WI no Zoroaster

Yes, he is a proponant to the "indigenous aryan" controversy, of which i am not familiar with, but most of what his article states is supported by more credible sources...for example the Mittanis having the same gods as the Vedic Aryans, and the Zoroastrian inversion of the daevas and asuras. Also, Louisiana State University is not a crackpot institution

Continuing on . . . for a man considered knowledgeable in the field, I present Michael Witzel, of Harvard University:

www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/EJVS-7-3.pdf

If you read it, you'll see Witzel's disputes with Kak. Also, for another source (Witzel has been accused of ridiculous accusations), I present:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran-vi1-earliest-evidence

Which suggests the possibility that Indo-Aryans were brought in as horse experts, and that explains the presence of an Indo-Aryan substrate in Mitanni.
 
Continuing on . . . for a man considered knowledgeable in the field, I present Michael Witzel, of Harvard University:

www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/EJVS-7-3.pdf

If you read it, you'll see Witzel's disputes with Kak. Also, for another source (Witzel has been accused of ridiculous accusations), I present:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran-vi1-earliest-evidence

Which suggests the possibility that Indo-Aryans were brought in as horse experts, and that explains the presence of an Indo-Aryan substrate in Mitanni.

What is it that you are arguing?
 
Well, I'm not knowledgeable at all in this...
However, if there is no Zoroastrianism, would the disunity created by polytheism cause for an easier mass conversion?

Could Christianity take it's spot? Or even Hinduism?
Or does this make the Muslim conquests easier?

If either of the first two happen I could see the Muslim surge being far harder for the Arabs.
If Christianity takes hold could that make relations easier with the Romans?

Eh, i guess with no Zoroastrianism there would untold amount of Butterflies....
That's just my inexperience talking though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Scrap everything I said I guess, no Zoroastrianism could easily lead to no rise in the Parthians, or the Sassanids....
The Seculids would happen anyway right? Considering that Alexander decides to conquer the "world"
 
Spearblast said:
Could Christianity take it's spot? Or even Hinduism?
Or does this make the Muslim conquests easier?

Christianity isn't going to happen without Zoroastrianism. Absorption of Zoroastrian thought during the Babylonian captivity likely led to Jewish monotheism, which won't happen ITTL. There is no Christianity, and therefore no Islam. Hinduism and the Indian cultural sphere extending out into Persia is a very interesting possibility though.

Spearblast said:
The Seculids would happen anyway right? Considering that Alexander decides to conquer the "world"

Considering that Alexander's conquests happen at the very least three hundred years after Zoroaster, and are almost entirely reliant on coopting the (Zoroastrian) Persian ruling structure, I'm fairly certain it gets butterflied away.
 
The Mitanni could easily have been brought in a horse trainers. It would not be the first or last time that a specialized group of outsiders took over, Kill the king and marry his daughter.
The case of the Mitanni shows that there were Aryans got around before moving into India. Unless you believe that the Indo-europeans came out of India, which has not been supported by either Genetics or linguistics.
The later Iranian religion would have most probably looks very much like Hinduism.
The other source for Monothiesum would have been Egypt, if there was a memory of Aten. Given that Europe and the Near East would have remained pagen.
 
What is it that you are arguing?

It's not so much arguing, but I was pretty sure that the Iranians thought of daevas negatively and ahuras positively before Zoroaster came along. And you haven't showed that your premise (that it was Zoroaster's innovation) using your sources. If "every source you've ever read" are sources from the LSU's Computer Department, I suggest you read more.
 

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It's not so much arguing, but I was pretty sure that the Iranians thought of daevas negatively and ahuras positively before Zoroaster came along. And you haven't showed that your premise (that it was Zoroaster's innovation) using your sources. If "every source you've ever read" are sources from the LSU's Computer Department, I suggest you read more.
Wasn't Zoroaster's message that there only was One God? Ahura Mazda.
 
Wasn't Zoroaster's message that there only was One God? Ahura Mazda.

Something like that, but I was pretty sure that even before Zoroaster, the ahuras were thought of positively. And also, I think the daevas were rejected before Zoroaster, referencing Encyclopedia Iranica here:

Both in Old Persian religion and in Zarathuštra’s theology, Ahura Mazdā is regarded as the creator of heaven and earth. From both is excluded worship of the daivas—“non-orthodox gods” in Old Persian; “god, wrong god, demon” in Zarathuštra’s terminology (Duchesne-Guillemin, Religion, p. 189); but later exclusively “demon” in Iran proper. In contrast to this modification of religious attitudes in Iran, there occurred in India principally a change in terminology; in the later Vedas, application of asura became confined to the ásurā adevāḥ.
 
It's not so much arguing, but I was pretty sure that the Iranians thought of daevas negatively and ahuras positively before Zoroaster came along. And you haven't showed that your premise (that it was Zoroaster's innovation) using your sources. If "every source you've ever read" are sources from the LSU's Computer Department, I suggest you read more.

Just let me know how many sources you want? You can try reading Mary Boyce,Richard Frye and RC Zaehner.
 
The Jews never develop the concept of Heaven and Hell if Zororaster isn't born . Instead the righteous and the sinners all go to Sheol. Satan still acts as the accuser of humanity like he was in Job , instead of seeking to destroy it like he does in Christianity.
 
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Just let me know how many sources you want? You can try reading Mary Boyce,Richard Frye and RC Zaehner.

Well, it would be great if you could quote them to show that Zoroaster reversed the daeva/ahura paradigm. But the thing is, you haven't done that yet. I'm not an Iranian expert, so it'd be great if you told me what exactly these people wrote.

EDIT 1:

I thought the same.

To be fair, I think I spoke too strongly. I know there's debate, but I thought the consensus was what I wrote before, though I'll have to check.

EDIT 2:

I found a bit of what Boyce thought:

According to the variant proposed by Boyce (Zoroastrianism I, pp. 85, 197), which Duchesne-Guillemin came close to adopting in 1962, the Iranians’ distrust of the *daivas was general, but Zoroaster was the actual artisan of their demonization. To the extent that it accords to the prophet the primordial role, this interpretation has the same weaknesses as the reform hypothesis.
The problems with the reform hypothesis are noted as:

In the reform hypothesis the rejection of the *daivas is considered to have been the work of Zoroaster (Lommel, pp. 88-92; cf. Gershevitch; Bianchi, 1978, pp. 19-22; Gnoli, pp. 73-83). This interpretation is intimately connected with explanation of Mazdaism by means of the dialectical schema: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The rejection of the daēuuas would thus have been the core of the antithesis and the fundamental act of Mazdean monotheism. There are several insurmountable flaws in this hypothesis, however. First, it does not account for the fact that a personal doctrine, which was disseminated gradually by missionaries, ended by predominating in exactly the geographical area where the Iranian languages were spoken. Second, it depends heavily on the meager evidence suggesting that *daiva- was originally equivalent to “god.” Finally, it does not account for the fact that one man was able to impose his condemnation of the traditional gods upon his entire people. Herman Lommel (p. 91) and Ilya Gershevitch (pp. 79-80), though aware of the force of this last objection, argued that the total rejection of these gods is evidence of the genius of Zoroaster.
 
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