The Chapters of the Wisdom of My Lord Mani

The Chapters of the Wisdom of My Lord Mani

Author: Iain Gardner

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-06-12

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9004363408

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The Chapters of the Wisdom of My Lord Mani, a Coptic papyrus codex preserved at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, describes Mani’s mission, teachings and debates with sages in the courts of the Sasanian empire during the reign of Shapur I; with an extended account of his last days and death under Bahram I. The text offers an unprecedented new source for the history of religions in Late Antiquity, including interactions of Manichaean, Zoroastrian, Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist traditions in Iran, remarkably transmitted into the Mediterranean world as part of Manichaean missionary literature. This is the first of four fascicles constituting the editio princeps, based on enhanced digital and multispectral imaging and extended autoptic study of the manuscript.


Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East

Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East

Author: Jae Hee Han

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-09-30

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1009297740

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Offers an interdisciplinary account of prophecy as a topic of discourse among various late antique Near Eastern communities. Against assumptions that prophecy ceased in the past, this book argues that it remained a topic of discourse among various Near Eastern communities.


The Manichaean Church in Kellis

The Manichaean Church in Kellis

Author: Håkon Fiane Teigen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-06-08

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 9004459774

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The Manichaean Church in Kellis presents an in-depth study of social organisation within the religious movement known as Manichaeism in Roman Egypt. In particular, it employs papyri from Kellis (Ismant el-Kharab), a village in the Dakhleh Oasis, to explore the socio-religious world of lay Manichaeans in the fourth century CE. Manichaeism has often been perceived as an elitist, esoteric religion. Challenging this view, Teigen draws on social network theory and cultural sociology, and engages with the study of lived ancient religion, in order to apprehend how laypeople in Kellis appropriated Manichaean identity and practice in their everyday lives. This perspective, he argues, not only provides a better understanding of Manichaeism: it also has wider implications for how we understand late antique ‘religion’ as a social phenomenon


The Medinet Madi Library of Manichaean Codices at 90

The Medinet Madi Library of Manichaean Codices at 90

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-06-26

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9004542930

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The Medinet Madi Library comes of age in this landmark volume as one of the 20th century’s major finds of religious manuscripts. Discovered in Egypt’s Fayum region in 1929, these Coptic codices contain a cross-section of the sacred literature of the Manichaean religion. Early work on the collection in the 1930s was cut short by the ravages of the second world war. Recent decades have brought multiple new editorial projects, on which this volume offers a comprehensive set of status reports, as well as individual studies on aspects of the Manichaean religion informed by the library’s contents.


Augustine's Confessions: Ten Studies

Augustine's Confessions: Ten Studies

Author: Johannes van Oort

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-12-21

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 9004685901

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This book presents new interpretations of essential and well-known passages from Augustine's Confessions. In ten chapters, Augustinian specialist Johannes van Oort analyzes and explains many essential passages in the work from the background of Augustine's thorough knowledge of Manichaeism. This 'Gnostic' variant of Christianity exerted a great influence on the North African Augustine, as evidenced in his most famous and (arguably) most influential work. In a new light appear such figures as Monnica, Ponticianus, Lady Continence, the rather obscure African bishop who speaks of Augustine as "a son of such tears"; events such as the 'illustrious' pear theft, the coming of "a glorious young man" to dreaming Monnica, Augustine's dramatic conversion; basic features such as his concept of 'God', deep sense of (sexual) sin, highly influential reflections on memory, fundamental view of Christ as God's Right Hand and, perhaps most importantly, his mystical spirituality.


Manichaeism and Early Christianity

Manichaeism and Early Christianity

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-12-07

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 9004445463

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Manichaeism and Early Christianity discusses where and how Gnostic Manichaeism interfered not only with other forms of Gnosticism, but above all with a number of writings and representatives of mainstream Christianity during the early centuries of our era.


The Founder of Manichaeism

The Founder of Manichaeism

Author: Iain Gardner

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-03-05

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1108499074

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A new critical look at Mani's life to establish a proper historical foundation for the study of this fascinating thinker.


Mani and Augustine

Mani and Augustine

Author: Johannes van Oort

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-02-10

Total Pages: 630

ISBN-13: 9004417591

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Mani and Augustine: collected essays on Mani, Manichaeism and Augustine gathers in one volume contributions on Manichaean scholarship made by the internationally renowned scholar Johannes van Oort. The first part of the book focuses on the Babylonian prophet Mani (216-277) who styled himself an ‘apostle of Jesus Christ’, on Jewish elements in Manichaeism and on ‘human semen eucharist’, eschatology and imagery of Christ as ‘God’s Right Hand’. The second part of the book concentrates on the question to what extent the former ‘auditor’ Augustine became acquainted with Mani’s gnostic world religion and his canonical writings, and explores to what extent Manichaeism had a lasting impact on the most influential church father of the West.


Byzantium to China: Religion, History and Culture on the Silk Roads

Byzantium to China: Religion, History and Culture on the Silk Roads

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-07-18

Total Pages: 694

ISBN-13: 9004517987

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This volume celebrates the outstanding achievements of Samuel N. C. Lieu and his contribution to Manichaean, Roman, Byzantine, and Silk Road Studies. Readers will find his wide range of scholarly interests reflected in the contributions of his colleagues and former students.


Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity

Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity

Author: Simcha Gross

Publisher:

Published: 2023-12-05

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1009280511

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From the image offered by the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish elites were deeply embedded within the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE). The Talmud is replete with stories and discussions that feature Sasanian kings, Zoroastrian magi, fire temples, imperial administrators, Sasanian laws, Persian customs, and more quotidian details of Jewish life. Yet, in the scholarly literature on the Babylonian Talmud and the Jews of Babylonia , the Sasanian Empire has served as a backdrop to a decidedly parochial Jewish story, having little if any direct impact on Babylonian Jewish life and especially the rabbis. Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity advances a radically different understanding of Babylonian Jewish history and Sasanian rule. Building upon recent scholarship, Simcha Gross portrays a more immanent model of Sasanian rule, within and against which Jews invariably positioned and defined themselves. Babylonian Jews realized their traditions, teachings, and social position within the political, social, religious, and cultural conditions generated by Sasanian rule.