What Got Left Out: The Persian Theological Inheritance That Western Religion Doesn't Talk About
The pattern, stated plainly Three of the world's largest religions — Judaism, Christianity, Islam — share a common theological architecture: strict monotheism, cosmic dualism between good and evil, bodily resurrection, final judgment, paradise and hell as moral destinations, hierarchies of angels, an eschatological messiah, linear time progressing toward a final restoration of the world. This architecture is not original to any of these three traditions.
What this resource contributes
The pattern, stated plainly Three of the world's largest religions — Judaism, Christianity, Islam — share a common theological architecture: strict monotheism, cosmic dualism between good and evil, bodily resurrection, final judgment, paradise and hell as moral destinations, hierarchies of angels, an eschatological messiah, linear time progressing toward a final restoration of the world. This architecture is not original to any of these three traditions. It entered Judaism during and after the Persian period (roughly 539 BCE through the rise of the Pharisees by the 2nd century BCE), was inherited by Christianity through its Jewish matrix, and was inherited by Islam through both Jewish and Christian channels.
Topics and source signals
Primary sources detected
Yasna · Gathas · Cyrus Cylinder · Hebrew Bible · New Testament
Scholars detected
Mary Boyce · Albert de Jong · Shaul Shaked · Anders Hultgård · James Barr