Sunday, August 4, 2024

Charles G. Häberl and James F. McGrath on the Date of Composition of the Mandaean Book of John

  

Date of Composition

 

The earliest manuscript of the Book of John is Codex Sabéen 10, which was copied by Zehrun bar ādam in Basra, on October 13, 1616 CE. That copy was already in its thirtieth generation, according to Zehrun’s reckoning. Lidzbarski notes that the hand of the first 16 pages (from the dedication to ln. 24 of chapter 4) and the late 4 pages (lns. 35-51 of chapter 76) is different from that of the remainder of the manuscript, which he claims to be older. Clearly, the original text on which these copies were based must have been much composed much earlier, but how much earlier? Jorunn Buckley’s study of these colophons (lists of scribes who had made previous copies of the manuscript suggest that the transmission of the text can be traced back to the early Islamic period.

 

It may be that the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts led to the current relative neglect of Mandaean sources. When one has manuscripts from the fourth century, manuscript copies which date from the seventeenth century—more than a millennium more recent—may seem less significant. Yet the Book of John is clearly much more ancient than our oldest manuscripts. This would seemingly fit the claim that the Mandaeans produced a book (as opposed to scrolls, the format of many other Mandaean texts) around the time of the rise of Islam in the region, in order to secure their status as a “people of the book.”

 

The contents of the Book of John cannot, however, have been composed in a single time period. The text itself is eclectic, bringing together materials from multiple sources. (Charles G. Häberl and James F. McGrath, “Prefatory Remarks,” in The Mandaean Book of John: Critical Edition, Translation, and commentary [Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020], 4-5)

 


To Support this Blog:

 

Paypal

Venmo

Amazon Wishlist