This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
I followed the citations, not evidence of this. Have removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.185.18.207 ( talk) 21:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
—The preceding
unsigned comment was added by
69.153.28.102 (
talk)
16:18, 4 March 2007 (UTC).
I've already incorporated many of the features of the Mandaeanism article into this one. I wrote this article specifically to challenge some of the misinformation regarding the Mandaeans that is so prevalent on the internet and other media these days (in one New York Times article, I recall seeing a reference to the chief religious leader of the Mandaeans, who is known as the Ginza Rabbi [!]).
Whether Mandaeism or Mandaeanism is the more proper term for the religion is a valid question unto itself. On the internet, the latter term is much more prevalent, but this may be due to the popularity of the wikipedia article, which is the first item on the Google search list. I personally am partial to Mandaeism; it seems to me that this term is more common in the scholarly literature. The ambiguity is present from the very beginnings of English language literature on the Mandaeans; Drower herself occasionally writes "mandae(an)ism".
If Mandaeanism is folded into Mandaeism, will the article lose its google ranking? I'd prefer that the article be a source of reliable information on the Mandaeans, and this would be hampered if people can't find it in the standard search engines.
Leo Caesius 19:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Comment -- Mandaeanism is a more commonly encountered term, whatever the correctness. I suggest the material by merged, and the original article be left, with a pointer to the alternative subject - L Owens, Gnosis Archive, www.gnosis.org
The term "Mandaeanism" (14,900 hits on Google) is indisputably more common on the internet than the term "Mandaeism" (438 hits), but it is considerably less common in the scholarship. A search on JSTOR reveals 10 articles in 5 journals refering to "Mandaeanism" (mostly in reviews rather than original scholarship), whereas the term "Mandaeism" brings up 57 articles in well over a dozen journals, written by scholars such as Jorunn Jacobson Buckley, Kurt Rudolf, Cyrus H. Gordon, Jacob Neusner, Albert Henrichs, and Ed Yamauchi). These scholars, as well as most other anglophone Mandaeologists, employ the term "Mandaeism" in their scholarship. A second consideration is the fact that the term "Mandaeanism" is not found in the Oxford English dictionary or other standard references. In its place, the correct term "Mandaeism" (first attested in the 1883 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) is cited.
Nearly all of the websites referenced in the first page of Google search results for the term "Mandaeanism" contain information duplicated from the original Wikipedia article. For this reason, it might be argued that the popularity of the term "Mandaeanism" against "Mandaeism" on the internet is largely a product of the original Wikipedia article itself. Whether that is the case or not, the question remains whether Wikipedia should adhere more closely to scholarly or popular conventions; given the rather arcane nature of the topic discussed here, I would suggest that it is far better to adhere to accepted scholarly conventions, and privilege the term "Mandaeism." Nonetheless, a redirect page should be maintained under the entry "Mandaeanism." Leo Caesius 00:47, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
(To last poster: sign your comments, please.) This article seems very... repetitive. The same information, oftentimes the exact same text, is repeated in several cases. Would anyone mind if I fixed that problem? Moonsword 22:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
This article says Mandaeists both follow Abraham and Noah, and that they believe Abraham and Noah were false prophets who they do not follow.
There should be an article for the Mandean people themselves. Any thoughts? SouthernComfort 20:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
===>Not sure about that...' Since the Mandean people are defined as a cultural group by their religious affiliation, and there is virtually no literature on them, I don't know that there is enough material to justify another article. On the other hand, if you have that knowledge at your disposal, please share! - Justin (koavf), talk 21:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I should call attention to this excerpt: 'who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John. The word k(a)daba, however, derives from two roots in Mandaic: the first root, meaning "to lie," is the one traditionally ascribed to Jesus; the second, meaning "to write."' The root here does not mean to write. The writer is confusing /ktb/ with /kdb/. These are phonemically very different and cannot be used interchangeably. -- IbnBatriq 00:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
The lead section says Mandaeism is a monotheistic religion yet within the article it says Mandaeism has a more strict dualistic nature, typical of other Iranian religions such as..... This contradiction seems quite fundamental and needs resolving. -- Michael C. Price talk 10:14, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Mandeans believe that cosmos is made out of light and darkness, evil and good, and that both are ruled by a god. There are also "lesser gods" on both sides. Although they ally themself with the light, which they believe is the origin of the soul, darkness is held to be the origin of the body. After death the soul will try to journey towards the light. Thus it is clearly a dualistic religion. (Monotheistic religions only recognises ONE god, period.) Also why does the article say they regard Muhammed a false prophet? They actually regard him as (which might be worse?) a Demon.
When the article cites the word Sabian as the Arabic term for these people does it mean they are the same people as are known as Sabeans? I ask because the Greco-Egyptian doctrines attributed to Hermes Trismegistus are very key to these people, in fact they are one of the chief sources of their cosmology. The story has it that when a Caliph encountered these people who at the time didn't give themselves a name he asked them what religion they practised. When he realised that they weren't Jews, Christians or Muslims he told them that, as infidels and not members of the three religions approved of in the Koran, they had two years to decide what to do or else he was entitled to put them to the sword. Some converted to Islam, but others went to a Muslim scholar who scoured the Koran and found it also approved of something it called 'Sabeans'. Although the Caliph died, when his successor's men arrived two years later these people told them they were Sabeans and so by Koranic Law they were allowed to continue unmolested. This story is related in the book THE HERMETICA: THE LOST WISDOM OF THE PHAROAHS by Freke.
I tell this story partly because its a good one but because the ideas of the Hermetica are reflected strongly in the tenets of the Mandeans described in this article. Hermeticism is, as people probably know, an essentially Gnostic vision of the universe. So can anyone confirm or deny that the Sabians are in fact the Sabeans? ThePeg 15:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
After reading about the tenets of Mandaeism, I suspect the religion to be closely related to or inspired by Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism...otherwise, why talk about John the Baptist, dualism, Jerusalem, etc.? — Rickyrab | Talk 21:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
If Sabians is just another name for the same group, the articles should be merged. If they are different, they articles are doing a bad job at pointing at the differences. -- Pjacobi 20:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
These two articles should not be merged. " Sabian" is a historical name used for various religious traditions not necessarily associated with Mandaenism, and this is already explained there (though not as clearly as one would like.) E.Cogoy 22:20, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
This article says the Mandaeans consider Jesus and Muhammed to be evil, whereas the article on Sabians make it pretty clear that they don't. I don't see why a merge is being suggested. JuJube 08:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
the usual phrase in English is Discalced Carmelites; does 'Barefoot' mean this or something else? if something else, a link would be great; otherwise 'Discalced' should be used. 142.68.43.14 00:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
There is no mention of Mandean texts or what is considered sacred scripture. Nor is there mention of prolific writers/theologists within the faith. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.193.239.117 ( talk) 09:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
These groups don't seem that closely related, and both have enough references and information to support separate articles.-- Editor2020 ( talk) 01:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Since I rewrote this page many moons ago, it has predictably managed to attract the usual mishmosh of non-sequiturs which people hang on Wikipedia articles like so many ornaments on a Christmas tree. Some of the more unusual include:
These stick out from the text like a sore thumb and usually only cite the extremely personal interpretation of a single individual, often at odds with the consensus.
The comment about the "semitic -il added to 'spiritualise' a word" is as cryptic as it is inaccurate and unnecessary. Ditto for the strange interpolation "a literary invention of Paul." Is this really relevant to the article? This certainly doesn't have anything to do with the Mandaean view of Jesus.
Does this really belong in the "Other associated terms [for Mandaeans]" section? No, it does not. If there were a separate section on the use of the Mandaean canon by other religious traditions, then it might be worth mentioning, but since the Order of Nazoraean Essenes is obviously not Mandaean I fail to see how it is relevant to a section on associated terms for the Mandaeans.
Finally, there is this mess:
Sociological
Some of this information might actually be quite helpful, if it were presented in an organized fashion, rather than being strewn across the page. A good start would entail removing the obvious hearsay in the middle of the second paragraph ("Some believe...").
For the time being I am removing this information off the main page and depositing it here.
Leo Caesius ( talk) 01:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
A clearer history would be interesting to see in this article, or at least a clear description of mysterious origins, with dates or eras attached. -- Beland ( talk) 04:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
I have changed the following statement in the main text (I explicitly show the part that I have removed in bold):
- "Persecution in Iraq and Iran [3] has caused many Mandaeans to leave for diaspora populations in Europe, Australia[4] and North America."
- "[3] Iran, Amnesty International report, 2005."
First, by clicking on the above-presented link (which I have copy-pasted from the main page, without any manual changes that might possibly corrupt the address), one is directly led to the main page of Amnesty International, and not to any page reporting on the alleged persecution of Mandaeans in Iran in 2005! This already suggests that the extension "/report2005/irn-summary-eng" is non-existent (read fabricated – see later), explaining why one is led to " http://web.amnesty.org/", which is the root of the URL. Using the search box of the website of Amnesty International shows that this organization has no record on the alleged persecution of Mandaeans in Iran, not in 2005 and not in any other year. To bypass the possibility that I may have used the search engine of the website of Amnesty International inappropriately, I have gone through all reports of Amnesty International for the year 2005; the interested may inspect these reports from here (11 January 2005) to here (19 December 2005). The only report that might remotely be relevant to the case at hand is that of 20 April 2005 (Index Number: MDE 13/017/2005) which concerns some disturbances having taken place in Ahvaz (see here – this report is preceded by one dated 19 April 2005, which is in Arabic). Close inspection shows that these reports are totally and utterly unrelated to Mandaeans.
To summarise, unless some person can demonstrate that I have erred in my above considerations, I am of the opinion that the allegation that Mandaeans were persecuted in Iran amounts to a foul fabrication, entirely motivated for political objectives. I am supported in my view by the following report in an Iranian online magazine which shows Mandaeans freely and peacefully performing their religious rites at the Karun river in Ahvaz, Iran:
The person speaking in the above-presented audio slideshow, an Iranian Mandaean himself, makes no reference to any persecution; in contrast, he mentions that although Mandaeans are not explicitly named in the Iranian Constitution, they are recognized as being followers of a monotheistic religion and thus are respected. --BF 05:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Mandaeism/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
I do not believe that the pages should be merged, both are very different in views and backgrounds. The 'Sabians' are not in line with jews or christains where i think the Mandaeism ideology falls. R Jones |
Last edited at 15:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 15:19, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
I followed the citations, not evidence of this. Have removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.185.18.207 ( talk) 21:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
—The preceding
unsigned comment was added by
69.153.28.102 (
talk)
16:18, 4 March 2007 (UTC).
I've already incorporated many of the features of the Mandaeanism article into this one. I wrote this article specifically to challenge some of the misinformation regarding the Mandaeans that is so prevalent on the internet and other media these days (in one New York Times article, I recall seeing a reference to the chief religious leader of the Mandaeans, who is known as the Ginza Rabbi [!]).
Whether Mandaeism or Mandaeanism is the more proper term for the religion is a valid question unto itself. On the internet, the latter term is much more prevalent, but this may be due to the popularity of the wikipedia article, which is the first item on the Google search list. I personally am partial to Mandaeism; it seems to me that this term is more common in the scholarly literature. The ambiguity is present from the very beginnings of English language literature on the Mandaeans; Drower herself occasionally writes "mandae(an)ism".
If Mandaeanism is folded into Mandaeism, will the article lose its google ranking? I'd prefer that the article be a source of reliable information on the Mandaeans, and this would be hampered if people can't find it in the standard search engines.
Leo Caesius 19:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Comment -- Mandaeanism is a more commonly encountered term, whatever the correctness. I suggest the material by merged, and the original article be left, with a pointer to the alternative subject - L Owens, Gnosis Archive, www.gnosis.org
The term "Mandaeanism" (14,900 hits on Google) is indisputably more common on the internet than the term "Mandaeism" (438 hits), but it is considerably less common in the scholarship. A search on JSTOR reveals 10 articles in 5 journals refering to "Mandaeanism" (mostly in reviews rather than original scholarship), whereas the term "Mandaeism" brings up 57 articles in well over a dozen journals, written by scholars such as Jorunn Jacobson Buckley, Kurt Rudolf, Cyrus H. Gordon, Jacob Neusner, Albert Henrichs, and Ed Yamauchi). These scholars, as well as most other anglophone Mandaeologists, employ the term "Mandaeism" in their scholarship. A second consideration is the fact that the term "Mandaeanism" is not found in the Oxford English dictionary or other standard references. In its place, the correct term "Mandaeism" (first attested in the 1883 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) is cited.
Nearly all of the websites referenced in the first page of Google search results for the term "Mandaeanism" contain information duplicated from the original Wikipedia article. For this reason, it might be argued that the popularity of the term "Mandaeanism" against "Mandaeism" on the internet is largely a product of the original Wikipedia article itself. Whether that is the case or not, the question remains whether Wikipedia should adhere more closely to scholarly or popular conventions; given the rather arcane nature of the topic discussed here, I would suggest that it is far better to adhere to accepted scholarly conventions, and privilege the term "Mandaeism." Nonetheless, a redirect page should be maintained under the entry "Mandaeanism." Leo Caesius 00:47, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
(To last poster: sign your comments, please.) This article seems very... repetitive. The same information, oftentimes the exact same text, is repeated in several cases. Would anyone mind if I fixed that problem? Moonsword 22:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
This article says Mandaeists both follow Abraham and Noah, and that they believe Abraham and Noah were false prophets who they do not follow.
There should be an article for the Mandean people themselves. Any thoughts? SouthernComfort 20:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
===>Not sure about that...' Since the Mandean people are defined as a cultural group by their religious affiliation, and there is virtually no literature on them, I don't know that there is enough material to justify another article. On the other hand, if you have that knowledge at your disposal, please share! - Justin (koavf), talk 21:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I should call attention to this excerpt: 'who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John. The word k(a)daba, however, derives from two roots in Mandaic: the first root, meaning "to lie," is the one traditionally ascribed to Jesus; the second, meaning "to write."' The root here does not mean to write. The writer is confusing /ktb/ with /kdb/. These are phonemically very different and cannot be used interchangeably. -- IbnBatriq 00:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
The lead section says Mandaeism is a monotheistic religion yet within the article it says Mandaeism has a more strict dualistic nature, typical of other Iranian religions such as..... This contradiction seems quite fundamental and needs resolving. -- Michael C. Price talk 10:14, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Mandeans believe that cosmos is made out of light and darkness, evil and good, and that both are ruled by a god. There are also "lesser gods" on both sides. Although they ally themself with the light, which they believe is the origin of the soul, darkness is held to be the origin of the body. After death the soul will try to journey towards the light. Thus it is clearly a dualistic religion. (Monotheistic religions only recognises ONE god, period.) Also why does the article say they regard Muhammed a false prophet? They actually regard him as (which might be worse?) a Demon.
When the article cites the word Sabian as the Arabic term for these people does it mean they are the same people as are known as Sabeans? I ask because the Greco-Egyptian doctrines attributed to Hermes Trismegistus are very key to these people, in fact they are one of the chief sources of their cosmology. The story has it that when a Caliph encountered these people who at the time didn't give themselves a name he asked them what religion they practised. When he realised that they weren't Jews, Christians or Muslims he told them that, as infidels and not members of the three religions approved of in the Koran, they had two years to decide what to do or else he was entitled to put them to the sword. Some converted to Islam, but others went to a Muslim scholar who scoured the Koran and found it also approved of something it called 'Sabeans'. Although the Caliph died, when his successor's men arrived two years later these people told them they were Sabeans and so by Koranic Law they were allowed to continue unmolested. This story is related in the book THE HERMETICA: THE LOST WISDOM OF THE PHAROAHS by Freke.
I tell this story partly because its a good one but because the ideas of the Hermetica are reflected strongly in the tenets of the Mandeans described in this article. Hermeticism is, as people probably know, an essentially Gnostic vision of the universe. So can anyone confirm or deny that the Sabians are in fact the Sabeans? ThePeg 15:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
After reading about the tenets of Mandaeism, I suspect the religion to be closely related to or inspired by Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism...otherwise, why talk about John the Baptist, dualism, Jerusalem, etc.? — Rickyrab | Talk 21:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
If Sabians is just another name for the same group, the articles should be merged. If they are different, they articles are doing a bad job at pointing at the differences. -- Pjacobi 20:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
These two articles should not be merged. " Sabian" is a historical name used for various religious traditions not necessarily associated with Mandaenism, and this is already explained there (though not as clearly as one would like.) E.Cogoy 22:20, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
This article says the Mandaeans consider Jesus and Muhammed to be evil, whereas the article on Sabians make it pretty clear that they don't. I don't see why a merge is being suggested. JuJube 08:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
the usual phrase in English is Discalced Carmelites; does 'Barefoot' mean this or something else? if something else, a link would be great; otherwise 'Discalced' should be used. 142.68.43.14 00:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
There is no mention of Mandean texts or what is considered sacred scripture. Nor is there mention of prolific writers/theologists within the faith. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.193.239.117 ( talk) 09:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
These groups don't seem that closely related, and both have enough references and information to support separate articles.-- Editor2020 ( talk) 01:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Since I rewrote this page many moons ago, it has predictably managed to attract the usual mishmosh of non-sequiturs which people hang on Wikipedia articles like so many ornaments on a Christmas tree. Some of the more unusual include:
These stick out from the text like a sore thumb and usually only cite the extremely personal interpretation of a single individual, often at odds with the consensus.
The comment about the "semitic -il added to 'spiritualise' a word" is as cryptic as it is inaccurate and unnecessary. Ditto for the strange interpolation "a literary invention of Paul." Is this really relevant to the article? This certainly doesn't have anything to do with the Mandaean view of Jesus.
Does this really belong in the "Other associated terms [for Mandaeans]" section? No, it does not. If there were a separate section on the use of the Mandaean canon by other religious traditions, then it might be worth mentioning, but since the Order of Nazoraean Essenes is obviously not Mandaean I fail to see how it is relevant to a section on associated terms for the Mandaeans.
Finally, there is this mess:
Sociological
Some of this information might actually be quite helpful, if it were presented in an organized fashion, rather than being strewn across the page. A good start would entail removing the obvious hearsay in the middle of the second paragraph ("Some believe...").
For the time being I am removing this information off the main page and depositing it here.
Leo Caesius ( talk) 01:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
A clearer history would be interesting to see in this article, or at least a clear description of mysterious origins, with dates or eras attached. -- Beland ( talk) 04:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
I have changed the following statement in the main text (I explicitly show the part that I have removed in bold):
- "Persecution in Iraq and Iran [3] has caused many Mandaeans to leave for diaspora populations in Europe, Australia[4] and North America."
- "[3] Iran, Amnesty International report, 2005."
First, by clicking on the above-presented link (which I have copy-pasted from the main page, without any manual changes that might possibly corrupt the address), one is directly led to the main page of Amnesty International, and not to any page reporting on the alleged persecution of Mandaeans in Iran in 2005! This already suggests that the extension "/report2005/irn-summary-eng" is non-existent (read fabricated – see later), explaining why one is led to " http://web.amnesty.org/", which is the root of the URL. Using the search box of the website of Amnesty International shows that this organization has no record on the alleged persecution of Mandaeans in Iran, not in 2005 and not in any other year. To bypass the possibility that I may have used the search engine of the website of Amnesty International inappropriately, I have gone through all reports of Amnesty International for the year 2005; the interested may inspect these reports from here (11 January 2005) to here (19 December 2005). The only report that might remotely be relevant to the case at hand is that of 20 April 2005 (Index Number: MDE 13/017/2005) which concerns some disturbances having taken place in Ahvaz (see here – this report is preceded by one dated 19 April 2005, which is in Arabic). Close inspection shows that these reports are totally and utterly unrelated to Mandaeans.
To summarise, unless some person can demonstrate that I have erred in my above considerations, I am of the opinion that the allegation that Mandaeans were persecuted in Iran amounts to a foul fabrication, entirely motivated for political objectives. I am supported in my view by the following report in an Iranian online magazine which shows Mandaeans freely and peacefully performing their religious rites at the Karun river in Ahvaz, Iran:
The person speaking in the above-presented audio slideshow, an Iranian Mandaean himself, makes no reference to any persecution; in contrast, he mentions that although Mandaeans are not explicitly named in the Iranian Constitution, they are recognized as being followers of a monotheistic religion and thus are respected. --BF 05:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Mandaeism/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
I do not believe that the pages should be merged, both are very different in views and backgrounds. The 'Sabians' are not in line with jews or christains where i think the Mandaeism ideology falls. R Jones |
Last edited at 15:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 15:19, 1 May 2016 (UTC)