To what degree should we be prepared to accept the Mandæans’ own accounts of their origins, as opposed to external accounts and those constructed for them by scholars? This question – often implied, but seldom articulated – lies at the heart of all scholarship on the Mandæans over the last hundred years or more.

Swadesh List of 207 Common Terms in Neo-Mandaic (Khorramshahr and Ahwaz)

Some useful phrases to use when learning to speak Mandaic.

The Aramaic incantation texts from late antique Mesopotamia have been invoked as sources for the dialects of Late Aramaic, as well as sources on the religions of Late Antiquity, but outside of the small cabal of scholars who work on these texts, they are seldom viewed as a legitimate source of information about either. Often, they are deprecated…[Read more]