves worthy of worship
• evil has its own creator, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, which had always existed
• some of its adherents believe in a self-creating universe
• some modern scholars see it as a form of pantheism
• it has "fire-temples," with worship in the presence of flame
• its adherents are not required to marry within their faith
• some Zoroastrians dispose of their dead through ritual exposure to the open sky, while some others cremate the dead body
• dogs are considered sacred
• such creatures as snakes, ants and flies were not created by the creator of good
• it includes a virgin birth, in which its messiah will be conceived without sexual penetration

Note also that the borrowing of different traditions does not make one religion derivative of the other. To be a derivative religion, your religion must be primarily based on another religion and then proceed to alter several components to make the religion distinct. A good example of a derivative religion would be Druze from Ismaili Shiite Islam. By adding an additional prophet, making some small changes to doctrine, and solidifying mystical elements, the Druze became distinct from the Ismailis and can be seen as a derivative religion. Judaism and Zoroastrianism were contemporary religions that influenced each other, but are fundamentally distinct. Probably the clearest distinction is that Judaism is a monotheistic religion whereas Zoroastrianism is a monolatrous henotheistic faith. Angra Mainyu, also called Ahriman, is the Zoroastrian equivalent to the Devil and has enough power to create (usually used for evil) and to challenge (although not defeat) the primary god Ahura Mazda, also called Ormuzd. In Judaism, however, the Satan is an angel who is commanded to serve as God's loyal opposition and lacks any serious creative or punitive powers without God's permission.