Though it is generally believed that
Zarathushtra's teachings exerted an influence on Cyrus's acts and policies, no clear evidence has been found that indicates that Cyrus practiced a specific religion.
Pierre Briant wrote that given the poor information we have, "it seems quite reckless to try to reconstruct what the religion of Cyrus might have been." His liberal and tolerant views towards other religions have made some scholars consider Cyrus a
Zoroastrian king. Other scholars emphasize the fact that Cyrus is known only to have honored non-Zoroastrian gods. The
Cyrus Cylinder, for instance, appeals to the help of the Babylonian gods
Marduk,
Bêl, and
Nabû.
The policies of Cyrus with respect to treatment of minority religions are well documented in Babylonian texts as well as Jewish sources and the historians accounts. Cyrus had a general policy of religious tolerance throughout his vast empire. Whether this was a new policy or the continuation of policies followed by the Babylonians and Assyrians (as Lester Grabbe maintains) is disputed. He brought peace to the Babylonians and is said to have kept his army away from the temples and restored the statues of the Babylonian gods to their sanctuaries.
His treatment of the
Jews during their exile in Babylon after
Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed
Jerusalem is reported in the
Bible. The
Jewish Bible's Ketuvim ends in
Second Chronicles with the decree of Cyrus, which returned the exiles to the
Promised Land from Babylon along with a commission to rebuild the temple.
As a result of Cyrus's policies, the Jews honored him as a dignified and righteous king. He is the only Gentile to be designated as Messiah, a divinely appointed leader, in the
Tanakh (
Isaiah 45:1–6). Isaiah 45:13: "I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says Yahweh Almighty." As the text suggests, Cyrus did ultimately release the nation of Israel from its exile without compensation or tribute. Traditionally, the entire book of Isaiah is believed to pre-date the rule of Cyrus by about 120 years. These particular passages (Isaiah 40–55, often referred to as
Deutero-Isaiah) are believed by most modern
critical scholars to have been added by another author toward the end of the Babylonian exile (
ca. 536 BC). Whereas Isaiah 1–39 (referred to as
Proto-Isaiah) saw the destruction of Israel as imminent, and the restoration in the future, Deutero-Isaiah speaks of the destruction in the past (Isa 42:24–25), and the restoration as imminent (Isa 42:1–9). Notice, for example, the change in temporal perspective from (Isa 39:6–7), where the Babylonian Captivity is cast far in the future, to (Isa 43:14), where the Israelites are spoken of as already in Babylon. According to the traditional view, these final chapters were written by the same author, who spoke about a future situation of which he had prophetic knowledge.
Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, relates the traditional view of the Jews regarding the prediction of Cyrus in Isaiah in his
Antiquities of the Jews, book 11, chapter 1.
Some contemporary Muslim scholars have suggested that the
Qur'anic figure of
Dhul-Qarnayn is Cyrus the Great. This theory was proposed by
Sunni scholar
Abul Kalam Azad and endorsed by
Shi'a scholars
Allameh Tabatabaei, in his
Tafsir al-Mizan and
Makarem Shirazi.
