Zoroaster and the rise of dualist religion
- Date
- c. 1200–900 BCE
- Category
- Religion & ideology
- Region
- Greater Iran (Central Asia/Iran)
- Era
- Ancient Civilizations
- Significance
The Iranian prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster) preached a reformed religion centred on a single supreme creator god, Ahura Mazda, and an ethical-cosmic dualism between Asha (truth and right order) and Druj (the lie and chaos), in which human beings must freely choose to side with good against evil.
His teachings are preserved in the Gathas, a set of hymns composed in an archaic Iranian language and traditionally ascribed to the prophet himself, forming the oldest layer of the sacred Avesta. Zoroastrianism introduced or sharpened ideas with a long afterlife in world religion, including a powerful cosmic struggle between good and evil, individual moral responsibility and judgment after death, a final triumph of good and the renewal of the world. Becoming the dominant faith of successive Iranian empires, it influenced later religious thought and is frequently discussed in connection with eschatological and dualist motifs in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Zoroaster's date is highly uncertain, with scholarly estimates ranging across several centuries.
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Empires active in c. 1200–900 BCE
- New Kingdom of Egypt1550 BCE – 1077 BCE
- Shang Dynasty1600 BCE – 1046 BCE
- Hittite Empire1650 BCE – 1178 BCE
- Phoenician City-States1200 BCE – 539 BCE
- Elamite Kingdom2700 BCE – 539 BCE
Related religion & ideology events
- Enuma Elish: the Babylonian epic of creationc. 1150 BCE
- Akhenaten's Atenist revolution and the Amarna periodc. 1348 BCE
- Composition of the Rigvedac. 1500-1200 BCE
- Construction of Solomon's Temple (First Temple) in Jerusalemc. 957 BCE
- Chavín de Huántar and the first pan-Andean religious cultc. 900 BCE
- Great Ziggurat of Ur and temple-centred religionc. 2100 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Religion
Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.
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