Written by Here are the five acts of erasure, each one historically documented:
Act 1: Alexander the Great (330 BCE) — Alexander conquered the Achaemenid Empire, burned Persepolis (the ceremonial capital), and according to Zoroastrian tradition recorded in the Arda Viraf Namag and the Denkard, destroyed copies of the Avesta. The Denkard states that Alexander “killed the Magi” and “quenched the sacred fires.” Zoroastrian texts call him “Alexander the Accursed” (gujastak). This is documented in multiple Middle Persian sources and acknowledged by Western scholars including Mary Boyce. The destruction of the Avesta meant that the full Zoroastrian scriptural canon — reportedly 21 nasks — was lost, and only fragments survived through oral transmission and later reconstruction.
Act 2: The Book of Esther — Set in the Persian court, the Book of Esther describes a plot against the Jews by Haman, a Persian official, and ends with the Jews killing 75,000 Persians (Esther 9:16). The holiday of Purim celebrates this event annually. Whether the events are historical or literary, the text functions as theological propaganda: it presents Persian civilization as the enemy of the Jewish people and celebrates mass killing of Persians as a divine deliverance. This is the same Persian civilization that liberated the Jews from Babylon, that Cyrus — the only non-Jew called Messiah — ruled. The Book of Esther rewrites the Jewish-Persian relationship from liberation to enmity.
Act 3: The Crucifixion — The Magi recognized Jesus at birth as the Saoshyant. As documented in Part 1 of this series, Jesus’s theology aligns structurally with Zoroastrian concepts. If the Magi’s identification was correct — if Jesus was operating within or informed by the Zoroastrian theological stream — then his execution by the combined action of the Jewish religious establishment and the Roman state was, among other things, the killing of a figure the Zoroastrian priesthood had identified as their prophesied savior. The tradition that would become Christianity then appropriated his message, stripped it of its Zoroastrian context, and built a new religion that never credited the source.
Act 4: The Arab Conquest (651 CE) — The Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Sassanid Empire, the last Zoroastrian state. What followed was centuries of forced conversion, the jizya tax on non-Muslims, destruction of fire temples, burning of Zoroastrian texts, and systematic social pressure that reduced the Zoroastrian population from millions to a remnant. The Qissa-i Sanjan records the flight of Zoroastrian refugees to India, where they became the Parsi community. Zoroastrianism went from a world religion to a persecuted minority in a single generation.
Act 5: The Ongoing Academic Erasure — Even in the modern era, the Zoroastrian contribution to world religion is systematically minimized. The Lovern and Beckmann paper documents “a colonization of Zoroastrian knowledge by Christianity” and “a continued postcolonial attitude of denial in the academy.” Seminaries teach Christian theology without mentioning its Zoroastrian roots. Comparative religion textbooks give Zoroastrianism a paragraph while devoting chapters to the religions that inherited its ideas. The erasure is no longer physical — it is intellectual and institutional.