Anyone who has read this blog for long knows I’m fascinated by the Zoroastrian connections to Christianity. The magi in Matthew’s infancy story are Zoroastrian priests from the Parthian Empire. I had always thought Luke’s infancy story, with its shepherds, had nothing to do with them.
When I was researching no fathers, no slaves, I wondered whether any Zoroastrian priests were called “father.” Though I failed to find any, Zoroastrian Priest in the Avesta suggests that magi may be in Luke’s story, too:
some translators, intentionally or unintentionally, have followed the Pahlavi rendering of vâstar and vâstrya as “shepherd,”
Pahlavi is another name for Middle Persian, the language spoken by the Parthian Empire at Jesus’s time. So it is possible that magi may have spoken of Zoroaster or themselves using the metaphor of “shepherd.” If so, Luke misunderstood when he wrote, or he expected readers to recognize his reference. Roman Mithraism, an offshoot of Zoroastrianism, was strong in the Roman Empire. Any knowledgeable reader would have known that Mithras was “the good shepherd,” and so were his priests. That’s why the Pater Patrum in Rome carried a shepherd’s crook.
I think Joss Weden knows this. Note that the religious guy in Firefly is called “Shepherd”
Beth, could be, but Book seems fairly Christian to me. Among my many regrets about the show’s cancellation is that we never did get a chance to find out what was going on with Book’s religion.
Shepherd imagery was popular with Christianity from it’s earliest days, probably because of the Mithraic connection. Wikimedia has an interesting page of Jesus art here. I think there’s a fair chance that “Jesus as the Good shepherd. Ceiling of S. Callisto catacomb, mid 3rd century.” is actually Mithra. And “A representation of Christ as the sun-god Helios/ Sol Invictus riding in his chariot. Mosaic of the 3rd century on the Vatican grottoes under St. Peter’s Basilica.” is almost certainly Mithra. Also, here is a picture of Apollo as shepherd.
Darn. Now I want to call up Whedon and ask him about Book’s religion.
Hello. I am also interested in this connection and I have written some times about it in my Anglish blog Aeolian. Just to share some thoughts…