Bruce says,
"I thought Paul was a Pharisee prior to his conversion. So how exactly did he get influenced by Zoroastrianism?"
The Pharisees were in fact seen as heretics because they adopted so much of Zoroastrian thought. The name "Pharisee" seems to be related to "Persian."
On the Persian/Parsee/Farsi/Pharisee connection: The plan of the temple in Hieru-salem (I'll fling that out there) is exactly that of a typical Zoroastrian fire-temple and built, according to legend, by King Cyrus of Persia.
When one perceives that the Persians predicted the coming of the Savior (Saoshyant), that the Zoroastrian priest-kings (Magi) knew where to find him, and were the first to worship him, it all begins to come together.
It also makes perfect Mazdaist sense that the Lord would choose the darkest corner of the world from which to RISE.
This means that the "Christ" hailed in the oldest Greek version of the OT was not the national hero of a kingdom of this world, but was of the kingdom of Heaven -- just as in Zoroastrian scriptures. And unlike Mithras who appeared cosmically in eternity past, this Savior of the kingdom of Heaven appeared in HISTORY, and so the Magi were there following his star from the east.
A secondary consequence of this knowledge that the groundwork of Christianity (and so too of our civilization) was laid in polytheistic Mazdaism may be that respect of Woden's lore might not be in competition with Christian revelation.
Bob, The Pharisees were the "super" Jews. Zoroastrianism was not the problem in Judea at the time. Hellenism was and the Pharisees hated Hellenism with a pure hate. The Saducees were the heretics who had bought into a lot of the paganistic belief swimming about the middle east at the time.