Differences in perspectives regarding the religious significance of “the people,” between ancient religions deemed polytheistic and these deemed monotheistic, seems to be connected to differences in the functions of religious professionals in each category. The Old Avestan Yasna Haptanghaiti (Yasna 35-41) seems to offer insight into the importance of the community to the role of religious functionaries. The Old Avestan texts have come down to modern scholars (and adherents) as the central part of the Yasna liturgy, with the seven-chapter Yasna Haptanghaiti at the center of the 72-part composition. Almut Hintze explains that the “concentric compositional structure” of the Yasna liturgy appears to be numerically centered around the Old Avestan texts, with the Yasna Haptanghaiti at its core (with the Gathas distributed before and after).¹ Of its significance, Hintze writes, 

[While] the ritual function of the Gathas does not emerge clearly, that of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti is obvious. The predominant use of the first person plural ‘we’ in the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, in contrast to the singular ‘I’ of the Gathas, indicates that this text was meant to be recited by or on behalf of the community of worshipping Mazdayasnians….It appears, therefore, that the YH is the text of worship par excellence, being entirely dedicated to the worship and praise…of Ahura Mazdā and his spiritual and physical creations. Furthermore, in this text the worshippers express their commitment to dedicating their thoughts, words and deeds to strengthen and support what is good. Being a text of ritual worship, the YH, much more than the Gathas, lent itself to being imitated in later periods. The practice of deriving inspiration and borrowing expressions from the YH…indicate that the priests of the Younger Avestan period were aware of both the ritual and doctrinal importance of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti.²

Hintze’s insights emphasize the importance of the community of worship as “a people” deemed religious, as well as suggest something of the role of religious professionals within the community. The notion that the Yasna Haptanhaiti was “meant to be recited by or on behalf of the community” hints that priests involved in worship served Ahura Mazda as well as community. This concept seems to stand out in contrast to the functions of priests serving deities in their temple “houses” in ancient Mesopotamia: “As the deity’s residence, the temple was critical to the ancient Mesopotamians’ sense of place in the identity of their cities and the city’s own self-identity. Temples were not places where the general populace went to meet personally with the deity, but served as the public face and home of the deity.”³ Schneider’s explanation recalls the fact that the settled populations, within which an ancient Mesopotamian priest functioned, would have been based on hierarchical social, political, and economic systems that positioned the deities in the highest (and least accessible) echelons of power. The Yasna Haptanghaiti, as suggested by Hintze’s comments, appears to be oriented toward worship of a highly accessible divine figure who is interested in the active participation of individual worshippers “to strengthen and support what is good.”⁴

In “Art, Architecture, and Archaeology” Lee I. Levine describes the development of the synagogue as a response, shaped by the power of local religious communities, to the needs of early Jewish populations for services.⁵ He writes, “The control exercised by the community included the hiring and firing of synagogue functionaries. One account notes that the synagogue community of Tarbanat (on the border between the Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Valley) dismissed Rabbi Simeon when the latter proved unwilling to comply with their requests (Yerushalmi Megillah 4, 5, 75b).”⁶ In highlighting the power of the community, Levine’s explanation reveals a perspective, presented in Talmudic literature, on the service-oriented function of Rabbis within Jewish communities that places power in the hands of “the people.” As an indication of the local nature (and perhaps, variety) of such perspectives, Levine notes the lack of clarity in the sources regarding the influence of Rabbis in early Jewish communities: “On the one hand, the rabbis were far from all-dominant in Jewish life at the time—either politically, socially, or even religiously. On the other hand, rabbinic influence was clearly in ascendance between the second and ninth-tenth centuries, when it was given institutional backing under Islamic rule.”⁷ The lack of consensus among the sources suggested by Levine makes it seem possible that a variety of roles were taken up by religious officials throughout the early development of Judaism according to the needs of the communities to which they belonged. Among these roles, however, it seems highly unlikely that a centralized hierarchal religious bureaucracy ever developed. To the contrary, the textual evidence of Rabbinical Judaism seems to present the culture of religious professionals as something between academy and parliament: ongoing discussion and negotiation toward meeting the needs of “the people” as well as YHWH.⁸

The functions of Rabbis and Zoroastrian priests in their respective modern religious communities appear to center around ritual and education.⁹ In “Rituals” Michael Stausberg and Ramiyar P. Karanjia write, “Apart from performing rituals on behalf of their patrons (mainly the laity), the priests are also educators; teaching the basic elements of the religion starts with transmitting the basic formulae such as the Yaθā Ahū Vairiiō (Y 27.13). These formulas are used throughout the entire register of rituals, from a short private prayer to the most elaborate priestly ceremonies. the more elaborate the rituals, the more texts need to be memorized and recited.”¹⁰ Stausberg and Karanjia note the significance of priests to the dissemination and ritual use of the Avestan texts. Although to an outsider it may appear that the texts are of primary importance to the functions of these professional classes of “people deemed religious,” as noted earlier in this chapter, this would seem to ignore the active role of these officials in the vitalization of these ancient texts deemed religious. 

In the modern period Biblical Hebrew and Avestan (Old and Young) are dead languages preserved in the texts and liturgical use by Jewish and Zoroastrian communities in diaspora. The loss of fluency in Hebrew by Greek speaking worshippers of YHWH that is said to have motivated the translation of the Septuagint, as well as the survival of the Avestan texts in phonetic oral tradition and transliteration in various scripts, speak to a potential role of ancient religious professionals in these communities: explication and interpretation. The need to translate and explain the texts deemed religious for adherents would seem connected to the functions of officials as educators, counsellors, and arbiters. It is difficult to deny the theme of mediation or intercession common to these roles – a theme that is integral to the ritual functions of these professionals and reflects the notion that adherents have agency in their relationships with the divine. 

Interestingly, it is possible to see a connection between the role of religious educator within communities of Mazda- or YHWH-worshippers and the work of spreading the “Truth” to non-believers. In “Zarathustra’s Time and Homeland: Linguistic Perspectives” Almut Hintze writes,

Chapter 5 of the [Young Avestan] priestly treatise entitled Her̄bedestān seems to suggest that each family was expected to send out at least one of its members for ‘priestly service’ within a certain period of time for the dual purpose of disseminating the teachings of the Mazdayasnian religion and of carrying out various religious and ritual activities. The newly formed communities would then in turn have to send out some of their own members for aθauruna, thus creating a domino effect which would account for the spread of the Mazdayasnian religion throughout the lands inhabited by Iranians.¹¹

Hintze’s reading of this portion of the Herbedestan seems to link the priestly responsibility for in-community religious service with efforts at a form of proselytization to other non-adherent populations. Although the missionary work of Christians and Muslims around the world has defined proselytization in particularly aggressive terms, it is important to observe that one would be hard pressed to find a modern Zoroastrian priest or Rabbi who is not interested in sharing information about their religion. The approach (and perhaps intention) of the latter may be particularly different from the approach of Muslims and Christians, but the result may yet be the same due to specific building blocks (for example, emphatic concepts of “Truth” and perceptions of incompatibility with other religions) integral to each of these religions deemed monotheistic.¹²

The religious professionals associated with Judaism from late antiquity to the present day are not the same priests described in the Hebrew Bible. Despite the apparently continuous use of the Old Avestan texts in a liturgical context, it is very difficult to reconstruct the ritual setting and interactions within which they were designed to function. In the both of these cases the texts deemed religious offer scant clues to the historical reality of religious professionals in the early periods of development of the worship of Ahura Mazda and YHWH. The mostly first person singular and plural voices of the Old Avestan Gathas and Yasna Haptanghaiti, respectively, seems to offer a depiction of the priest, as ritual functionary and professional community member from an internal perspective. By performing the same “lines” as any number of officials before, the reader or reciter of these texts can glean information, about the experience intended for the ritual performer. The performative aspect suggests that this experience was intended to depict the priest, or priesthood, in a particular manner to a witness (including Ahura Mazda) or audience (as with the Yasna Haptanghaiti). Within the declarations of faith and worship found across the Gathas, there are questions and requests for information. Consider the messaging of Yasna 44 with regard to the depiction of Mazda-worshippers and priests: nearly 20 stanzas begin with a line raising a question to Ahura Mazda (to follow in the rest of the passage) and imploring the deity’s truthful reply. Although it is impossible to precisely understand the intention and reception of this composition in its original context, it is difficult to avoid reading the depiction of singer/speaker as a figure with a particular motivation, perspective, and relationship with the object of worship, Ahura Mazda. The character has the freedom or power to make firm requests, however rhetorical, of the deity – and seems to understand that Ahura Mazda is the source of truthful answers. Additionally, the self-description of the speaker as a “friend” (friia-) or “friendly” with Ahura Mazda, in the first of these passage (Yasna 44.1), paints a picture of supplication that is far from hostile. Considering the discussion of the significance of a concept of empowered adherents with the freedom to choose participation to these religions deemed monotheistic, it comes as no surprise to find this language in the Old Avestan texts. Furthermore, it is easy to imagine how such literary constructs can both reflect and shape the religious sentiments of communities of worship within which this text is deemed religious.

It is tempting to characterize the religio-historical narratives (many delivered in the 3^rdperson) of the Torah as sharply contrasting the powerful first-person perspectives of the Old Avestan texts. The voice of the Book of Genesis, for example, is quite clearly 3^rdperson in its narration of the stories of creation and the “Patriarchs.” The other four books (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), however, seem to take a turn once the story leads Moses to encounter the Deity. An incredible number of verses spanning these books are delivered in 2^ndperson speech between Moses and the two parties that he serves: the Deity and “the people.” It is hard to miss the strong message that the “word of God” is being spoken directly to the reader/lister/audience by both the Deity as a character in the text as well as the speaker/singer in performance of the text. Whereas the Old Avestan texts seem to be fairly clear with regard to the role of performer-as-character and performer-as-adherent, the texts of the Torah appear to “mask” the intended audience as a character in the story. The messaging of Leviticus, for example, does not appear to be aimed at subtlety and the apparent message of the text (divine law intended for readers/listeners) seems to have been received by many adherents of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Consider the intended experience of the text as literary product: with whom is the audience supposed to identify? Where is the reader/listener expected to locate themselves in this text? This question may be asked (with similar difficulty) to other texts including, for the sake of comparison, portions of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Depending on a reader’s edition of the novel, the length of the climactic “radio address,” that lays out Rand’s objectivist philosophy in chapter VII (“This is John Galt Speaking”), may range well over 50 pages. It is reasonable to assume that the reader has, up to that point in the book, been intended to identify with the main protagonist of the book, who, like the reader, seems left to sit quietly and listen to this lengthy speech. Like the Levitical speeches, there can be little doubt that the message is intended for the reader as listener. Borrowing from this comparison, it would seem reasonable to assume that the intended position of the reader/listener in the last four books of the Torah is either with Moses, or “the people” quietly listening to the proclamations of the Deity. If this is the case, it suggests a message (similar to that of the Old Avestan texts) of empowerment and agency in terms of interaction with the Deity: neither Moses, nor “the people,” are reticent about making requests (with the expectation of results). The depiction of priests in the Torah appears more complex as a result of this reading. Of the three categories of “people deemed religious” discussed in this chapter the religious professional characters in the Pentateuch seem to be the most removed from the experience (and thus perhaps intended position) of the reader/listener/audience.