What is the bundahišn? Genre and zoroastrian literature

The Bundahišn (meaning primal or primordial creation) is one of the most important Zoroastrian texts. Redacted in the 9th century, though containing earlier, Sasanian material, the Bundahišn deals with a wide variety of topics ranging from spiritual and material creation to the resurrection of the body and the restoration of the world. This article will address a number of previously underexplored scholarly questions: What type of text does the Bundahišn constitute? To which genre does it belong? How does it relate to the literary context of its own era? In the attempt to answer these questions, the article will compare this Zoroastrian book with two contemporary Islamic and Jewish texts: the Epistles of the Ikhwān al-safā’ and Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer.