December 2018
Intermediate to advanced
315 pages
11h 8m
English
Shaul Shaked
Zoroastrianism is regarded as a dualistic religion, perhaps even as the dualistic religion par excellence. It is, however, not entirely certain that this was the self-description of Zoroastrians in antiquity. A label is meant to distinguish the group that carries it from other groups. If no groups in the vicinity are designated “monotheistic,” the banner of dualism is superfluous. There is no indication that these terms were known in Old or Middle Iranian, and Zoroastrians do not appear to have used the dualist label until late in their history, perhaps not earlier than the early Islamic period.14
In antiquity the religion is regularly described by its adherents ...
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