18 May, 2023

We are deeply honoured to welcome Professor James McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Butler University, USA, to lead a session of the International Interfaith Reading Group on Manuscripts in Interfaith Contexts.

Here are the details of this fascinating session.

Topic: Mandaeans: A Minority on the Move and their Manuscripts

Abstract: The Mandaeans are the last surviving Gnostic group to make it from ancient times down to the present day. Their historic homelands of Iraq and Iran have not been consistently hospitable to religious minorities, leading to a significant diaspora. While sometimes categorized as a “people of the book” alongside Jews and Christians in the Islamic world (as the Sabians mentioned in the Qur’an), manuscripts play a different role in Mandaeism than they do in Judaism or Christianity. For laypeople the focus of the religion is baptism (regular immersion in the flowing water of a river), while it is priests who alone normally possess and pass on esoteric knowledge via not only books but scrolls, some of them lavishly illustrated. Thanks to anthropologist Ethel Stefana Drower, who got to know members of the community in Iraq, one of the best collections of Mandaean manuscripts anywhere in the world is to be found in Oxford, in the Bodleian Library’s Drower Collection. This talk will introduce you to the Mandaeans, their migrations past and present, and their fascinating manuscripts, in particular those located in Oxford.

FREE Download: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/1065/

Speaker: Professor James McGrath, Senior Fellow of the Oxford Interfaith Forum, and Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Butler University, USA.

Chair: Dr Estara Arrant, Fellow of the Oxford Interfaith Forum, and Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, UK.

Date: 18 May, 2023

Time: 18:00-19:00 BST | 19:00-20:00 CEST | 10:00-11:00 PDT | 13:00-14:00 EDT

Venue: Online

After registering, you will receive a Zoom email containing information about joining the meeting. If you do not see the zoom email in your inbox, please, check your spam folder.

If you would like to join the International Interfaith Reading Group on Manuscripts in Interfaith Contexts please, register HERE.

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  Serendipitous Manuscripts: Karma Pakshi’s Memoirs, Past Lives, and Poetry
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Recordings of Past Sessions