ARAM, 16 (2004) 13-23 J.J.

BUCKLEY 13

A RE-INVESTIGATION OF THE BOOK OF JOHN

JORUNN JACOBSEN BUCKLEY

(Bowdoin College – USA)

In 1915, when Lidzbarski publishes The Book of John (hereafter JB), he

says in his Introduction that this collection of Mandaean texts was probably
intended as a supplement to the Ginza. Also known as Drasia ∂-Malkia
(The Teachings of the Kings) the book may have been re-named to honor
John the Baptist in order to impress Muslims, who, according to their tra-
ditions, have a great reverence for him (vi). The Ginza, too, has an alter-
native name: The Book of Adam, which, likewise, might make a positive
impression on Muslims. Most scholars have generally assigned JB in its
entirety – but not the Ginza – to a post-Islamic stage. Even though JB offers
no new information about the topic of Mandaean origins and history (xvi),
there is no reason to view JB as a whole as stemming from a particularly late
literary stage. Much of the material in this conglomerate is old, and is sup-
ported by Ginza texts, especially the moral teachings and the mythologies.
(Mandaean rituals are not treated in JB, but their existence is assumed in sev-
eral tractates). In all likelihood, only some segments belong to the 7th century
or later.
The main issue I wish to raise – or rather re-investigate – here is a particular
theory about JB ’s possible contributions to the origins-and-history question,
focusing on Mandaeism’s potential links with early Christianity. Elsewhere, I
have investigated the figure of Miriai (in Christianity known as Jesus’ mother,
Mary) (Novum Testamentum XXXV, 2, 1993; now a chapter in my book The
Mandaeans), but here I will place the Mandaean traditions about her and about
John the Baptist mainly in the context of JB. At times, I interweave my own
comments into the presentation.
In 1940, during the Second World War, in occupied Denmark, a Danish
doctoral dissertation appeared: Bidrag til en Analyse af de mandaeiske Skrifter
(Contributions to an Analysis of the Mandaean Texts), by Viggo Schou-
Pedersen. It was more or less ignored by fellow-scholars. Granted, the book
was never translated into another language and probably found a very limited
readership. I want to re-view Schou-Pedersen’s arguments, the chief among
them being that Mandaeism had an early, brief Christian stage. Some of the
same ideas – but unacknowledged as such – have now been revived, sixty-two
years later, in Edmondo Lupieri’s book The Mandaeans (Eerdmanns, 2002). In
dealing with Lupieri, especially, I also comment on his views of the historical
14 A RE-INVESTIGATION OF THE BOOK OF JOHN

value of the Mandaean text Haran Gawaita. Schou-Pedersen did not know this
text, except for Drower’s statements about it in her The Mandaeans of Iraq
and Iran. I conclude with a bit of information about scribal traditions in JB
(detailed information on the JB colophons will appear in my book on
Mandaean colophons). I am not interested in arriving at a firm conclusion re-
garding the origins question or the possible “religious home” of John the Bap-
tist. My main intent is to argue for a renewed attention to Schou-Pedersen’s
views as far as these are relevant to JB and to place his theory in a more mod-
ern framework of Mandaean research since 1940.

I. JB: CONTENTS AND IMPORTANCE FOR SCHOU-PEDERSEN’S

HYPOTHESIS

Not many scholars study JB seriously; the book enjoys much more esteem
among the Mandaeans themselves. In 1973, in Ahwaz, Iran, I saw and handled
Sh. Abdullah Khaffagi’s lead copy of the book, probably the only one in exist-
ence. No English translation exists. Lidzbarski’s calligraphy is a work of im-
pressive art–the German edition’s “facsimile” section (if one may call it so) is
not a copy of a JB text by a Mandaean scribe, but Lidzbarski’s own. Siouffi’s
Études sur la religion des Soubbas ou Sabéens (Paris, 1880) contains Mandaic
alphabetic type created for the specific occasion of that book, but Lidzbarski
handwrote the Mandaic in JB.
JB is always a codex, a book, never in scroll format. Lidzbarski divided the
text into thirty-seven tractates, and, confusingly, seventy-six chapters. He gave
titles to the tractates, titles that do not exist in the original manuscripts. The
long tractate 6 focuses on John the Baptist, and chapters 19 through 33 begin
with the mysterious formula “Yahia preached in the nights; Yuhana in the
dusk of the night,” which retains the separation of the Aramaic and the Arabic
form of the prophet’s name. (One may rightly wonder why John’s preaching is
limited to the evenings and the nights. In contrast, the Mandaean baptism,
maÒbuta, is always performed in the daytime).
As noted above, much of the materials in JB are related to myths and moral
teachings in the Ginza, and there is a special focus on Lightworld beings, such
as Hibil Ziwa, Anus, and other related figures. Many of them are portrayed as
suffering beings, lending these parts of JB a particularly tragic–and typically
Gnostic–tone (see, for instance, my article on JB’s tractate “Hibil’s Lament,”
in Le Muséon 110, 3-4, 1997). Miriai appears in tractate 7, immediately after
the long tractate 6, on John (she also shows up elsewhere). Polemics against
other religions turn up in several tractates of JB. While Mandaean rituals are
assumed, they are never treated as specific topics, and, as noted, JB contains
neither liturgies nor ritual commentaries. Much of the literature is of a high lit-
erary value, with beautiful phrases and poetic expressions.
 J.J. BUCKLEY 15

Let me turn to Schou-Pedersen’s hypothesis. His main argument is that

Mandaeism was, for a brief perod, a Christian phenomenon. Therefore, most
(but not all) Christian materials in Mandaeism form part of Mandaeism’s most
ancient traditions, its earliest history. As Mandaeans made use of Christian
legends and texts, John the Baptist is “imported” from Christianity. His mi-
raculous birth, a story that begins in JB 18 and continues in 32, shows no hos-
tility towards Christianity and is, in fact, intelligible as elaborations of stories
about Jesus. That the Mandaeans knew literary traditions such as the Gospel of
Luke, the Protevangelium of James, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Naassene
and Ebionite sources, and so on, has been accepted for decades (see my Miriai
article/chapter for details). An uncontested lack of hostility marks the
Mandaean uses of these traditions. There are no polemics.
In contrast, anti-Christian sentiments appear strongly in JB 30, for example,
where John at first refuses to baptize Jesus (Schou-Pedersen, 29). Schou-
Pedersen assigns this tradition, which shows Mandaeism as victor over Chris-
tianity, to a later stage, after Mandaeism has clashed with Byzantine Christian-
ity. But the positive John the Baptist traditions demonstrate that Mandaeism
knew the Baptist from the very beginning, from Christianity. Mandaeans also
adopted legends in which John breaks with his ancestral traditions, i.e.
Judaism. In these stories, John becomes a Mandaean. So, a pattern appears:
any persecuted Christian (or persecuted person held in regard by Christians)
translates into a Mandaean treated in the same way (213). The Jews are the
persecutors in both cases. Schou-Pedersen sees no historical evidence that
Mandaeans really suffered harm from the Jews. Nor have the Mandaeans ever
had anything to do with Jerusalem (ibid.), because for Mandaeans, Jerusalem
was always “Jerusalem of the East” i. e. Babylon.
GR (Right Ginza) V, 4, contains another John the Baptist source lacking in
polemics, according to Schou-Pedersen, who compares this text to JB 18 and
32. None of these are late, but give proof of early John traditions. Even though
these may have been edited in early Islamic times, the material itself is old.
Schou-Pedersen stresses repeatedly the importance of making this distinction
between old material and newer redaction. In this and other burning questions
about Mandaean literature, Schou-Pedersen’s main opponents are Brandt,
Lietzmann, Loisy, and to some extent Bultmann, scholars active on the Euro-
pean scene during the peak of the so-called “Mandaean fever” in the 1920s
and 1930’s.
For Schou-Pedersen, it is important to note what John the Baptist is, in the
Mandaean tradition, and what he is not: a human being, not a spirit from the
Lightworld; not a miracle-maker (with one textual exception, in HG!), but a
preacher; not a founder of Mandaeism, but a renewer, a reformer. I would add
that some of the same characterizations might apply to Jesus in certain Chris-
tian Gnostic circles, in Marcionism and Jewish-Christianity, and in Islam. In
16 A RE-INVESTIGATION OF THE BOOK OF JOHN

GR 1, Schou-Pedersen notes, Anus-¨utra replaces Jesus, as he does in JB 76,

when Anus performs miracles in Jerusalem, deeds that Christianity of course
assigns to Jesus. It is not John who takes this role. In part, I think, Mandaeism
wishes to keep John away from a miracle-worker role, for that activity belongs
to Lightworld spirits, ¨utras, not to human prophets.
However, in HG John (Yahia Yuhana) does perform miracles (recall that
Schou-Pedersen did not know HG first hand, and we cannot know how he
would have handled this evidence); see HG, p. 5-7, on John. As far as Schou-
Pedersen’s thesis is concerned, John is not adopted into Mandaeism early on in
order to fuel the fire of anti-Christian feelings. Only later Mandaean texts
seem to be interested in mocking Christianity. However, I think that when
John does work miracles, we may be seeing early traditions, before the mixing
of Anus and John traditions. This may well have happened before the Islamic
influence, with its strong division between the human-prophetic and the di-
vine.
I have already mentioned the puzzling formula in JB 19-33, “Yahia
preached in the nights; Yuhana in the evenings of the night.” Schou-Pedersen
offers nothing on it. But virtually every commentator naturally notes the pres-
ence of the Aramaic as well as the Arabic form of John’s name. Scholars take
this as an indication of the late age of the section. I see no reason for this deci-
sion, and I refer, again, to Schou-Pedersen’s repeated argument regarding the
division between old material and its redaction. K. Rudolph, in “Antike
Baptisten” (p. 8-9) refers to the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, II, 23 with re-
spect to this text’s view of John as a “hemero-baptist,” in the sense of a “daily
baptiser.” One should note that the JB formula does not state anything about
baptising activity, but about preaching. Perhaps John divided his tasks:
preaching at night, baptising during the day.
It would be desirable to return to Pseudo-Clement and the Recognitions to
trace the negative views of John the Baptist in those texts in order to re-assess
the following possibility: Mandaeans may very well have been part of the
multi-Christian picture, as John-adherents opposed to Jewish Christianity’s
negative view of him. In terms of Schou-Pedersen’s theories, one might say
that if the Mandaeans were Christians early on, they would certainly have been
part of an internal Christian debate. And, at some crucial point, they decided to
emphasize John over against Jesus.
Schou-Pedersen considers it significant that in JB, the Miriai-chapter fol-
lows directly on the long, non-polemical John the Baptist tractate. To Schou-
Pedersen, these traditions are connected (Büchsel, ZNW, 1927, disagrees). In
chapters 34-35, Miriai breaks with Judaism after hearing John’s preaching in
Jerusalem. The story is rooted in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 1, 1, as
Schou-Pedersen is certainly not the first one to have noted. In the Miriai story,
the Jews interpret Miriai’s treason to be caused by her seducer, Manda ∂-Hiia,
 J.J. BUCKLEY 17

who deserves to be hung from the gallows, according to the enraged Jews. As
I have noted elsewhere, the spurned religion often sees conversion to a com-
peting religion to be a result of a more or less overt sexual seduction. The story
about Miriai follows the pattern referred to already: Jewish persecution of
Christianity becomes transferred to Mandaeism, which becomes the religion
inhabiting the victim role. Anti-Jewish and anti-Christian attitudes in Man-
daeism are understood by Schou-Pedersen as younger views, not ancient ones
(60). So, in polemical terms, Judaism and Christianity become virtually
equated in the later segments of Mandaean literature. This is Schou-Pedersen’s
view, and it may be too facile. But I leave the question aside for now.
The presence of John the Baptist in liturgical parts of Mandaean literature
has not been sufficiently considered. In The Canonical Prayerbook (CP) 106,
“Asiet Malkia” (“The Healing of Kings”) John is mentioned, as he is in CP
170, “Abahatan,” the long commemoration prayer for the dead (I will treat
this prayer as a separate chapter in my colophon book). Both of these prayers
have colophons that go back to the Mandaean scribe Zazai of Gawazta, ca. 270
A. C. E. I see no reason to assume that John’s name has been added to these
prayers in later times.
“John the son of Zakria” appears twice in The Thousand and Twelve Ques-
tions (ATS), Book I, i, 120 (29) and in Book I, ii, 171 (236). In the first in-
stance, John is said to have instructed 360 priests “from that place.” (Drower
here suggests – with a question mark – that “that place” means “Jerusalem,” a
conjecture with no basis in this particular text). In the second ATS instance,
Yahia is listed with his wife Anhar, as one pair among others, in a mystical
teaching about companionship. ATS, Book I, i, has a colophon going back to
Zazai (here identified as a son of Manda ∂-Hiia – clearly a mythologizing) and
the second instance of John’s presence belongs in a section with a colophon
that ends in early Islamic times. The designation of John as son of Zakria may
tie him with the early John traditions that are not hostile to Christianity, ac-
cording to Schou-Pedersen’s thesis.
GR 7 contains a long list of “wisdom sayings” attributed to John the Bap-
tist. He is called “Yahia, son of Zakria.” Lidzbarski, noting the Arabic form of
the name, still considers it possible that the sayings go back to pre-Islamic
times (213). GR 2, i tells of John’s miraculous birth and his baptism by Manda
∂-Hiia (section 151-54). This is a highly polemical piece. Conversely, GR 5, iv
lacks anti-Christian attitudes and focuses on Manda ∂-Hiia and John, and it
includes a description of John’s death. In both GR texts, his name is given in
the Aramaic form only. GR 16, i, a long piece of poetry describing the
schemes of the planets, mentions Nba†, son of Yuhana (383, line 25) and later
on in the same section, when Ruha has been vanquished by the Lightworld
forces, a skina is said to have been erected “by my father Yuhana” (386, line
11). But Lidzbarski, unsure about his translation, suggests in his footnote
18 A RE-INVESTIGATION OF THE BOOK OF JOHN

(ibid., 1) that it might better read “for my father Yuhana.” This would, indeed,
be more suitable, according to the division I have mentioned before: Yuhana
never appears in the upper Lightworld regions as a savior or messenger figure.
Founding Lightworld habitations is not part of his job description, so to speak.
But that he would be given such a habitation after his death, is quite normal,
according to Mandaean mythological thought.
None of the Ginza attestations of John’s name can be connected with an-
cient colophons. Only the Left Ginza (GL), where John does not appear, car-
ries a colophon that goes back to a period even before Zazai of Gawazta, that
is, several generations before the year 270.

II. SCHOU-PEDERSEN AND LUPIERI

Again, let me stress that I am making no claims about the historical connec-
tions between John the Baptist and the Mandaeans. But I am suggesting that
Schou-Pedersen’s analysis of the Mandaean texts and the religion’s possible
historical “home” is a thesis that should be taken seriously.
What does Lupieri bring to an imagined conversation with Schou-Pedersen?
As noted, there is no mention of Schou-Pedersen in Lupieri’s book, and yet,
the two scholars have remarkably similar ideas. Of course Lupieri has a tre-
mendous advantage, given the intervening decades of Mandaean research
since 1940. Not until p. 126 does Lupieri begin to ponder questions relevant to
the topic of John the Baptist. Here, he wonders why the Jewish historian
Josephus is completely silent on the topic of Mandaeism. Many scholars have
been puzzled by this neglect, long before Lupieri. Somehow, Josephus is re-
vered as an all-knowing oracle who must have been aware of everything hap-
pening in the arena of 1st century Judaism, however heretical. I do not know
why scholars worship Josephus so intensely.
But I do wish to mention a testimony by another 1st century Jew: Philo of
Alexandria. His description, in De Vita Contemplativa, of the Jewish sectarian
religious service of the Therapeutae has an odd echo in JB. In JB ’s story of
Miriai, when she is still Jewish, she heads for the Jewish temple but instead,
unaccountably, finds herself drawn to the Mandaean sanctuary. She describes
men and women, in chorus arrangement, singing sex-segregated antiphons,
just as Philo says of the Therapeutae. Could these forms of liturgies be con-
nected historically? I know of no scholarly treatment of this, and neither
Schou-Pedersen nor Lupieri mentions the liturgical clue. For the former, his
“Mandaeans as early Christians” thesis would suffer in this comparison. But
Lupieri, for whom the Mandaeans are heretical Jews originating in “the East,”
the Philo and JB connection might be “gefundenes Fressen,” indeed.
Lupieri’s second question– why the Mandaeans have no independent John
traditions (126) –Schou-Pedersen would of course have tackled with ease right
 J.J. BUCKLEY 19

away: because these traditions are Christian, as were the Mandaeans them-
selves. Like Schou-Pedersen did long ago, Lupieri sees the John and Miriai
stories as intimately linked (153). That John, in Islamic times, appears as a
counter-figure to Muhammed (163) would be echoed with appreciation by
Schou-Pedersen. But Lupieri does not sort out the John traditions sufficiently,
neglecting to note what Schou-Pedersen found so crucial: that John is not an
¨utra.
For reasons of his own, Lupieri sets the origins of the Mandaeans not in the
West, but in the East, more specifically in Mesene and Characene. Neither
Schou-Pedersen nor Lupieri take Lidzbarski’s linguistic pro-West arguments
into consideration. Nor does Lupieri ever deal with K. Rudolph’s or R.
Macuch’s views. For Schou-Pedersen, the Mandaeans live in the East (Baby-
lonia) because they already are present there, somehow, as heretical Chris-
tians, “representing the outer limit of Jewish Christianity,” (224) without his-
torical connections to any Palestinian Jerusalem. According to Lupieri, the
Mandaeans, as heretical Jews with Babylonian roots, accommodate themselves
to the Hyspaosine dynasty in Characene (see p. 163-65). Lupieri’s argument
here is new, but it rests on evidence that is too flimsy, in my view.
Schou-Pedersen would have been delighted to know that Lupieri supports
his thesis that John belongs to the earliest Mandaean traditions (165), but
Lupieri sees the Mandaeans as a syncretistic Jewish and Christian product (but
apparently not Jewish-Christian, in the technical sense, as Schou-Pedersen
maintains). Early on, Mandaeans adopted the Christian legends about Biblical
patriarchs. If Mandaeism had a Christian stage, Lupieri would put it in the
East, not the West. And Lupieri is counting on the Jewish connection, not the
Christian one. Schou-Pedersen wrote off any Mandaean connection to the
“real” Jerusalem, but Lupieri is a bit less categorical and states that it is very
difficult to know which “Jerusalem” is meant in Mandaean literature (169).
The John legends, among the Christians, were under formation when Man-
daeism arose, and the Mandaeans took advantage of this, evidently tossing
themselves into the theological fray (Lupieri, 165). Schou-Pedersen would ob-
viously agree with this.
Lidzbarski held that heterodox Judaism only arises in “the West.” He con-
siders Mandaeism as having developed in heterodox Jewish circles in the West
(i.e. Jordan/Palestine), although he admits that Mandaeism could be traced to
Babylonian Judaism. But why would Jewish heterodoxies be more apt to
emerge in the West than in Babylonia? Lidzbarski never substantiates his
statement (JB, xvii). Schou-Pedersen might agree with the Western origins,
but he sees the Mandaeans as Christian heretics “of the East.” In Lupieri’s
thesis. we find another twist on the “East-West origins ” debate, though
Lupieri sides with an Eastern, Jewish origin. Some may recall the fierce objec-
tion by Macuch to E. Yamauchi’s idea of Mandaeans as an Eastern, Babylo-
20 A RE-INVESTIGATION OF THE BOOK OF JOHN

nian remnant (Macuch “Gnostische Ethik,” 1973; regarding Yamauchi’s Gnos-

tic Ethics and Mandaean Origins, 1970).
What do we make of the Mandaeans, and why is it so important to ascertain
where they arose? And belonging to what religious ancestry? Lupieri digs into
HG like no one, to my knowledge, has done before. Macuch nonchalantly as-
cribed 5 % historicity to HG, focusing on what he considers as firm evidence
for a Mandaean eastward exodus out of Palestine/Jordan under king Ardban III
in the 1st century (“Gnost. Ethik,” 258, 263-64; “Anfänge der Mandäer,”
117). Without any reference to Macuch, nor to the debate between Macuch
and Rudolph on the origins-and-history issue, Lupieri considers HG’s Ardban
material as entirely unhistorical, on a par with the Pharaoh mythology. In con-
trast, one might recall that Cyrus Gordon, in his review of HG and MHZ (=The
Baptism of Hibil Ziwa), considered it obvious that the Mandaeans had lived in
Egypt and in other Middle Eastern countries (JRAS, 1956).
Lupieri (and most other present-day scholars) dismiss such a wide-sweeping
view. Trying to sort out the John traditions in HG, Lupieri finds that they be-
long to different strata, depending on different traditions. According to HG,
sixty years after John, the Jews persecute Mandaeans in Jerusalem and leave
no one alive. So, Lupieri concludes, no Mandaeans emigrated to the east, since
none were left. The remnant originated in the east, in the mountains of Madai,
and these Mandaeans were descendants of one of Ardban’s sons (157). (How-
ever, as noted, Lupieri seems to dismiss the Ardban legend).
Regarding Lupieri’s main argument about the Mandaeans in Characene dur-
ing the end of the Hyspaosine dynasty (second century), HG’s interweaving of
the John and the Bihram legend seem utterly confused. It is difficult to accept
Lupieri’s argument about Bihram’s role in Mandaeism, and Lupieri neglects to
acknowledge Drower’s relevant comments on Bihram (HG, p. 6-7, with note
9). In any case, HG describes John being wrestled from an evil female spirit
while he was an infant, protected on a pure mountain as a little child, nursed
by a Mother-substitute tree, and then baptized and appearing in public. This
seems too close to the Christian legends of Jesus to be accidental. Here is a
good argument in favor of Schou-Pedersen’s view, in fact, and had he known
HG, he might happily have embraced this material. HG contains both Christi-
anity-hostile material about John, and sources that are not polemical against
Christianity.

III. CONCLUDING REMARKS

I have long suspected that Drower has a limited understanding of the HG

text. She admits that this is a very difficult document, and it is. Perhaps the
beginning of it is not broken, and all the double circles in it may not indicate
interruptions. The beginning of the text seems to me to reflect a poetic, short-
 J.J. BUCKLEY 21

hand style. HG needs to be retranslated. There are historical nuggets in HG,

and they must be sorted out, but Lupieri’s solution is not sufficient. Just as
there are John traditions in HG that are positive to Christianity, so we should
recall that in JB, the Miriai stories about her relationship with John’s mother
¨Nisbai must be placed in a non-hostile attitude to Christianity.
Unlike Miriai, John the Baptist is never a convert. But the Mandaeans were
Jewish, revering Adonai, says HG (p. 31) until Miriai, Jesus’ mother, became
pregnant by mysterious means. Only then, perhaps, did the Mandaeans give up
on Adonai and began to move eastwards. The Mandaeans have very conflict-
ing traditions about Miriai, John and Jesus, stemming from different time peri-
ods. Here I tend to agree with Schou-Pedersen. It is high time to re-assess the
John strata in Mandaeism with a study of Jewish-Christian traditions such as
Ps.-Clement and Recognitions, to mention just the most obvious. Also, some-
one ought to take up the task of investigating the Mandaeans’ knowledge of
the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. These are long overdue projects.
Now, to conclude with just a few comments on JB, a book that – as previ-
ously observed – scholars (wrongly) assess as having a lower value than the
Ginza. One must remember that of the seven Ginza colophons, only one, at the
end of GL, goes back to pre-Islamic times. Still, the Ginza is considered to
contain much ancient material, and it does. The same argument can be made
for JB, but this idea practically never sees the light of day, because scholars
habitually state that JB is young, datable to Islamic times. This does not mat-
ter, as it is the editing of ancient material that counts, according to Schou-
Pedersen.
The colophons in the seven different codices of JB that I have investigated
show that six of them correlate, to a remarkable degree. Of the four MSS. used
by Lidzbarski, three came from Paris, one from the Bodleian Libraby in Ox-
ford (the latter is Hunt. 71). All were copied in the 17th century, between 1617
and 1690; two came from Basra, two from Persia. The 18th century DC 30 (in
the Bodleian) and the JB belonging to Mr. Nasser Sobbi in New York (this
dates to 1910) are the next two MSS. that I have investigated. After a certain
point, all of these cohere in their colophons to such a degree that I thought
there must have been a relatively small circle of Mandaean scribes who were
even interested in copying JB. Perhaps the book’s status was dubious, even
among Mandaeans, I wondered.
The colophons all end with the same person, Sku (or: ‘Ska”) Hiia (“he be-
holds the Life”), sometimes identified as the son of ¨Idai. Sku Hiia is datable
to the 7th century, a contemporary of the ubiquitous scribe ¨Qaiam, son of
Zindana. Sku Hiia is a scribe unknown outside of JB. However, a pupil of his,
named Haiasum, appears in three Ginza MSS. The claim so often appended to
the name of the 3rd century luminary Zazai of Gawazta, to the effect that Zazai
obtained the book from the Lightworld authority itself (echoing Near Eastern
22 A RE-INVESTIGATION OF THE BOOK OF JOHN

“heavenly book” traditions), never appears in connection with Sku Hiia. Also,
JB is commonly referred to as a kurasa, a loose-leaf manuscript, and so its
consistency may seem suspect. Therefore, one might wonder whether it can be
considered canonical.
Most significant, to me, was the lack of several outstandingly famous
Mandaean scribes as copyists of JB (and I am reasonably familiar with hun-
dreds of scribes’ names now, after studying Mandaean colophons since 1987).
Then, I worked on the colophon in a JB belonging to the Mandaean poet
Lamea Abbas Amara, a book copied by her maternal uncle, Sh. Dakhil, in
Nasoriyah in 1922. Here, it turns out, is quite a different lineage of scribes, in-
cluding many luminaries known from CP and from the Ginza. The list ends,
not with Sku Hiia, but with his contemporary ¨Qaiam, son of Zindana. Now,
JB’s firm identity did not appear as doubtful anymore.
It would be important to gain access to other copies of JB, in order to see
whether they too, show certain patterns in their lineages.1 That the book, in its
known form, goes back to early Islamic times is not an argument against its
value. The central task is to sort out its traditions, without stereotypical ideas
about its age. Of primary concern are the traditions about John the Baptist,
Miriai, and other sources pointing back to Jewish Christianity. In short, Schou-
Pedersen’s theory needs re-assessment. One might be able to advance a spe-
cific hypothesis by tracing a line of development of the Mandaean evaluation
of the Christian materials. Such an exercise would place the Mandaean evi-
dence in the context of Jewish Christian texts, as suggested above.

CONSULTED WORKS

Buckley, J.J., “The Mandaean Appropriation of Jesus’ Mother, Miriai,” Novum

Testamentum 35,2, 1993 (181-96); now chapter 5 in my The Mandaeans. Ancient
Texts and Modern People (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2002).
——, “Professional Fatigue: “Hibil’s Lament in the Mandaean Book of John,” Le
Muséon, Tome 110, fascicle 3-4, 1997 (367-81).
Büchsel, F., “Mandäer und Johannesjünger,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft 26, 1927 (219-31).
Cartlidge, D.R. and D.L. Dugan, Documents for the Study of the Gospels (Philadel-
phia: Fortress Press), 1980 (98-103).
Drower, Lady E.S., The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1937, reprint
1962, and reprint 2002 by Gorgias Press).
——, Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil Ziwa (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana), Studi e testi 176, 1953.
——, The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans (Leiden: Brill, 1959).
——, The Thousand and Twelve Questions (Alf Trisar Suialia), A Mandaean Text
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1960).
1
 Since I wrote this essay, I have seen one other JB manuscript, a photocopy of an Iranian
original.
 J.J. BUCKLEY 23

Gordon, C., Review of the Haran Gawaita and The Baptism of Hibil Ziwa, Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society 1956, (101-102).
Hennecke, E. and W. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, I-II (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1963-64): vol. I: Protevangelium of James (transl. by O. Cullmann)
(370-88); Extracts from The Gospel of Ps. Matthew (transl. by O. Cullmann)
(410-14); vol. II: The Pseudo-Clementines (transl. by J. Irmscher) (532-70).
Lidzbarski, M., Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer (Giessen: Töpelmann), 1915, (reprint
1966).
——, Ginza. Der Schatz oder das grosse Buch der Mandäer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
and Ruprecht), 1925 (reprint 1978).
Lupieri, E. The Mandaeans. The last Gnostics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans),
2002.
Macuch, R. “Anfänge der Mandäer,” in, Die Araber in der alten Welt, vol. 2, eds.
F. Altheim and R. Stiehl (Berlin: de Gruyter), 1965 (76-190).
——, “Gnostische Ethik und die Anfänge der Mandäer,” in, Christentum am Roten
Meer, vol. 2, eds. F. Altheim and R. Stiehl (Berlin: de Gruyter), 1973 (254-73).
Philo, Philo. De Vita Contemplativa, Loeb’s Classical Library, vol. IX, (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press), 1971.
Rudolph, K. “Antike Baptisten: Zu den Überlieferungen über frühjüdische und-christ-
liche Taufsekten,” in, Siztungsberichte der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissen-
schaften zu Leipzig, phil.-hist. Klasse, vol 121, no. 4 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag),
1981 (1-37).
Schou-Pedersen, V., Bidrag til en Analyse af de mandaeiske Skrifter (Aarhus: Univer-
sitetsforlaget), 1940.
Siouffi, N., Études sur la religion des Soubbas ou Sabéens (Paris: Imprimerie natio-
nale), 1880.
Yamauchi, E., Gnostic Ethics and Mandaean Origins, Harvard Theological Studies 26
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), 1970.