1.4 Zoroastrian Themes
Last modified 07/01/2008
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One of the strangest aspects of the 'Israel' phenomenon is the way that it
seems to be disappearing even as it is emerging. This is a beautiful effect,
almost worthy of Hegel's phrase 'cunning of reason'. Notwithstanding its isomorphism
to the case of Archaic Greece (and also India, as we will see), the fate of
'Israel' undergoes a great shock, several in fact, and in the period of the
Exile almost disappears from history. The irony is that this almost seems to
serve its subsequent outcome better. For the great literature coming into
existence begins to deterritorialize as it is transformed into a potentially
universal history, one that will flow into its environment as a universal
cultural influence. The period of the Exile also creates a new braiding of
materials as elements of Persian Zoroastrian monotheism enter into its account,
and into its cultural history.
Note that on the one hand monotheism seems to begin, mythically, with Abraham, yet begin with the core Old Testament period. Sorting out the actual details here is complex, and it is undoubtedly the case that in the finalization of the Old Testament text in the generation just before the Exile much of the monotheistic emergentist history has been backdated. Whatever the details, the basic point is clear, that monotheism is already in existence in various forms and places, but that the core Old Testament history is showing its emergence as a larger social formation, in this case as a kind of theocratic state religion. The shocks of imperialism, and the Exile, put this culturally focused 'monotheism' in a more general context, and in the process we see the encounter and blending with still another strain, the Zoroastrian.
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