Zoroaster in History: English 2000

Zoroaster, the prophet of ancient Iran and the founder of a religion which is still alive and practiced today, was an extraordinary figure with a wide sphere of influence both in the Iranian world and in the philosophical and religious thought of the West, from Hellenism to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The historical dating of Zoroaster has been a matter of much debate and dispute. Different theses, including those in support of an early chronology, and those that place him in a remoter and nebulous past, as well as an alleged unhistoricity of Zoroaster, are here discussed in great depth while an attempt is made to demonstrate the validity of the thesis which situates him in historical times. Zoroaster is thus placed in the period between the last two decades of the seventh to the middle of the sixth century B.C., when the Medes and Persians became the protagonists in ancient history.