THE CHRONOLOGY THAT COLLAPSES

A Scholarly Audit of Michael Gleghorn’s Zoroastrianism Article

When Christian Apologetics Reverses the Historical Record

eFireTemple Dossier | The Father-of-Aša Investigation

Article examined: “Did Christianity Really Come From Zoroastrianism?”
Author: Michael Gleghorn | Probe Ministries
Original publication date: May 27, 2005

I. THE ARGUMENT THAT MUST BE EXAMINED

In a 2005 response published by Probe Ministries, Michael Gleghorn attempted to answer a Christian reader’s concerns about possible Zoroastrian influence on Judaism and Christianity.

His central conclusion was that the borrowing might have occurred in the opposite direction: from Judaism or Christianity into Zoroastrianism.

That is a historical proposition.

It requires historical evidence.

Yet much of the supporting argument depends upon assigning traditional conservative Christian dates to biblical texts, selecting comparatively late dates for Zarathustra, and treating subsequent Christian interpretations of Hebrew scriptures as evidence of what those scriptures originally taught.

Several of these decisions conflict with established biblical and Iranian scholarship.

The question is not whether Gleghorn has the right to defend Christianity.

He does.

The question is whether his argument establishes the historical chronology necessary to support his conclusion.

A historical argument cannot establish priority merely by assigning its preferred religion the earliest dates.

The texts, languages, manuscripts, historical setting, and archaeological record must determine the chronology.

II. ERROR ONE: THE DATING OF ZARATHUSTRA

Gleghorn’s argument begins by citing proposed dates placing Zarathustra in the sixth or seventh century BCE.

He cites Kenneth Boa, Ernst Herzfeld, Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson, and an entry in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.

These dates are not fabricated. Late dating proposals have existed in scholarship.

The problem is how they are employed.

Gleghorn uses them to suggest that Zarathustra may have encountered the religion of Jewish captives in Babylon and adopted its teachings.

But the date of Zarathustra is disputed, and much important scholarship has favored an earlier period.

William W. Malandra’s historical survey in Encyclopaedia Iranica, first published in 2005, records proposed dates ranging from the thirteenth century BCE to the sixth century BCE, with many scholars favoring approximately 1000 BCE.

That is a very different chronological picture from presenting sixth-century dates as the apparent weight of the evidence.

More importantly, the Gathas belong to an archaic linguistic environment closely connected with ancient Indo-Iranian religious poetry.

They cannot simply be redated on the assumption that a biblical borrowing hypothesis requires a later Zarathustra.

A responsible historical examination must acknowledge that the precise chronology remains debated.

The objection: Gleghorn builds his proposed direction of borrowing upon a selective chronological premise that he does not independently establish.

III. ERROR TWO: THE ISAIAH CHRONOLOGY

This is one of the most consequential problems in the article.

Gleghorn appeals to Isaiah 43:10–13 while asserting that Isaiah wrote in approximately 740–680 BCE.

He treats the entire book as though it originated during the lifetime of the eighth-century prophet.

But Isaiah 43 belongs to Isaiah 40–55, commonly identified in historical-critical scholarship as Second Isaiah.

The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion distinguishes the eighth-century prophetic material associated with Isaiah of Jerusalem from chapters 40–55, which address the Babylonian exile and the rise of Cyrus.

Oxford’s introduction to the Old Testament likewise places Second Isaiah in the sixth century BCE.

This matters because Gleghorn’s argument depends upon proving that Isaiah’s relevant theology preceded Zarathustra.

Instead, the chapter he selects belongs, under the widely accepted critical chronology, to the very era in which Judean exiles were living within the Babylonian and emerging Persian historical world.

The reference to Isaiah 43 cannot establish eighth-century priority merely because it appears in a book bearing Isaiah’s name.

A theological belief in Isaiah’s predictive authorship is distinct from an independently established historical composition date.

The objection: Gleghorn uses the lifetime of Isaiah of Jerusalem to date material widely understood as a later composition.

That invalidates the particular chronological proof he offers.

It does not establish that Second Isaiah borrowed from Zoroastrianism. But it removes the argument that its priority has already been demonstrated.

IV. ERROR THREE: GENESIS IS ASSIGNED AN UNSUPPORTED DATE

Gleghorn places the composition of Genesis around 1450–1410 BCE.

He then appeals to Genesis 3:15 as evidence that a messianic savior was anticipated long before Zarathustra.

This combines two separate historical questions.

First: When was Genesis composed?

Modern Pentateuchal scholarship understands Genesis as a composite work shaped through multiple traditions and stages of literary development.

The final formation of the Pentateuch is frequently discussed within the first millennium BCE, including the Persian period.

Oxford’s biblical scholarship documents these debates and rejects the idea that a traditional Mosaic attribution can simply be treated as an uncontested date of composition.

Second: What did Genesis 3:15 originally mean?

The passage concerns hostility between the serpent and the woman’s offspring.

Christian theology has traditionally interpreted it as the protoevangelium, an early announcement of Christ’s victory.

That is a legitimate subject for Christian theological interpretation.

But the later interpretation is not proof that the ancient author intended a fully developed doctrine of a resurrected messianic savior.

A historian must distinguish the original literary context from subsequent theological reception.

The argument fails if a Christian interpretation is retrojected into an ancient text and then used to prove that the Christian doctrine existed in full at the text’s supposed date.

The objection: Both the date and the doctrinal interpretation are asserted with more certainty than the historical evidence supports.

V. ERROR FOUR: JOB IS USED TO MOVE RESURRECTION BACK INTO THE PATRIARCHAL AGE

Gleghorn appeals to Job 19:25–27 and suggests a Solomonic date for the book while placing its narrative events within the patriarchal period.

But a story’s setting is not its composition date.

A book set in an ancient period may have been written many centuries later.

Carol Newsom’s entry on Job in Oxford Bibliographies notes that the work’s date is uncertain, with many scholars favoring an early postexilic setting.

Its narrative’s archaic appearance does not establish composition in 2000 BCE or 965 BCE.

There is another problem.

Job 19:25–27 is a difficult Hebrew passage whose interpretation has long been disputed.

It can be read as Job expressing confidence that his vindication will come through a living redeemer or through an encounter with God.

An explicit prediction of a future general resurrection is not the only available reading.

A recent Oxford treatment of hope in the Hebrew Bible interprets Job’s hope in relation to vindication during his life, while acknowledging that later textual traditions could support a resurrection reading.

The clearest explicit resurrection passage in the Hebrew Bible is Daniel 12:1–3.

And Daniel’s final apocalyptic chapters belong, in mainstream critical scholarship, to the Maccabean crisis of the second century BCE.

The objection: Gleghorn treats a disputed passage and an uncertain composition date as though both supplied conclusive evidence for pre-Persian bodily resurrection.

They do not.

VI. ERROR FIVE: DANIEL’S CHRONOLOGY IS LEFT OUT OF THE RESURRECTION ARGUMENT

Any serious discussion of resurrection’s development in ancient Judaism must confront Daniel.

Daniel 12:2 (KJV)

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

This is a clear declaration concerning awakening from death and differentiated postmortem destinies.

The Oxford Handbook’s treatment of Daniel identifies chapter 12 as the first clear statement of resurrection in the Hebrew Bible.

It dates the completion of Daniel to approximately 164 BCE, during the persecution associated with Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

The book’s sixth-century narrative setting must be distinguished from the composition of its second-century visions.

This chronology matters.

It places an explicit development of resurrection teaching long after the beginning of Persian rule and Jewish interaction with Iranian cultural environments.

That does not prove direct Zoroastrian borrowing.

But it makes the question historically legitimate.

And it undermines any argument that the developed doctrine was already clearly established in Genesis or Job simply because later Christians found references to resurrection there.

The objection: The article treats disputed early biblical passages as decisive while failing to confront the much clearer late biblical evidence.

VII. ERROR SIX: THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS ARE ASKED TO PROVE TOO MUCH

Gleghorn appeals to the discovery of Isaiah manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

He correctly observes that these manuscripts predate Jesus.

That is an important historical fact.

The Great Isaiah Scroll is commonly dated to approximately 125 BCE.

It establishes that a form of Isaiah containing the relevant material existed before Jesus’ lifetime.

But that does not establish that every chapter was composed in the eighth century BCE.

Nor does it establish that its theology predates Zarathustra.

A manuscript copied in 125 BCE supplies evidence that its text already existed by that time.

It does not prove composition 600 or 1,000 years earlier.

The distinction is basic to manuscript studies.

Furthermore, a pre-Christian manuscript establishes the prior existence of a passage, not that later Gospel writers’ interpretations of its fulfillment are historically independent.

Gospel authors could interpret, select, or narrate events in light of scriptures that already existed.

That possibility must be evaluated on its own evidence.

The objection: A correct observation about manuscript antiquity is used to support conclusions about authorship, composition, and interpretation that do not logically follow from it.

VIII. ERROR SEVEN: THE DIRECTION OF BORROWING IS ASSUMED RATHER THAN DEMONSTRATED

Gleghorn’s overarching suggestion is that Zoroastrianism may have borrowed from Judaism or Christianity.

The direction of religious influence cannot be determined merely by declaring one tradition older.

It requires examining the individual concepts, the dates at which they can be attested, plausible historical contact, and the possibility of independent development.

Ancient Iranian ideas of cosmic Truth-Order, the Lie, judgment, renovation, and beneficent saving figures have their own complicated textual history.

The Gathic term saošyant does not mean that every feature of later Zoroastrian savior expectations was already fully developed in the oldest hymns.

The elaborate final-savior traditions preserved in later Iranian sources must also be dated with care.

But neither may all such concepts be dismissed as late borrowings from Christianity without evidence.

Encyclopaedia Iranica documents the development of the Saošyant tradition and resurrection within Iranian religious history.

It also recognizes scholarly debate about the extent of Iranian influence upon Jewish and Christian eschatology.

What can be established is an ancient Iranian theological tradition and a historically real period of sustained Persian–Jewish contact.

What remains to be established is the transmission history of individual doctrines.

The proper verdict is neither that Christianity copied everything from Zoroastrianism nor that Zoroastrianism copied everything from Judaism and Christianity.

The evidence must be assessed doctrine by doctrine.

IX. ERROR EIGHT: DEUTERONOMY 18:10 IS MISAPPLIED TO ZOROASTRIANISM

The article includes an appended reader’s claim that Deuteronomy’s prohibition of passing children through fire demonstrates Jewish opposition to Zoroastrian religious practice.

Probe’s webmistress thanks the reader for the addendum without supplying a correction.

This comparison confuses different religious practices.

Deuteronomy 18:10 refers to causing one’s son or daughter to pass through fire.

The context concerns prohibited religious practices, including child sacrifice and divination.

The New English Translation explains that the phrase probably functions as a euphemism for human sacrifice.

The New American Bible connects it specifically with offerings to Molech.

Zoroastrian sacred-fire rituals involve the reverence, maintenance, and ritual purity of fire.

The existence of sacred fire in a religious tradition does not establish the sacrifice of children.

No evidence is supplied to identify Deuteronomy 18:10 as a prohibition aimed at Zoroastrian priests.

Furthermore, the fact that a religious community forbids particular foreign practices does not demonstrate that no ideas could pass between cultures.

Religions can oppose one another while also exchanging concepts, narratives, and vocabulary.

The objection: The appended claim rests on an unsupported identification of distinct practices, followed by an invalid inference concerning cultural transmission.

X. WHAT THE PH.D. ACTUALLY ESTABLISHES

The article is currently attributed to Dr. Michael Gleghorn.

Probe Ministries’ own professional biography lists his education as follows:

• B.A. in Psychology, Baylor University, 1990.
• Th.M. in Systematic Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1997.
• Ph.D. in Theological Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, 2018.

The article is dated May 27, 2005.

Therefore, according to the ministry’s published chronology, the doctoral degree displayed alongside the article was earned thirteen years after the article’s original date.

That does not mean the degree is illegitimate.

It does not prove that the author intentionally misrepresented his qualifications.

Websites commonly update author biographies and honorifics retrospectively.

But the distinction is relevant when evaluating the article as a scholarly authority.

A doctorate in theological studies establishes advanced training in theology.

It does not by itself establish specialist competence in Old Avestan philology, Iranian archaeology, or the historical composition of the Hebrew Bible.

These are distinct scholarly disciplines.

The proper standard is not whether the author possesses a doctorate.

It is whether his published historical claims are supported by appropriate evidence.

And here, the article’s citation practices are revealing.

Rather than engaging major Iranian philologists or modern critical studies of Isaiah and Daniel, the argument relies heavily upon conservative apologetic and evangelical reference works.

That does not automatically make those works false.

It does mean that the article does not demonstrate engagement with the full specialist debate necessary to support its central historical conclusion.

A credential deserves accurate recognition. An argument still requires evidence.

XI. THE SPECIALIST THE ARTICLE LEAVES UNEXAMINED

The reader whose question prompted the article explicitly mentions Mary Boyce and acknowledges not having read her major work.

This makes the response’s limited engagement with her scholarship especially notable.

Mary Boyce was Professor of Iranian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

She trained in ancient Iranian languages and conducted extensive research on Zoroastrian history, ritual, and textual traditions.

Her contributions to Iranian studies were internationally recognized.

The Royal Asiatic Society established an academic prize in her memory.

Her interpretations are not beyond criticism.

Some elements of her reconstruction of Zoroastrian continuity remain debated.

But she was a major specialist in the very tradition under discussion.

A credible historical assessment should engage specialists of that tradition rather than resting principally upon apologetic summaries.

The same principle applies in biblical studies.

The relevant composition dates should be evaluated through historical-critical research on Genesis, Isaiah, Job, and Daniel.

A claim about cross-cultural religious influence cannot be established without seriously examining both sides of the proposed transmission.

XII. THE EVIDENCE THE ARTICLE DOES NOT RESOLVE

Three historical developments remain especially important.

First: Ancient Iranian religious chronology.

Old Avestan theology substantially predates the New Testament, and the exact period of Zarathustra remains contested.

Second: The Persian period.

Following the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus in 539 BCE, Jewish communities experienced sustained contact with Persian imperial administration and the broader Iranian cultural world.

Third: The development of resurrection theology.

The clearest biblical teaching about differentiated resurrection occurs in the late apocalyptic material of Daniel.

Together, these establish a genuine historical research question.

Could Iranian eschatological traditions have contributed to the development of particular Jewish religious ideas?

Several scholars have answered that some influence is plausible or likely.

Others emphasize the difficulties of proving a particular route of borrowing.

The existence of uncertainty does not justify replacing historical investigation with a confident reversal of influence.

It requires greater precision.

The positive Iranian evidence must be dated independently.

The Jewish literary development must be traced independently.

Only then can the similarities be tested.

XIII. THE FINDINGS

The recurring issue is methodological.

Traditional dates are treated as established facts.

Later theological interpretations are projected backward into ancient texts.

A genuinely contested historical question is made to appear settled.

And the conclusion extends beyond what the cited evidence establishes.

XIV. CONCLUSION: A DEGREE CANNOT REVERSE A CHRONOLOGY

The argument presented by Probe Ministries does not establish that Zoroastrianism borrowed its central savior and resurrection concepts from Judaism or Christianity.

Its proposed reversal relies upon dating assumptions that are contested or contradicted by major biblical and Iranian scholarship.

This finding does not demonstrate that all Jewish or Christian eschatology originated in Zoroastrianism.

That broader claim also requires proof.

But it does demonstrate that Gleghorn’s article has not supplied the historical argument necessary to dismiss Iranian influence.

The distinction is decisive.

The early date assigned to Genesis is not established by citing a traditional Mosaic chronology.

The date of Isaiah 43 is not established by citing the lifetime of the eighth-century Isaiah.

The resurrection doctrine is not established in full by reading later Christian interpretation into Job.

The Dead Sea Scrolls do not transform a second-century BCE manuscript into an eighth-century BCE composition.

And the historical significance of Zarathustra cannot be determined simply by selecting the late dates most favorable to a proposed theological conclusion.

History is not settled by whichever religious tradition claims to have spoken first.

It is reconstructed through surviving evidence.

The Gathas must be examined.

The Achaemenid inscriptions must be examined.

The development of the Hebrew scriptures must be examined.

The Persian period must be examined.

And the emergence of differentiated resurrection and judgment must be dated through literary and historical analysis.

The credibility of Gleghorn’s argument stands or falls upon those examinations—not upon whether his name is followed by Ph.D.

THE FINAL CHALLENGE

A scholar may defend Christianity.

A scholar may question Iranian influence.

A scholar may dispute Mary Boyce or any other authority.

But a historical defense must still meet the standards of historical evidence.

One cannot place Isaiah 43 in the eighth century merely because the book carries Isaiah’s name.

One cannot move Job’s composition into the patriarchal age merely because its story takes place in an ancient setting.

One cannot establish the origin of resurrection by reading a later doctrine into a disputed earlier verse.

And one cannot reverse the direction of religious influence without demonstrating the transmission.

The original Probe article is free to make its theological case.

But its chronology does not establish its historical verdict.

The Ph.D. is a qualification.

The citations are evidence.

The chronology is testable.

And the historical record—not the title of the author—determines whether the argument survives.

Documentation and independently verifiable references

1. Michael Gleghorn, “Did Christianity Really Come From Zoroastrianism?” Probe Ministries, May 27, 2005. https://probe.org/did-christianity-really-come-from-zoroastrianism/
2. Probe Ministries, “Dr. Michael Gleghorn,” professional biography. https://probe.org/michael-gleghorn/
3. William W. Malandra, “Zoroastrianism i. Historical Review up to the Arab Conquest,” Encyclopaedia Iranica. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrianism-i-historical-review/
4. J. Blake Couey, “The Book of Isaiah,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.153
5. Victor H. Matthews, “Book of Genesis,” Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0044
6. Carol Newsom, “Job,” Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0065
7. Tawny Holm, “Book of Daniel,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.152
8. William W. Malandra, “Saošyant,” Encyclopaedia Iranica. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/saosyant/
9. John R. Hinnells, “Mary Boyce,” Encyclopaedia Iranica. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/boyce-mary/
10. Michael Stausberg, “Zoroastrian Rituals,” Encyclopaedia Iranica. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrian-rituals/
11. New English Translation, Deuteronomy 18:10 and its translation notes.
12. The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, chapters on the Persian imperial context and the Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism.

Research classification: Critical assessment of a published apologetic argument. The documented weaknesses concern historical chronology, interpretation, citation quality, and unsupported inferences; they do not establish intentional dishonesty by the author.