Editing Zoroaster (section)

===Zoroastrian and Muslim scholarship===
Some later pseudo-historical and Zoroastrian sources (the {{transliteration|pal|[[Bundahishn]]}}, which references a date "258 years before Alexander") place Zoroaster in the 6th century BC,{{efn|"258 years before Alexander" is only superficially precise.<ref name= "Shahbazi_1977_26">{{harvnb|Shahbazi|1977|p=26}}.</ref> It has been suggested that this "traditional date" is an adoption of some date from foreign sources, from the Greeks<ref name= "Kingsley_1990_245">{{harvnb|Kingsley|1990|pp=245–265}}.</ref> or the Babylonians<ref name= "Shahbazi_1977_32">{{harvnb|Shahbazi|1977|pp=32–33}}.</ref> for example, which the priesthood then reinterpreted. A simpler explanation is that the priests subtracted 42 (the age at which Zoroaster is said to have converted Vistaspa) from the round figure of 300.{{sfn|Jackson|1896}}{{sfn|Boyce|1996|p={{page needed|date=November 2020}}}}<ref>{{Citation |last = Henning | title = Western Response}}.{{full citation needed|date=November 2020}}</ref>}}<ref>{{harvnb|Stausberg|Vevaina|Tessmann|2015|p=9}}</ref> which coincided with the accounts by [[Ammianus Marcellinus]] from the 4th century AD. The traditional Zoroastrian date originates in the period immediately following [[Alexander the Great]]'s conquest of the [[Achaemenid Empire]] in 330 BC.<ref name="NigosianDate"/> The [[Seleucid Empire|Seleucid]] rulers who gained power following Alexander's death instituted an "Age of Alexander" as the new calendrical epoch. This did not appeal to the Zoroastrian priesthood who then attempted to establish an "Age of Zoroaster". To do so, they needed to establish when Zoroaster had lived, which they accomplished by (erroneously, according to [[Mary Boyce]] some even identified Cyrus with Vishtaspa)<ref>{{harvnb|Boyce|1982|p=68}}</ref> counting back the length of successive generations, until they concluded that Zoroaster must have lived "258 years before Alexander".<ref name="WestDate13"/><ref name="Shahbazi_1977_25_26">{{harvnb|Shahbazi|1977|pp=25–26}}</ref> This estimate then re-appeared in the 9th- to 12th-century Arabic and Pahlavi texts of Zoroastrian tradition,{{efn|The {{transliteration|pal|[[Bundahishn]]}} computes "200 and some years" (''GBd'' xxxvi.9) or "284 years" (''IBd'' xxxiv.9). That '258 years' was the generally accepted figure is however noted by [[al-Biruni]] and [[al-Masudi]], with the latter specifically stating (in 943/944 AD) that "the Magians count a period of two hundred and fifty-eight years between their prophet and Alexander."{{sfn|Jackson|1899|p=162}}<ref name = "Shahbazi_1977_26"/>}} like the 10th century [[Al-Masudi]] who cited a prophecy from a lost Avestan book in which Zoroaster foretold the Empire's destruction in 300 years, but the religion would last for 1,000 years.<ref name="West 2010 6"/>