Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T03:22:22.896Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Greek origin of the sixth-century dating of Zoroaster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Peter Kingsley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Zoroaster is said to have lived in the sixth century B.C. This has been a tradition, within Zoroastrianism itself, for around two thousand years. Up until recently in the West its accuracy was widely considered an established fact.

Western scholars came across the evidence for this tradition in the nineteenth century. Many immediately gave it a warm reception. After all, such a late dating was far better suited to the forward-looking, evolutionary spirit of the times than the much earlier one that had been favoured up until then, but which risked losing sight of Zoroaster in a suspiciously distant past. Also, as well as sounding eminently reasonable it seemed to have the pedigree of a genuine Zoroastrian tradition.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 245 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

FGrH = Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin–Leiden, 1922–1958.Google Scholar
FVS = Diels, H., Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Sixth ed. by W., Kranz, Berlin, 1951.Google Scholar
LSJ = [H.G.] Liddell-[R.] Jones, Scott[H. S.], A Greek-English lexicon, Oxford, 1925–1940.Google Scholar
RE = Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. Wissowa, G., Kroll, W. et al. , Stuttgart–Munich, 1894–1980.Google Scholar
SVF = Arnim, H. von, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenla, Leipzig, 1903–5.Google Scholar
Bidez, J. and Cumont, F.. Les mages hellénisés. 2 vols. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1938.Google Scholar
Bousset, W.Hauptprobleme der Gnosis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907.Google Scholar
Boyce, M., History = A history of Zoroastrianism. 2 vols. so far. (Handbuch der Orientalistik, 1. Abt., 8. Bd., 1. Abschnitt, Lief. 2, Ht. 2A.) Leiden-Köln: E. J. Brill, 1975, 1982.Google Scholar
Boyce, M.Zoroastrianism: a shadowy but powerful presence in the Judaeo-Christian world. (Friends of Dr. Williams's Library forty-first lecture.) London: Dr. Williams's Trust, 1987. 20 pp.Google Scholar
Burkert, W.Lore and science in ancient Pythagoreanism. Transl. by Minar, Edwin L. Jr. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Wehrli, F.R. (ed.). Aristoxenos (Die Schule des Aristoteles, II). Basel: B. Schwabe, 1945.Google Scholar
West, M.L.Early Greek philosophy and the Orient. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.Google Scholar