Contradictions and Vile Utterances: The Zoroastrian Critique of Judaism in the Shkand Gumanig Wizar (original) (raw)
My dissertation examines the critique of Judaism in Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen of the Škand Gumānīg Wizār. The Škand Gumānīg Wizār is a ninth century CE Zoroastrian theological work that contains polemics against Islam, Christianity, and Manichaeism, as well as Judaism. The chapters on Judasim include citations of a Jewish sacred text referred to as the "First Scripture" and critiques of these citations for their contradictory and illogical portrayals of the divine. This dissertation comprises two parts. The first part consists of an introductory chapter, four interpretative essays, and a conclusion. The second part consists of a text and new English translation of Škand Gumānīg Wizār Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen. My first essay presents a new approach to the relation between the citations from the First Scripture in the Škand Gumānīg Wizār and Jewish literature. Previous scholars have tried to identify a single parallel text in the Hebrew Bible or rabbinic literature as the origin for each of citation. Borrowing approaches developed by scholars of the Qurʾān and early Islamic literature, I argue that the Škand Gumānīg Wizār's critique draws on a more diverse and, likely, oral network of traditions about the biblical patriarchs and prophets. My second essay contains a close reading of three linked passages concerning angels in Škand Gumānīg Wizār Chapter Fourteen. I argue that the depiction of angels in these passages responds to a widespread Jewish belief in Metatron, an angelic co-regent whose power equals God's,. This essay analyzes the these angelic passages in light of the traces of this belief that can be found in the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish mystical literature, and other texts. My third essay concerns one of the longest citations in the critique of Judaism, a version of the story of the Garden of Eden from the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis. This essay
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