Civilization #23: Cyrus the Great as Messiah

Let us do an overview of the history of the ancient Israelites from about 1010 BC until 586 BC. This is what is referred to as the First Temple Period.

The nation of Israel was created by King David as a coalition of different tribes, cultures, and religions. What made this nation possible were two things: the charisma of David and the tremendous literary power and genius of the Yahwist—the individual who wrote the first stories of the Bible (Adam and Eve, the Patriarchs, Moses).

What centered or unified this nation was the First Temple in Jerusalem. To create centralized authority, David and his son Solomon built a temple where everyone had to come to make sacrifices to Yahweh. The First Temple was the house of Yahweh.

At this point, there are certain characteristics of this new religion or nation. I will have to oversimplify for the sake of clarity.

• First, this new religion is polytheistic. It aspires to monotheism, but it's only aspirational because the reality is that it's a multicultural coalition, and people are going to believe what their fathers and their grandfathers believed. People at this point had multiple faiths, and the religion that we refer to as Judaism was only shared by the elite: King David, his family, the priests, and maybe other people in the elite.
• Second, it is a monarchy.
• Third, this religion is an open, tolerant, and optimistic religion. The Bible is really the story of two people, Yahweh and David, forming an everlasting friendship that becomes the basis for the nation of Israel. In the Yahwist's understanding of Yahweh, Yahweh is a poet God. He's fallible and sensitive, but he means well. He's willing to grow and help the Israelites grow as well. In this religion, to show faith and devotion to Yahweh, you must argue with him; you must learn and grow with him. This was a very open, confident, generous, and optimistic religion.

The Second Temple Period (539 BC - 70 CE)

By the time we reach the Second Temple Period, from 539 BC to 70 CE, the situation has changed. This period is so named because in 586 BC, their temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. By this time, the Israelites are no longer referred to as Israelites; they're referred to as Jews. The Jewish people and the Israelites share the Bible, but in terms of culture and values, they're very different.

• At this point, the Jewish people have become what we call henotheistic. The idea of henotheism is that you believe there are other gods, but your God is the best. Your God, Yahweh, is superior to all other gods, and all the other gods are false idols; they are demons.
• Second, the Second Temple period is very anti-monarchy. It focuses on the priesthood and the idea of religious ritual. The focus of power has shifted from the monarchy to the priesthood.
• The last thing to understand about the culture is that it has become extremely focused on purity. You can also say it is focused on fanaticism. It's a very closed and conservative culture. They believe their culture is the best, and they believe it's important not to mix with other cultures. For example, Jewish women are explicitly forbidden to marry foreign men.

The Rabbinical Period (100 CE - Present)

From about 100 CE onwards, there's another transition. In the Second Temple period, religious worship was centered around the Second Temple. But in 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the temple and banished the Jews from Jerusalem. This led to massive changes in the religion that carry it to the present day.

• First, it becomes fully monotheistic. They believe there is only one God, and that's Yahweh.
• Second, because there's no more temple and you can no longer make any sacrifices to Yahweh, the center of authority in this religion, now called Judaism, becomes the rabbis. Rabbis means "teachers." This period is called Rabbinical Judaism. The Bible becomes the center of religious worship. Before it was the temple; now it's the Bible, and it's the rabbis who interpret for you what the Bible means.
• The last thing is the idea of diaspora. Diaspora just means they are now spread out all around the world. They are no longer in Jerusalem, and as such, you will have multiple strands of Judaism because their religion now has to interface with local culture and customs.

There are these massive cultural changes about every 500 years. The reason why is that the historical circumstances of the Israelites and the Jewish people change over time.

The Historical Context: Empires and Exile

The nation of Israel was founded as a historical accident. It was because of the Bronze Age Collapse. Historically, the Levant was controlled by a superpower, either in Anatolia, Egypt, or Mesopotamia. But because of the Bronze Age Collapse, the Hittites and the Egyptians had to retreat from the Levant, which gave space for a localized empire to emerge: Israel.

But over time, because the Levant was so strategically important, empires started to take over the Levant as a staging post for an invasion of Egypt. The Assyrians and the Babylonians would come and conquer Israel. Also, because the nation of Israel was multicultural and multilingual, it was only held together by the personal charisma of David. When he died, it was very hard to hold the nation together. When his son Solomon died in 931 BCE, the nation of Israel was split into two kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Judah.

The problem with this is that the nation of Israel is centered around the religion, and the religion is centered around religious rituals in the temple. The temple was in Jerusalem, in Judah. So the people in the Northern Kingdom had to make changes to their religion, basically changing the sites of religious worship.

In 586 BC, the Babylonians came and destroyed Judah. They burned the First Temple, and the policy of the Babylonians was to capture the elite and hold them hostage in Babylonia, and then send in a foreign delegation to control the territory. This is what is called the Babylonian Captivity.

The Babylonian Captivity and the Formation of a New Identity

While the Israelites are in Babylon, they're trying to hold on to the memory of who they are. Two memories sustain them in this period. The first is the memory of the greatness of King David—how they were once a united monarchy under his leadership. They're very proud of that. The other thing that sustains them is the Bible, the stories of the Yahwist: Adam and Eve, the Patriarchs.

Because they are so focused on these memories, and because these memories are written down, the Israelites specialize in intellectual activities. In Babylon and elsewhere, they become very successful. They become administrators, teachers, and intellectuals. Over this time, they will also produce their own literature as a diaspora people to sustain and unify them.

Also at this time, their identity as an Israelite people becomes much more concrete and locked in. Before, when they were back in Judea, their identity was very fluid, open, and dynamic. But now that they are part of the diaspora, their identity becomes much more concrete. The analogy would be here in China, we use simplified Chinese. But when you go to overseas Chinese communities—that diaspora in Southeast Asia—they all use traditional Chinese characters. They hold on to Chinese culture much more fanatically than in China. A very concrete identity emerges during the Babylonian Captivity.

What's also important is they need to explain why this is happening to them. During the Davidic Kingdom, they were at the height of their power, and the Bible was written at that time. They believed that this Kingdom of David would last forever, as God promised. So why did the Northern Kingdom and Judah split? Why were they conquered by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians? And why have they lost their land that God promised to them?

The answer is because they broke their covenant with Yahweh. There's a covenant, a contract: if you, the Israelite people, are loyal to me—meaning you only worship me—then I, Yahweh, will protect you as my chosen people. So if Yahweh has abandoned us, it's for three reasons:

1. We started to worship foreign gods.
2. We started to have kings, and our religion does not allow kings because the authority of kings contradicts the authority of Yahweh.
3. We broke the Ten Commandments because we continued to sin as a people.

The people who argue this are called the prophets. After the First Temple period, during the Second Temple period, the Jewish people adopt a prophetic tradition: the belief that Jewish people must remain pure in their love of God if they are to survive as a people.

The Persian Empire and the Rise of Zoroastrianism

They are in Babylonian captivity for almost 70 years. Then, the Persians conquer the Babylonians. The Persian Empire is really the first multinational empire in human history, and their ruler, Cyrus the Great, is known for being an extremely open, tolerant, and generous ruler. He releases the Jews from Babylon and has them return to Judea, where they will rebuild their temple, called the Second Temple. This starts the beginning of the Second Temple period.

The Jews are so grateful that Cyrus the Great is called the Messiah in their Bible. Messiah means "the anointed one," the one chosen by God to save the Jewish people. Cyrus is the only foreigner who is called Messiah in the Bible. Cyrus the Great sponsors both the building of the Second Temple and encourages the Jews to start the project that we now refer to as the Bible. This was led by a priest named Ezra, who was in Babylon but returned to Jerusalem to rejuvenate their religion and start the Bible.

This marks a fundamental shift in the religion. At this point, what will happen is the merger of the Persian religion with the Israelite religion, which creates a new religion. The religion of the Persians is called Zoroastrianism. The merger of these two religions will become the basis of a new religion that will come to dominate the world: Christianity.

To understand this history, I will have to first talk about the history of Mesopotamia.

The history of Mesopotamia is one of violent struggle. There are many violent people in this area, which is the center of the world. It's where all the trade goes through; it's very wealthy, multiethnic, and multinational, so conflict and violence arise all the time.

You have Arabia, with nomadic people. You have the Zagros Mountains. Up here is Anatolia, which is also very wealthy. And here are the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, with city-states built along them. The nomadic people in the desert of Arabia and the mountains of Zagros are opportunistic. They will trade with you, but they will also raid you and steal from you. What keeps them in check is that these city-states have walls.

These city-states will also fight each other for dominance. In Mesopotamia, the religion is that people must fight for the honor and glory of their patron god. What keeps the city-states from destroying each other is their belief that in each city-state's temple lives a great god. You can destroy the enemy's army on the battlefield, but you can't go and ransack the city and the temple because that will incur the wrath of the god. There are these religious rules that keep the system in check.

For centuries, they've been fighting and struggling against each other, and in this process, they create many tremendous innovations that will forever change human history. For example, they create writing and many forms of knowledge like mathematics and astronomy. This is considered the cradle of civilization.

This system broke down when a king named Lugal-zagesi of a city-state called Umma, which was always at war with a city-state called Lagash, decided to defy the gods. He was so ambitious that he thought, "This is stupid. I keep on attacking my enemy, but I have to retreat after I win because I'm afraid of offending their god. Well, I'm going to test their god. I'm going to go into Lagash, destroy the temple, steal all their wealth so I can fund other military adventures, and see if their god will seek revenge." He was breaking a taboo, the equivalent of using a nuclear weapon today.

He goes to Lagash, destroys it, burns down the temple, steals all their wealth—and nothing happens. In fact, he becomes even more successful and starts slowly conquering the city-states of Sumer. He's about to unite the entire region, and now the city-states are unified in their hatred of this person. He has defiled their temples and mocked their gods.

This creates an opportunity for another warlord named Sargon of Akkad. Sargon is determined to destroy Lugal-zagesi and restore the honor and glory of the gods of Mesopotamia. Why is he doing this? Because he himself has a legitimacy problem. He was a mercenary and part of the city-state of Kish. He was supposed to be loyal to the king of Kish, but he was an extremely ambitious and charismatic soldier. He did what David did and usurped the throne. This creates a legitimacy problem because, in this religion, kings are descended from the gods. By usurping the throne, you have offended the gods.

Sargon—his name means "legitimate king," which tells us no one thought he was legitimate—decides that he will create legitimacy by destroying Lugal-zagesi. And he does that. He destroys Lugal-zagesi, captures him, parades him around, and then kills him to show that he is favored by the gods. By doing this, Sargon of Akkad unifies all of Mesopotamia and creates the first world empire, the Akkadian Empire.

But by creating the first empire, Sargon of Akkad unleashes a cycle of violence. Over time, everyone will be forced to become more violent to maintain balance. It becomes an arms race of fear, terror, and violence, and empires rise and fall all the time. The problem with this area is you have extremely aggressive nations and no natural boundaries to protect you. So even though it's very easy for you to build an empire, it's also very easy for you to lose it.

By 600 BCE, there are three major powers in this region. Over in Anatolia are the Lydians. Here in Mesopotamia are the Babylonians. And over here are the Medians. These are three superpowers that check and balance each other. They're powerful, but not powerful enough to destroy each other.

Around this time, a new power center will emerge: the Persians, led by a great king named Cyrus the Great. He is considered to be one of the greatest rulers in human history. Alexander the Great saw him as a role model. When Alexander the Great invaded Persia and saw that the tomb of Cyrus the Great had been desecrated or abandoned, he was furious and stopped his campaign to make sure the tomb was renovated and returned to its former glory. If you go to Iran today, you can still visit the tomb of Cyrus the Great because, throughout history, everyone had a high opinion of him. Even the Greeks thought he was fabulous. His own people, of course, loved him. For the longest time, before Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, he was considered the greatest ruler in human history.

Because we don't have access to much writing about him, we know very little. Here's what we do know: he was king of a local people called the Persians, who are descended from the Scythians, so they use horse archers in their warfare. Over time, he is able to conquer the Medians. King Croesus of the Lydians saw this as an opportunity to conquer the Medians as well, so he attacks, but Cyrus the Great defeats him. Now Cyrus the Great is in charge of two empires.

What he does next is revolutionary in Mesopotamia. Instead of parading the captured kings around and executing them like Sargon of Akkad, Cyrus the Great decides to make them advisors to his court. He shows mercy, clemency, and forgiveness. This shocks and awes the people of Mesopotamia. It shows Cyrus the Great is confident, powerful, and favored by the gods because he is willing to show mercy to his enemies.

The Babylonian Empire is the last empire in Mesopotamia. If Cyrus the Great wants to unify Mesopotamia, he has to conquer the Babylonians. At this time, the Babylonians have an internal conflict: the king and the nobility aren't getting along. The king wants to change the official god of Babylon from Marduk to Sin because he wants to establish his own religious authority. This creates tremendous conflict internally in Babylon, and normally they would go to civil war. Normally, when they hear that Cyrus has conquered the Medians and the Lydians, they would think they have to unify to defeat him.

But they hear that Cyrus the Great is merciful, generous, and wise. So what they do is the nobility strikes a deal with Cyrus the Great, and Cyrus conquers Babylonia without doing anything. In the official history of Cyrus the Great, he claims that the conquest of Babylonia was his greatest conquest because he did it through his generosity and his mercy, as opposed to killing lots and lots of people.

At this time, what Cyrus the Great and the Persians realize is if you really want to control people, you have to use a policy called divide and rule. Before, empires like the Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians believed in using violence and fear to control people. But when you do that, all you do is anger people, unite them, and force them to rebel against you. But if you recognize that in each society there are natural factions in conflict with each other, and you're able to balance these factions, then they're relying on you for stability. This is what we call divide and rule.

The Persians created not an empire, but what we call a federation. A federation is the idea that people choose to be part of it because it benefits them. Why does it benefit them?

1. It brings peace. If there's a conflict, you don't fight each other; you go to the Persians for conflict resolution.
2. It brings prosperity through trade. The Persians create all these roads that enable trade within the empire, so you're better off trading than fighting.
3. You're able to access new knowledge and culture. The Persians were the first to create a national, imperial postal system. It was very clever. They set up checkpoints throughout the empire, and these checkpoints were like hotels for postmen. They had food, new clothing, and a place to sleep. These postmen would carry mail on their horses throughout the empire, stopping at these checkpoints to rest.

The Persians showed that by participating in this empire, you could benefit a lot more than if you didn't. These nations were at war with each other throughout their history, and these are very aggressive people with lots of religious differences. Cyrus the Great and his descendants were able to create a system that allowed them to work together and prosper together. That's why he is remembered today as one of the greatest rulers of all time, and why the Jews refer to him as Messiah—God's chosen, God's anointed, a man picked by God to save the human race.

With this federation, what's important is the idea of administration. You need administrators who will be conscientious, loyal, and good people. They are working with local governors. Each region is allowed local autonomy, and each governor is called a satrap. They're working with the satraps to govern the local area, and these satraps are allowed maximum autonomy and freedom. Everyone's allowed to practice their own religion.

What the administrators are doing is ensuring divide and rule—that there's enough internal conflict within each region so that they're all dependent on the empire for guidance and authority. These administrators cannot get into bed with the satraps; they can't be corrupt together, because then the system will break down. So there had to be a system to keep the administrators loyal to the empire. This system is a religion called Zoroastrianism. This is the religion of the Persian people and the religion of the imperial administration. If you want to be a bureaucrat within this system, you have to believe in Zoroastrianism; you have to participate in its rituals and rights.

What made the system work is that Zoroastrianism was, at this time (600-500 BC), the best religion in the world.

What Makes a Religion "The Best"?

This is a new concept for us: the best religion in the world. We've discussed the best military in the world, which has three characteristics: discipline, cohesion, and devotion. It turns out religions can also be measured, and there are certain religions that are better than others based on three criteria: grandness, completeness, and unity.

Think of religion as a story and ask yourself what makes a good story. It's these three things. Grandness: it's a big topic—kings and gods and wars and love. Completeness: there's a beginning and an end. Unity: there's a plot; things are united. If I were to tell you a story about Gilgamesh, a king who fought gods in a search for immortality and in the end discovers immortality is impossible, that's a complete, unified, and grand story. You would want to hear that story. But if I were to tell you a story about a guy named Robert who wants to get an A in school and so he studies all the time, you don't want to hear that story. It's not grand, it's not complete, and it's not unified.

The problem with most religions is their structure. The typical religion is a three-tiered structure. At the center are gods who participate in human affairs. But there's also a higher tier that governs the gods: cosmic forces like fate and fortune. Then the highest tier are the invisible laws of the universe that give it structure—what is referred to as the immutable and unwritten laws of the cosmos. This is what the Greeks and Romans believed. As you can see, this system is not complete or unified. It may be grand, but it's a very loose system.

Zoroastrianism is the first really grand, complete, and unified religion.

Can you explain the concept of 'completeness'?

Completeness is eschatology—an ending. Most religions don't actually have an ending; they don't say, "This is when the world ends." For example, in the Bible of King David, it's telling us that King David is really the end of history, and from now on, we will live forever in this Davidic Kingdom. This is the best we can do. But it's not saying that we will eventually reach a point when the world ends and God returns to the Earth. No religion is doing that before Zoroastrianism.

Think of completeness as a circle. In Zoroastrianism, they say the world started in perfection, but now there's corruption. The story ends when corruption ends and we return to perfection, so the circle closes. The same is true with the Bible, where we start out in the Garden of Eden, are corrupted, and are forced out. But it doesn't say we will return to the Garden of Eden. When we reach Christianity, that's what will happen. Jesus's promise is the return to the Garden of Eden. Now the circle closes.

The Core Beliefs of Zoroastrianism

In Zoroastrianism, they believe there is a creator god called Ahura Mazda. He is the god of creation, light, and order, and he creates a perfect world. Within this world, we humans are created. But then there is an evil presence, an evil god, which comes and corrupts the perfection. This evil or darkness is a match for the creator god. The world is a perfect balance of dark and light.

What tips the balance is the human race. We have free will. Therefore, we can choose to fight for goodness or to fight for darkness, to fight for the truth or to fight for the lie. The dichotomy is truth and lie. If you fight for the truth, you're making the world a better place. If you fight for the lie, you are corrupting the world. That's our choice.

Eventually, a savior, a hero, will arise to prepare for the final battle between dark and light. In this final battle, light will triumph. Once light triumphs, a river will emerge, and everyone must cross this river. Everyone will arise from the dead and has to cross the river. If you have been good, if you have fought for the truth, you will cross this river and it will cleanse you. You will feel purified and become an eternal soul who will live in paradise forever, returning to perfection. But if in your life you have lived the lie, if you have committed evil, if you have done wrong against other people, then you will burn in the river and you will be condemned to hell for the rest of your life.

This is the idea of what we call eschatology: an understanding of how the world ends. Zoroastrianism is the first eschatological religion. It has an ending, a final battle of good versus evil where everyone will be judged.

Now we can understand why the Persian system works. If you are to be an administrator for the empire and you believe in Zoroastrianism, then you have a duty to fight for the truth. We're here for at most 60 to 80 years, and what we do in those years will decide how we live our lives for all eternity. We either live in paradise or we will burn in hell. The Persians are under tremendous pressure to be a good person. This is radical in the history of humanity. The Mesopotamians believed you are good if you achieve. How do you know you're good? Because you've achieved a lot, and by achieving a lot, you show that the gods favor you. The Egyptians believed in status, and others believed in just good luck. But the Persians believe you have to be a good person. You have to show generosity, compassion, and mercy to others, as exemplified by the life, works, and words of Cyrus the Great.

This is so powerful that it will be adopted into Judaism and eventually become the basis for Christianity.

The Strategic Return to Jerusalem

Cyrus the Great is wise, generous, and merciful because he is strategic. When he allows the Jews to return to Jerusalem, he's doing so for strategic purposes, not because he feels sorry for them. The reason is that Jerusalem, the Levant, is very important geographically. It marks access into Egypt, which Cyrus the Great eventually wants to conquer because Egypt is the wealthiest nation in the world at this time. He needs to bring stability to the Levant, and in the Persian worldview, what creates stability is the balancing of forces within the local area. He needs to create conflict in the Levant.

At this point in the Levant, there are still Israelites living there, and they are now called the Samaritans. Then you have the Jews. "Jews" is a Persian word; it means people who live in the province of Judea, which is a Persian province. So they're called Jews now, not Israelites. Israelites are now called Samaritans.

These groups come from the same people, but the difference is this: the Israelites who stayed have adapted to new circumstances. They still practice their religion, but they've also intermarried with women of different faiths. So now it's common for a household to practice many different faiths. The Jews in Babylon, however, are more fanatical. They believe it's important to practice only one faith.

When Cyrus the Great sends the Jews back to the Levant, this immediately creates conflict between the Samaritans, who believe they are the true descendants of the Israelites, and the Jews, who believe they are the true descendants of the Israelites. This creates religious conflict in the Levant, which means the Persians are able to become the arbiter. This creates divide and rule.

The Conflict Between the Returning Jews and the Samaritans

It's important to understand that the Jews who return are only the most fanatical Jews. They are only a minority of the people. The rest of the Jews are perfectly happy in Mesopotamia. They have very successful careers as administrators, intellectuals, and teachers. They're happy where they are. So it's only the most religious extremists who return, and they are a minority. The Samaritans are in the majority. The Persians support the Jews who've returned in trying to create purity. The Jews argue for purity; the Samaritans argue for tolerance. This is a religious power struggle.

Once the Babylonians took over Jerusalem in 586 BC, they burned the temple to destroy the religion and took the elite—a few thousand people—to Babylonia. Who's left behind is the majority of Israelites. They have to adapt to a new elite. They preserve their religion, but they also adopt the religion of the elite, the Babylonians. You also have Israelites who go off to Egypt. This creates a diaspora.

The majority are still at home in Judea, and these are ordinary people who will adopt many faiths. It was very common back then for a person to have multiple faiths: the faith of your father, your mother, your wife, your neighbor. This is how people got along. If you said, "My God is better than your God," you would piss off your neighbor. Why would you do that? So it was common to have a faith you might practice at home, a faith you share with your friends, and a faith you might have to share with your king. These are extremely multi-religious people.

When the Israelites are forced to go to Babylon, they are forced to have a more fanatical religion to maintain their identity. How do you separate yourself from these other people? If you don't, you become assimilated; you lose what it means to be an Israelite. Honestly, most people chose to be assimilated because that was the easiest thing to do. But there's a fanatical minority, mainly priests, who were determined to keep their religion alive because only by keeping the religion alive could they keep Yahweh alive, could they keep Israel alive.

When these Jews were allowed to return to Judea, they were horrified by the corruption and impurity they saw. They thought, "We were in Babylon, and for 70 years we fought hard to save our religion, to maintain its purity." They go back and see their people, the Samaritans, adopting foreign gods. They thought, "This is why we failed as a people. This is why Yahweh punished us—because we refused to be loyal." They would rather all these people go away than have them stay around. They don't want to get along; they want to maintain the purity of their religion because that's the only way to save their people.

That's why they say, "Hey, if you want to stay, you have to divorce your wife who is a foreigner. If you don't want to do so, go away. The Persian Empire is huge; go somewhere else. But Jerusalem is only the land of the pure." It's really only the extremists who keep a religion alive. This is true for all religions. It's only the people who are most willing to die for their religion that keep it alive. If everyone's willing to compromise, the religion dies very quickly. Judaism is able to stay alive for 3,000 years because there are lots of people—a minority, but still a lot—who are willing to die for the religion.

Ezra and the Compilation of the Bible

Around 443 BC, a Jewish priest named Ezra returns to Jerusalem, and he's determined to win this war. He does several things. The first thing, which is extremely controversial, is he announces that if you are a Jewish man, you must divorce a foreign woman. If you're married to a woman who doesn't share our faith, you must divorce her to maintain the purity of our people. He also announces that from now on, it is mandatory for Jewish men to observe religious rituals, to go to the temple and make their sacrifice. He's trying to enforce this purity.

But his main contribution, which is the most important, is that he wants to unify the Jewish people into one faction. As we discussed, there are multiple Bibles out there. There are at least four different schools or strands:

1. The Yahwist (J source): This is the House of David school. This is the idea of Yahweh as a fallible, well-meaning poet. The main point of the Yahwist is that God has chosen David to be the legitimate ruler of Israel and has ordained David to build the temple where God will reside. This is to legitimize the authority of David and the central authority of the temple in Jerusalem.
2. The Elohist (E source): Eventually, the Northern Kingdom broke away from Judah. Once you break away, you can't access Jerusalem anymore, so you have to have other sites where you can practice your religious rituals. To do that, you have to change the Yahwist manuscript, and so they create new mythologies. This is the E manuscript. Elohim is just a different word for God.
3. The Priestly source (P): Judaism at this point is a religion focused on ritual, like most religions. You need manuals to tell you why you're doing these rituals and how you should do them. They have to be very precise and effective.
4. The Deuteronomist (D source): As the Northern Kingdom fell, as Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, and as the Jews were forced into captivity, you have to explain why this is happening. While this is happening, most people choose to not follow the religion anymore. But the religious fanatics have to explain why this is happening, and the explanation is because the Israelites continue to disobey God. This faction, which is basically looking at Jewish history and explaining why this is happening, is the Deuteronomist school.

These are four major factions and four different Bibles. What Ezra wants to do is put all four of these Bibles together to create the impression of a unified religion and a unified people. The way he does that is he basically just takes different parts from each of these books and puts them together. This is now the Bible. That's why if you actually read the Bible, you'll find it completely unreadable.

He also makes changes to the Bible which are very important. Before, the most important person was David because he's the founder of the nation and the religion. Now, the most important person is Moses because Moses is a priest; he is the one who was given the laws by Yahweh.

The Lasting Influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism

There are other changes that will come over time as Zoroastrianism merges into Judaism. There are three major changes:

1. The idea of eschatology. There will be an endpoint to history, and the endpoint is when the entire world—all the empires of the world, because they defy God—converge against the nation of Israel in one final battle. In this battle, of course, Israel will win, and this will create eternal peace in the world because God has chosen Israel as his people.
2. Good versus evil. Before, the religion of Judaism was very personal; good and evil were in you. But now, there is actual good and evil. Israel stands for good; these other nations and empires like the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, they represent evil.
3. The third and most important change is that there will be a hero who will come to lead the nation of Israel against all its enemies. He is called the Messiah, the Son of Man. He will come from the House of David, as written in the Bible.

Why is this important? Because the Christians believe the Messiah is Jesus. The Christians basically take all of this—this merger of Zoroastrianism with Judaism—and their claim is that the Messiah is Jesus. This creates Christianity.