Just as mankind eliminated the intelligent opposition, the anthroposaurs would have eliminated any other animal, dinosaur or mammal, that seemed likely to become a rival.

Who Lies Sleeping?

How Persia Created Judaism 2.1

Achaemenid research still suffers from persistent marginalization in the academic world… Achaemenid studies have been persistently undervalued…
Professor Pierre Briant

Respecting Gods of Vassals
Darius Re-Writes History
King and God
Prophecy as Propaganda

Abstract

The scriptures say that Yehouah put Cyrus in charge of the world. Egyptian inscriptians say that Ra made Darius king of Egypt. Darius built a large new temple to Amun-Ra, the Egyptian god closest in nature to Ahuramazda, at the oasis of el-Khargeh. A letter to his Egyptian satrap tells him to intervene in the appointment of high priests, proving that emperors could not avoid interfering in influential positions like the priesthood. It is imperative that the posts most influential on the people had to be king�s men. The Demotic Chronicle of Egypt takes the same attitude of the judgement of God on Egypt as the Deuteronomic History does on the Jews. Persian propaganda was used in Egypt as elsewhere. The Persians did in Egypt what they did in Yehud, a finding important for Egyptology.

Respecting Gods of Vassals

All of the imperial powers that the Iranians met had a powerful national god. In Urartu—Khaldi, in Assyria—Assur, in Babylon—Marduk, in Elam—Humban. As Mary Boyce puts it: “This was the time of ethnic faiths, when every people honoured their own gods”. Maybe it was a reason that the Achaemenids adopted Zoroastrianism. It meant that generally an imperial state like Assyria would respect the gods of vassal states—the gods the vassal called upon as its witnesses to the vassalage treaty. The suzerain would make votive offerings to the gods of a subject people as a sign of good-will, most notably if they had surrendered rather than resisted.

Such “respect” did not mean that the imperial power would not impose its own gods on to people of countries it annexed into the empire rather than ruled as a colony, nor did it mean that the imperial power would not use diplomatic, cultural and propaganda campaigns to influence the attitudes of conquered or subject peoples in the colonies. They fully realized how much better it was to promote a sympathetic party in a nation than to batter it head-on with armies. Such methods were necessarily subtle because they would obviously not work if people realized they were being manipulated. These great conquering powers were not unsubtle—subtle enough to fool Jews and Christian scholars for millennia!

Western historians, especially Biblicists, persuade themselves that ruthless soldiers like the leaders of these imperial nations became pussy-cats when it came to religion. Out of pure kindness, they rebuilt temples, restored gods that had been suppressed, and returned plundered divine images stolen centuries before to the renovated temples. All in the hope the people would be grateful. It just does not hack. They knew human nature was more perverse than that. They did it, but the god restored and the ritual presented as proper were what suited the conquerors! And it is most unlikely that the restored priesthood were independent. They were agents of the conqueror.

Proof that the Persians were not tolerant in general is their treatment of their near neighbours, the friendly Elamites, non-Iranians who eventually were attacked for not worshipping Ahuramazda, and were punished severely for “hostility”. The Persians doubtless reached a point where they questioned the Elamites adherance to daeva gods, the people having been closely linked for a long time, but whatever the cause it shows that Persians were interested in other people taking up the worship of Ahuramazda.

A further example that Persians had no excessive respect for other people’s religions is given by Xerxes, who took over the kingdom when his father died in 486 BC. He had been satrap of Babylonia for ten years but, on accession, had to put down rebellions in Egypt, then one in his former satrapy of Babylonia. He put them down with ruthlessness and no religious niceties. In Babylonia he destroyed the temple at Esagila that Cyrus had endowed, and even destroyed the statue of Marduk! It had been the centre of the official religion and therefore of religious and state ceremonial, so it was a punishing blow.

Some scholars see in the action a new policy of intolerance, but the intolerance was of ingratitude or ineptitude by priests who had been granted favoured positions to make sure such rebellions never happened. Tolerance was always shown towards those who co-operated but not towards those who caused trouble. There was no change in policy because Xerxes otherwise continued to favour temples and priesthoods that remained loyal and did their job of keeping people obedient. Herodotus confirms this, saying that when Xerxes marched through Greece, he allowed the destruction of the temples of those who were hostile but respected those of people who submitted.

Destruction of temples is recorded only as a punitive measure after political provocation.
M Boyce

Darius Re-Writes History

The propagandizing inclination of the Persian rulers is well illustrated by Darius, who claims he defeated an impersonator of Cambyses’ brother to take the throne. The tale does not hold water. It is propaganda to cover his own murder of his cousin. The whole tale is written for everyone to read on the great monumant he erected at Behistun. It was also circulated widely in the regions.

Cambyses’ popular brother seems to have instituted a coup in his brother’s absence in Egypt, but Darius thought he was the better man, if coups were the order of the day, and so it proved. To cover his crime, Darius said Cambyses had murdered his brother before he left for Egypt, and that the uprising was led by an imposter, a magian called Bardiya (Greek, Smerdis) who looked like the dead prince and so pretended to be him, yet the imposter would have had to have fooled close family and courtiers. It is impossible. The man was who he claimed to be, and was really killed by Darius.

Cambyses therefore was blackened as a fratricide while Darius became a hero for righting an awful wrong. Boyce draws the parallel of the propagandists of Henry VII blackening the character of Richard III so successfully (with the help of Shakespeare) that the calumny has only recently been exposed. At Behistun, Darius followed the convention used by the Assyrians of attributing his success to the main god, here Ahuramazda, whose symbol floats above the scene, because the god recognized the victor as true and just—the upholder of Asha, righteousness. The example is clearly one of rationalization of the outcome. Darius had schemed and murdered, but for the greater good, it was necessary and right. His success proved that Ahuramazda approved. In the Zoroastrian scheme, misdeeds could be atoned for by a greater weight of good deeds, so Darius would escape with his soul in the balmy place by living righteously for the rest of his life.

Darius had six princes helping him in his plot and he set up them all as special advisers with great privileges. This by accident, or more likely intent, matched the six Amesha Spentas of Ahuramazda, showing again that the Shahanshah was the reflexion of God on earth. The kings from Darius were depicted on royal tombs supported by these six nobles, three on each side, and slightly to the back but looking toward the king.

King and God

The winged figure of Ahuramazda does not represent the god, but his grace or blessing, responsible for wealth and success. The figure in the winged ring often looks like a miniature of the king, often wearing the same kind of crown as Darius on his monuments, though sometimes it has an Assyrian crown. In the Avesta, god’s grace is called “khvarenah” (Median, farnah) and manifests itself as a falcon, just as Horus, also represented by a winged disc did in Egypt. The word for the sun, “hvar”, can be seen in khvarenah so presumably it was the benign warmth of the sun (showing perhaps the origins of the Iranians in colder climates).

When the sun makes his light shine… the invisible yazatas stand ready… They gather up that kvarenah, they store up that kvarenah, they distribute that kvarenah over the Ahura-created earth to prosper the world as Asha.
Y 6:1

The sun is providing divine grace that the yazatas distribute. The figure on the disc might be the king rather than the god, thus symbolising the earthly manifestation of the god, or that, at any rate, is what Darius wanted to remind his subjects of. The Assyrian king had the title, “the sun god of the whole of mankind”, and Darius wanted to propagate the same idea. Of course, we have no idea now whether even the Persian people understood these symbols as the god, the king, the god’s fravashi or kvarenah or soul, and indeed these concepts seem to mingle to a degree even in the Avesta. Legally, the divine Ahuramazda could not be pictured, so if the image was not the king it had to be a representation of the grace of the god, but that could be pictured as the king! Simple folk and children might have seen it as god, but the magi would have known it was a symbol of one of his attributes. It is shown offering or accepting the divine ring, the bond or promise of god.

Plutarch says the Persian king by custom was “the image of God and preserver of all things”.

Prophecy as Propaganda

Evidence that the Persians were great propagandists, and used prophecy for propaganda purposes, comes from an oracle delivered to Nabonidus of Babylon about 553 BC. Cyrus had ruled about five years, and the discovery of the oracle shows that in the eight years from his accession to the time when he defeated Astyages the Mede, he was carefully preparing the ground for it. The oracle prophesied that in three years time the gods of Babylon would cause Cyrus to rise against the Medes and take them into bondage. Conceivably this oracle could have been propaganda after the event pandering to the Babylonians via their gods, and doubtless the Persians did this too, but scholars are sure this oracle preceded the event, so its aim was to predispose the Babylonian king to favour Cyrus in his uprising against the Medes. Nabonidus would have been glad to see the power of the Medes weakened, and would have been inclined anyway to favour the rebels, but Cyrus was making sure. Boyce comments:

It suggests that there were skilful Persian propagandists at work among the priests of Babylon, who had convinced them of the success of Cyrus’s planned uprising.

In other respects Cyrus prepared the ground too—by marrying into the Median royal family, Mandana, daughter of Astyages, by promoting Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Medes when Astyages might have favoured the older Iranian gods, and generally selling himsef to Median nobles as a man worth supporting, because many Medes were glad to accept his leadership.

The question that this use of prophecy to influence events raises is whether the prophets of the Jewish scriptures served the same role. Boyce speaks of the “widespread activities of of Cyrus’s agents” who were “gifted as well as bold men”, and she accepts that similar religious propaganda appears in the bible, citing Isaiah 40-48. Yehouah picked Cyrus (Isa 44:27-45:4,13) and the Chaldaeans and Babylonians are punished (43:14;47:14). In reality, they were not because they surrendered with no trouble. It was also not true that Cyrus conquered Egypt and Nubia (Isa 45:14). That Cyrus was called the messiah (God’s anointed) even though, as a gentile, he could not have been descended from David according to the myth, shows both that this was a newly coined word and that the legend of king David had not yet arisen so that the messiah was not yet associated with David. The passage was written by a Persian propagandist.

Though Cyrus is depicted as messiah, and historical errors occur, it does not necessarily mean that Cyrus had prepared the ground in advance, as he did with Nabonidus. He might have done, true, but the legend might with more likelihood have been built up later, when Babylon had been punished for its own rebellions and Egypt had long been conquered by Cambyses. The myth of the search for Cyrus’s decree looks as though it was invented for propaganda purposes at exactly this time. It was found! The same ploy was used regarding Deuteronomy, but they pretended the discovery of it was before the Babylonian conquest!

Boyce goes on to say:

To this striking usage, Second Isaiah joins startlingly original theological utterances… markedly Zoroastrian in charcter.

Plainly they were not original in Iran but Boyce means they were in scriptural terms. This originality in Judaism is what makes Isaiah such a notable prophet for Jews and Christians.

Since Genesis and the Psalms are later than second Isaiah, the idea of Yehouah as the creator appears here in the bible for the first time too. It is a main theme of Isaiah 40-48 even though it is not directly relevant to the objective of assuring the Jews of deliverance by Cyrus as the agent of Yehouah. The implied power of the god as the creator would help assure the Jews that the prophecies would be upheld, but the extent to which the prophet dwells on the creation story shows it was not familiar to the audience. It was a new and unrecognized message to the “returners”.

The fact that he claims it is old (Isa 40:12;28) is a familiar theme of this type of propaganda. The people were being “returned” to a land that they had never known, and were being told legends they had never heard but had to accept were those of their ancestors who had been unjustly deported. So, the stories had to be presented as the ancient legacy of the people. Morton Smith sees second Isaiah as drawing on a specific Gatha of the Avesta. Yasna 44 is the source.

In Yasna 44, Zoroaster asks Ahuramazda questions to which the god replies simply such as “I am” or “I do”. Isaiah only differs in that the talking is done by Yehouah rather than the prophet.

Tell me truly Lord, who in the beginning, at the creation was the father of Justice?
GY 44.3.1-2

Rain justice you heavens… this I, Yehouah, have created.
Isa 45:8

Who established the course of the sun and the stars? Through whom does the moon wax and wane?
GY 44.3.3-5

Lift up your eyes to the heavens. Consider who created it all, led out the host one by one.
Isa 40:26

What craftsman made light and darkness?
GY 45:5.1-3

I am Yehouah. There is no other. I make the light. I create darkness.
Isa 45:7

The passages in Isaiah are not merely translations of the Avesta but their relationship is too close to be coincidence. Someone has paraphrased the content of the Yasna for a different audience and purpose. Ahuramazda is the Zoroastrian creator, this being his main title, and this title is being given to the local Ahuramazda—God of the Heavens, identified with the Greek Zeus, just as Yehouah was.

The prophets Haggai and Zechariah began to urge the building of a temple in Jerusalem in the “second year of Darius”. We get the biblical story of the Edict of Cyrus being sought and found in Egbatana (Hamadan). It sounds like typical Persian cunning—an application of their popular technique of finding ancient documents that upheld their foreign policy. Whether the edict was original or not, it suited Darius to find it and uphold it. Ezra 5:1-6:10 explains that the priests were to be rewarded for offering sacrifices and praying for the life of the king and his sons. As Boyce rightly observes, “the king’s generosity had an obvious political ingredient”. Ezra 6:14-15 says the task was completed in four years. As for generosity, the cost was initially from tribute raised, a loss-leader, so to speak because when the tradition of obligatory sacrifice and tithes had been accepted, the temple became self-supporting, and indeed the centre for collecting tribute.

Page Tags: Early Judaism, Zoroaster, Darius, Judaism Country of Origin, Prophecy, Propaganda, Policy, Zarathustra, Jews, Aryans, Iranians, Avesta, Magi, Persia, Persians, Medes, Apocalyptic, Ahuramazda, Babylon, Cyrus, Egypt, Gods, Jewish, King, Priests, Temple, Zoroastrian

Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.