I'll be honest -- I'd never heard of the Mandaeans before today. They are, however, perhaps the only remaining remnant of the ancient Gnostics. The Iraq war has led to questions about the survival of the faith in its native land -- and the dispersion of many of the faithful to other countries leads to questions about its disappearance abroad.

Among the casualties of the Iraq war is a little-known religious faith called Mandaeanism that has survived roughly two millennia and whose adherents believe that John the Baptist was their great teacher.

While there were more than 60,000 Mandaeans in Iraq in the early 1990s, only about 5,000 to 7,000 remain. Many have fled amid targeted killings, rapes, forced conversions and property confiscation by Islamic extremists, according to a report released last week by the New Jersey-based Mandaean Society of America.

For those who have an interest in the many forms of faith that man's religious nature has taken, I encourage you to look to the article cited above.

Posted by: Greg at 12:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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