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The Kentaeans were a Gnostic religious group of Mesopotamia from around the 5th century AD. They are often thought of as a Gnostic sect that is closely related to but distinct from the Mandaeans. [1]
The Kentaeans are mentioned near the end of Book 3 and at the beginning of Book 9.1 in the Right Ginza, [2] as well as in Qolasta Prayer 357. [3] : 251 The Ginza Rabba identifies the Kentaeans with Kiwan (Saturn) and criticizes them for their fasting. [2] They are also mentioned by Arab historians such as Ibn al-Malāḥimī as the Kintānīya, while aš-Šahrastānī refers to them as the Kintawīya. [1] : 41 Al-Masʿūdī briefly mentions them as the Kinṯāwīyūn. [1] : 42
References to both the Kentaeans and Mandaeans can be found in three 6th-century Syriac Christian texts, namely the Cyrus of Edessa's Explanation for the Fasts, the Acts of Symeon bar Ṣabbāʿe , and the title of a lost work by Nathaniel of Šahrazur. [1] : 26–34 Van Bladel (2017) argues that both the Mandaeans and Kentaeans likely originated during the mid or late 5th century in the Sasanian Empire. [1] : 34–36
Theodore bar Konai (c. 792 in the Book of the Scholion) considers the Mandaeans, whom he refers to as the Dostaeans, to be an offshoot of the Kentaeans. [1] : 19 Van Bladel (2017) argues that the Kentaeans (Classical Syriac : ܟܢܬܝܐ, romanized: kntyʾ), who derived their teachings from Abel, and Mandaeans are closely related to each other, and that they had become distinct from each other due to a historical schism. [1] [4] [5]
People of the Book or Ahl al-kitāb is an Islamic term referring to followers of those religions which Muslims regard as having been guided by previous revelations, generally in the form of a scripture. In the Quran they are identified as the Jews, the Christians, the Sabians, and—according to some interpretations—the Zoroastrians. Starting from the 8th century, some Muslims also recognized other religious groups such as the Samaritans, and even Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains, as People of the Book.
Mandaeans, also known as Mandaean Sabians or simply as Sabians, are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They may have been among the earliest religious groups to practice baptism, as well as among the earliest adherents of Gnosticism, a belief system of which they are the last surviving representatives today. The Mandaeans were originally native speakers of Mandaic, an Eastern Aramaic language, before they nearly all switched to Iraqi Arabic or Persian as their main language.
The Sabians, sometimes also spelled Sabaeans or Sabeans, are a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran, where it is implied that they belonged to the 'People of the Book'. Their original identity, which seems to have been forgotten at an early date, has been called an "unsolved Quranic problem". Modern scholars have variously identified them as Mandaeans, Manichaeans, Sabaeans, Elchasaites, Archontics, ḥunafāʾ, or as adherents of the astral religion of Harran. Some scholars believe that it is impossible to establish their original identity with any degree of certainty.
Mandaeism, sometimes also known as Nasoraeanism or Sabianism, is a Gnostic, monotheistic and ethnic religion with Greek, Iranian, and Jewish influences. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Noah, Shem, Aram, and especially John the Baptist. Mandaeans consider Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem and John the Baptist prophets, with Adam being the founder of the religion and John being the greatest and final prophet.
The Elcesaites, Elkasaites, Elkesaites or Elchasaites were an ancient Jewish Christian sect in Lower Mesopotamia, then the province of Asoristan in the Sasanian Empire that was active between 100 and 400 CE. The members of this sect, which originated in the Transjordan, performed frequent baptisms for purification and had a Gnostic orientation.
Asoristan was the name of the Sasanian province of Assyria and Babylonia from 226 to 637.
The Psalms of Thomas are a set of third-century psalms found appended to the end of a Coptic Manichaean psalm book, which was in turn part of the Medinet Madi library excavated in 1929. The psalms were originally published in 1938 by Charles Allberry.
Theodore Bar Konai was a distinguished Syriac exegete and apologist of the Church of the East who seems to have flourished at the end of the eighth century. His most famous work was a book of scholia on the Old and New Testaments.
The worship of heavenly bodies is the veneration of stars, the planets, or other astronomical objects as deities, or the association of deities with heavenly bodies. In anthropological literature these systems of practice may be referred to as astral cults.
In Mandaeism, Kiwan, Kiuan, or Kewan is the Mandaic name for the planet Saturn. Kiwan is one of the seven planets, who are part of the entourage of Ruha in the World of Darkness.
Cyrus of Edessa was a Syriac writer and teacher in the Church of the East. He was probably a native of Edessa. He studied at the school of Nisibis under Aba, the future patriarch, and then taught at the school of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, eventually rising to become its headmaster. He founded a monastery at Ḥirta sometime after the death of Aba (552).
The Nabataeans of Iraq or Nabatees of Iraq is a name used by medieval Islamicate scholars for the rural, Aramaic-speaking, native inhabitants of central and southern Iraq during the early Islamic period. They are not to be confused with the ancient Nabataeans, a northern Arab people who established a kingdom at Petra during the late Hellenistic period, and whom the Muslim Arabs seem to have called 'Nabataeans of the Levant'.
The Left Ginza is one of the two parts of the Ginza Rabba, the longest and the most important holy scripture of Mandaeism. The other part of the Ginza Rabba is the Right Ginza.
Mandaean cosmology is the Gnostic conception of the universe in the religion of Mandaeism.
Dinanukht is a mythological character in the Ginza Rabba, one of the main religious scriptures of Mandaeism, who is portrayed as an anthropomorphic book. Book 6 of the Right Ginza describes his ascension to the World of Light.
The Yazuqaeans are a religious group mentioned by the Mandaeans in the Ginza Rabba, the central religious text of Mandaeism.
Codex Marshall 691 is a Mandaic manuscript currently held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It is the oldest Mandaic manuscript that is currently held at a European institutional library. The contents of the manuscript remain unpublished. Its colophons have been studied in detail by Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Mandaeism.
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