Jesus the Persianized Jew

[thekeeper]

The word Pharisee is an Aramaic/Phalavi ethnonym that means "Persian" or "Persianizer." The Pharisees adopted several Zarathushtrian expressions including angels, immortality of the soul, final retribution, and laws of purity. Paul was a Pharisee. Jesus was most likely a Pharisee too. Should it be commonplace in the West to know that Jesus was a Persianized Jew?

 

[Dream]

This is not my area, but I will respond with what I think.

I think people don't think about it that much, however the connection between Pharisees and Persians isn't quite that strong. The Jews were regularly overrun by other governments (Judges, Chronicles, Kings, Samuel). The Persians were just one more feather in their cap, and the Jews made it their business to benefit whomever they were captive to. The Persians were nothing like this. If they were captured, they disappeared. They didn't believe the same things as the Jews.

The Persians were not like Pharisees in many ways. The Persians were the upper crust. Pharisees were besieged by anti-cultural governments. Persians didn't 'Hold the line' or see a reason to establish their way of life beyond the immediate and practical. Their Astrology was for hire. Their concept of 'Immortality' is probably what caused them to drift and let go of their culture, and their 'Faith' disappeared in time. The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed they had a duty to preserve what they had been entrusted with. They may have argued for immortality, but they also listened to reverse arguments. Is that characteristic of Persian faiths? Its also likely, IMHO, that their idea of immortality was not at all the same as the Persian one. Pharisees were about Law, about finding wisdom at a young age and about passing it on to the next generation. They felt everything depended upon their descendants and not upon ghostly 'afterlives'.

 

[arthra]

The word Pharisee is an Aramaic/Phalavi ethnonym that means "Persian" or "Persianizer." The Pharisees adopted several Zarathushtrian expressions including angels, immortality of the soul, final retribution, and laws of purity. Paul was a Pharisee. Jesus was most likely a Pharisee too. Should it be commonplace in the West to know that Jesus was a Persianized Jew?

I've never hear the etymology for 'Pharisee" described that way..

Pharisee (n.) from Old English Fariseos, Old French pharise (13c.), and directly from Late Latin Pharisæus, from Greek Pharisaios, from Aramaic perishayya, emphatic plural of perish "separated, separatist," corresponding to Hebrew parush, from parash "he separated." Ancient Jewish sect (2c. B.C.E.-1c. C.E.) distinguished by strict observance but regarded as pretentious and self-righteous, at least by Jesus (Matt. xxiii:27). Meaning "self-righteous person, formalist, hypocrite" is attested from 1580s.Online Etymology Dictionary

 

[thekeeper]

Finkelstein and Manson in 1929 and 1938 suggested that "Pharisee" derives from a Pahlavi rather than a Hebrew root, and thus means "Persian" or "Persian-izer." - Zoroastrianism: The Iranian Roots of Christianity?

The Persians and the Pharisees were obviously not the same people, but the latter were no doubt heavily influenced by the Persian Zarathushtrians. They were the mainstream Jews. We all know that Christianity was a hybrid religion, but Persian Zoroastrianism contributed to the core belief system of the Abrahamic people. Jesus may have been a Jew biologically, but spiritually he was a Persian Zarathushtrian. It may even be worth noting that Mani is quoted to have said that Jesus brought men to Zarathushtra. Most people don't have a problem accepting that Jesus was a Jew, but should it be difficult for people to accept that Jesus belief system was not novel and that it not only had more in common with Zoroastrianism than Judaism? Zarathushtrian expressions were transmitted most directly through the Pharisees to the Christians. The Christian belief system also seems to have been influenced by the Essenes who were also influenced by the Persian Zoroastrians.

One thing I've been wondering about is whether Greco-Roman literature on Zarathushtra could have influenced primitive Christianity as well. Especially the story of Zarathushtra dying in battle and having come back to life after twelve days and of Zarathushtra's ascent to heaven in a chariot. The Jews were probably the authors of the New Testament and the ones who hybridized Gentile expressions withe Jewish expressions. The early Greco-Romans were not very aware of the Judaic literature, but given that the Jews spoke Greek and Roman would they have been aware of Greco-Roman literature (on Zarathushtra)?