Alpha Christianity Discussion Memorandum

The Date of the Mandaean Departure from Jerusalem

Reflections on Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, The Great Stem of Souls (2010 ed) 1
E Bruce Brooks

General. Buckley’s work, a report of research on scribal colophons in Mandaean texts, concludes convincingly
that (a) the scribal tradition itself is older than the Islamic period, and the literature was thus not created to qualify
the Mandaeans as a “people of a book” under Islam (p15; (b) the earliest datable Mandaean scribe is from c200
(p272); (c) the priestly tradition is not late and degenerate, as some have thought, but relatively early; (d) John the
Baptist legends occur mostly but not always in late material; in any case, the separation of early from later material
in a given text is still in its infancy; (e) the legend of departure from Jerusalem deserves consideration as possibly
historical; and contrariwise (f) the claim that the Mandaeans are of eastern origin is not firmly established.
I here take up the possibility that the legend of departure from Jerusalem has a factual basis, and argue for a
slightly later date than the one suggested by Buckley.
1. Ardban (Artabanus of Parthia, p296f).The legend of emigration from Palestine tells how the Mandaeans
left Jerusalem because of persecution from the Jews. Geographical names in the Haran Gawaita text are subject
to multiple interpretations, but it seems that Media was one area inhabited by the Mandaeans. HG: “over them was
King Ardban.” Numismatics shows that there were four (not, as had been supposed, five) Arsacid kings named
Ardban (p296). One possibility is Ardban II (formerly III; ruled c11-38). He was involved in conflicts between
Babylonians, Syrians, and Jews, and “never had anything to do with Palestine, and therefore could not have helped
the Mandaeans flee the Jews from that locale” (p297). But the HG sentence may merely mean that he gave them
refuge once they reached his territory. “It is much more likely that Ardban aided the Mandaeans to security across
the Tigris during the revolts in the mid to late 30s” (p297). Ardban III (r 79-81) “ruled too briefly to be involved
with any Palestinian Mandaeans” (p297), but the time needed for any Ardban to help refugees cross into his
territory need not be long. HG adds that the Mandaeans “abandoned the Sign of the Seven and went to Media, a
place where we were free from domination by all other races” (Drower, Haran Gawaita 3). This need not mean
that the Mandaeans had “abandoned Judaism before they departed for Media” (p298), merely that the move freed
them from persecution by the Jews. Such persecution would be a reasonable motive for their departure.
One form taken by Jewish persecution of Christians was the addition, sometime after the destruction of the
Temple, of a 19th to the 18 Benedictions (the Birkat ha-Minim; now the 12th Benediction); a group of prayers
recited thrice daily. It pronounces a curse on the minim (sectarians) and Notzrim (Nazoreans, or Christians). The
prayer is thought by some (though this is contested) to derive from the Pharisees who were dominant at Jamnia,
and who in Gospel tradition were doctrinally opposed to Baptists and Christians alike. The definitive separation
of Jews and Christians is the theme of Acts II (for other reasons it must be post-70; it consists of Ac 15:36-28:31
plus some insertions into Acts I and the Gospel of Luke). Acts II was known to Ephesians, Ephesians to 1 Peter,
and 1 Peter to 1 Clement (c96). If these points are evenly spaced (a first approximation) from 70 to 96, we reach
a date of c79 for Acts II, and a date somewhat before that (but after 70; say c77, or eight years earlier than Torrey)
for the Birkat ha-Minim, whatever its origin within Judaism. Rejection of the Christians from Jewish fellowship
is mentioned in John 16:2 (“put you out of their synagogues”). If the Mandaeans were included in this curse (which
clearly had a wider scope than just Christians, and may have been aimed at all Messianic Jewish sects), this would
be a reason to leave. A departure at this time could have brought them to Media by c79, in the reign of Ardban III.
2. Gnostic. The name Mandaean means “Gnostic,” and the most active beliefs of the Mandaeans are certainly
in this direction. When are Gnostic elements first visible in the Christian record? Answer: In the post-Apostolic
period (Colossians, Ephesians, the Pastorals, the Johannine literature). Canonical NT texts reveal influence from
what we may recognize as Gnostic ideas, but also express a heated polemic against what they call Gnosticism (see
for example the generalized attack in 1Tim 4:1-5). Those symptoms of doctrinal differences are not visible in
earlier NT texts. We know that there were also purely Jewish forms of Gnosticism, and as Jews, the Mandaeans
may have been influenced by them as well. If the Mandaeans acquired their Gnostic ideas in Palestine, then
doctrinal opposition may have been a factor in their departure. The dates for Christian witnesses to Gnosticism
seem to independently support the post-70 date proposed above (on other grounds) for that departure.

1
The author advises me that the 2010 edition supersedes the still widely available 2006 edition.
 3. Jerusalem. That the Mandaean home in Palestine was Jerusalem agrees with Christian evidence that John,
though he is said to have attracted hearers from far away, preached only in the vicinity of Jerusalem. The Gospel
of John adds the place name Aenon “near Salim.” Its identification is disputed (Albright prefers a group of springs
in Samaria), but given John 3:26 “across the Jordan”), was probably in Perea (cf John 1:28), nearer the Jerusalem
area, and along a possible route of a migration from Jerusalem to Media. Was Perea still remembered in John (c95)
as a Baptist center, and thus perhaps a temporary abode of the departing Jerusalem Mandaeans (c78)?
4. Apostasy. “I suggest that the Mandaean views of Jesus as an apostate Mandaean can be explained as a
mythologized elaboration with a historical core” (p307). That Jesus began as a member, quite possibly a favored
member, of the John movement is clear in the Synoptics, though the importance of John for Jesus is progressively
reduced and attenuated in each succeeding Gospel. It might be better to say that Jesus was an apostate Johnite, with
the Mandaeans being themselves, though here taking the Johnite viewpoint, were themselves sectarian Johnites.
With that qualification, some Mandaean legends would seem to give us a John-eye view (and a hostile view it is)
of the early Jesus movement. My working model is thus six parallel streams of tradition:
• Jews, including a wide doctrinal range, and generally affected by Iranian dualism after the Exile
• Jewish Gnostics, from early in the 1st century or perhaps even before
• Baptist followers, from c25, originally including Jesus
• Jesus followers, from c28, regarded as apostates by at least some in the John movement
• Baptist Gnostic sectarians, from c70, these being the proto-Mandaeans
• Jesus followers of Gnostic persuasion, also from c70, regarded as heretical by their colleagues.
5. Baptism. “John emphasized repentance, purity, and preparation for the end of the world. None of these
themes formed part of the Jewish proselyte baptism, according to Lichtenberger (Täuferproblematik 56 and n83).
In short, John does not fit easily into any known Jewish religious framework” (p307f). But there are other versions
of baptism than initiatory proselyte baptism, and John may fit into previous Jewish purification traditions. Baptism
as an entry ritual may be a later, perhaps a Christian, development, later imitated in Judaism. The Mandaeans, who
use baptismas cleansing from defilement or error (as in a priestly recitation), would then be within Johannine
limits, and perhaps also, on this point, within Jewish ones. In this sense, baptism in all branches of the John
movement may have become a point of difference from the Christians (who, from about the year 44, increasingly
interpreted it as emblematic of Jesus’s death) and the Jews (who, especially after 70, seem to have systematically
opposed any Messianic tendencies). This would explain the hostility of the Mandaeans to both the Christians and
the Jews. It would also tend to date the separation of the Mandaeans from Palestinian influences to a later decade
than the 30s, as would be required by the Ardban II hypothesis.
6. East. Buckley notes that “the early locales in Media associated with the Mandaeans are on the trade routes,
tied to the Silk Road. This obvious point has never been used in the debate about Mandaean early history, but it
is important. The wealth of Mandaean literary traditions may have developed in Media, where Zoroastrian
materials were strong, Jewish traditions would certainly be present from the western side, and pagan influences
pervasive” (p314). To these may be added India under King Gundaphor (p296), or Gundaphorus, an Indo-Parthian
king who also figures in the Acts of Thomas. I note that all these influences, save the Zoroastrian (other than in
a general Iranian dualism form, which had been present in Judaism since the Exile, and was developed in Jewish
Gnosticism), were visible, not in the earliest Christianity (early layers of Mark, the Didache) but in second
generation Christian materials (Matthew and Luke, the latter of which also includes recognizable Chinese motifs).
It is noticeable that the Gospel of Thomas, which may combine Gnostic and Indian elements, is secondary to the
Synoptics (mostly extant not long after 70), but unaware of John (complete by c95). That is, the trade route passing
through Antioch may have been very effective in bringing together these exotic ingredients, and in the formation,
as well as the influence, of such thought trends as Gnosticism.
Summary. The general drift of the above reflections is to suggest the presence, in post-70 Palestine and the
part of Syria directly north of it, of some elements visible in later Mandaean tradition, thus permitting a hypothesis
of early origin of at least some of those elements in Mandaeism. That many of these elements were in turn
controversial in Palestine at that time, in some cases drawing reprisals from votaries of other doctrines, gives an
intelligible reason for the departure of the Mandaeans from Jerusalem, and brings the likely date of that departure
within manageable distance of the reign of Ardban III.
The traces of Baptist movement influences on early Christianity are many, some of them obvious (they are
explicit in the 1st century Christian texts), and others becoming slightly more clear when seen in a Mandaean light.
For that side of the coin, see the John the Baptist page at the Alpha site.