Christians, how do you explain that Zoroastrians had creation stories, flood stories,?

Question

the devil, and a savior figure born of a virgin and martyred, hundreds of years before the Hebrew scriptures or New Testament were written?
Wouldn't that mean that the people who wrote down the Biblical stories borrowed from other cultures?

Answer 1

That the truths of God were revealed to others and long before Jesus is beautiful.

I am often troubled when I read about how old humans are. They have found bones that are clearly human at least 100,000 years ago.

I am comforted to know that God revealed truths to the older generations of people to comfort and guide them.

Reading Zoroasters prophecy's and interpreting them as best we can through the eyes of people in those times, it is difficult to find any real difference from Christianity. Except for the part where Jesus was the son of God and died for our sins. Perhaps that was something new.

Answer 2

I haven't studied them, but know that the Creation account & many other biblical accounts are not original to the Bible.

Here are a few of my thoughts:
1. Certainly God would reveal himself to creation, even outside the Jewish peoples and the Bible. Most theologians call this Natural Revelation. There have even been missionaries that reach an unreached tribe with the gospel & find that a Christ-type is already center to that culture.
2. Borrowed from other cultures....sure. But does that mean that the accounts are innacurate? I believe that the biblical account is very accurate.
3. Could God have had his son be born of a virgin to show God's sovereignty over that religion & to draw people from that religion to the Living God? I don't know, just a thought.

Answer 3

Wouldn't that mean that the people who wrote down the Biblical stories borrowed from other cultures?

No, it wouldn't definitely mean that. That's one possible explanation that seems plausible but there are other explanations that are equally plausible. For instance when you consider the story of the flood, there are flood stories from many different cultures. Some are quite similar to the Biblical account and some are quite different.

Flood Stories from Around the World http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

As a Christian who believes in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures I would say that the various accounts of a flood are the natural distortions that come when a story is told from generation to generation over the centuries and people spread out and the story takes on different dimensions over time in different cultures.

As to the Devil and a Savior that story is first mentioned in the Biblical account of Adam and Eve.

Genesis 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Notice that the text says "her seed". How can a woman have seed? Only if she has a virgin birth since it is in all other cases referred to as the man's seed in the Bible.

Answer 4

From the Bible, John 1:1 (King James Version):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

When time began, there was God, the Word and the Holy Spirit. There was no religion. God created the Jewish religion and He tells the Israelites that there were other gods and other religions during that time. This occured long before the written scripture account.

And now, we have Jesus Christ, who is not a religion, but is God's Word in the flesh who gives us the personal relationship with God's Son, sent to forgives our sin and our sinful nature and brings us back into fellowship with our Father, God when we accept Him as our Lord and our Savior.

Answer 5

Not necessarily. The Old Testament was written at least 1500 years before the New Testament was written.

GOD bless

Answer 6

I am tired of stupid questions like this. You don't believe fine. Is it possible that these stories are found around the world because they actually happened as described in the Bible? Is it just possible that since all people came from Adam and Eve and then from Noah and family. That many cultures would have these traditions and ideas? Things like the flood and creation stories being the same actually support Christianity not weaken it.

As to mythical beings similar to Christ. Have you actually looked them up and done research on them? And I don't mean looking at a website and accepting it hook, line, and sinker. I mean research it from multiple sources. These similar figures are actually no such thing. I love when uneducated people on here mention Christ being born on December 25th and several mythical beings born on the same day. Any Christian will tell you December 25 is not Christ's birthday. It is merely a day that was picked because so many other cultures already celebrate then. It made it easier for them to become Christian.

Questions like this are pointless. Not well thought out and basically a waste of my time. I am tired of answering them.

Answer 7

Philosophers say it is because God puts knowledge of Him in every man. Why wouldn't someone come up with the same ideas as the Bible does.

Answer 8

The reason behind these similarities could be because God revealed His word to many different cultures through out time.

Answer 9

Didn't Zoroastrianism have a descent and resurrection story, too? Or am I thinking of another pre-Christian religion?

Answer 10

Add to that the Epic of Gilgamesh and you can see that almost all stories from the Christian Bible are borrowed from one culture or anaother.