Ginza Rba (The Great Treasure) and Qulasta: The Mandaean Liturgical Prayer Book, Book 1: Sidra d Nismata (Book of Souls).

• Author: Mogenstern, Matthew
• Position: Reviews of Books

Ginza Rba (The Great Treasure). Edited by MAJID FANDI AL-MUBARAKI, HAITHIM MAHDI SAAED, and BRIAN MUBARAKI. Sidney: MAJID FANDI AL-MUBARAKI, n.d. $265.

Qulasta: The Mandaean Liturgical Prayer Book, Book 1: Sidra d Nismata (Book of Souls). Edited by MAJID FANDI AL-MUBARAKI, HAITHIM MAHDI SAAED, and BRIAN MUBARAKI. Sidney: MAJID FANDI AL-MUBARAKI, n.d.

The volumes under review are somewhat unusual subjects for an academic journal, in that they are neither the result of modern critical scholarship, nor published by an academic press. However, owing to their historical importance, it is worth taking note of their appearance, and passing some comment on their contribution to the fields of Semitic and religious studies.

The two volumes in question are the first printed publications of the Mandaic community, the only surviving Gnostic sect, whose written works provide the richest source of Gnostic literature in a Semitic language. Although academic study of the Mandaeans and their literature is not new, it has tended to be sporadic and concentrated in the hands of a few specialist scholars. The philological groundwork for the modern academic study of Mandaic literature was laid by two great Semitists, Noeldeke and Lidzbarski, and in more recent years Mandaic studies have been particularly associated with the names of Rudoph Macuch and Kurt Rudolph. Unique among observers of the Mandaeans was Lady E. Drower, whose personal relationship with Mandaean communities in Iran and Iraq led to her classic study of their rituals, and allowed her access to many writings previously unavailable to Western scholars. Drower's collection is now held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Drower also collaborated with Macuch in producing a Mandai c dictionary.

The vast majority of recent publications of Mandaic texts have been the work of Drower. These publications usually contain a brief introduction, an English translation of the text with occasional philological footnotes, and a photographic reproduction of the manuscript. These facsimiles are often difficult to read, either because the original writing was small and clumsy, failing to distinguish between similar letters, or because the reproduction is of poor quality and much of the writing is blurred. In those editions in which the facsimile is accompanied by a transcription, the transcription is always in Roman letters. Moreover, Drower never published an edition of the Ginza, for which the only critical text...