I'll have to dig a little more to find a better resource, but here's what Google turned up about the Mandeans (it's from a longer tract about John the Baptist.)
"Today in southern Iraq and in Iran there is a small sect of 20 to 30 thousand members known as the Mandaeans (Man-DE-uns) who claim to be followers of John the Baptist. They seem to have been an offshoot of second century Christianity. They were apparently influenced by Persian ideas and departed from orthodox Christianity. Their allegiance is more to John the Baptist than to Jesus."
The Mandeans were on my mind this morning. The last I heard, the ethnographers who had lived among them have not been in touch with them since the last Gulf War, in the early 90s, and their fate remains uncertain.
More on the Mandeans:
Their beliefs
Their gnostic, heretical leanings
Comments (1)
BBC News has them being mistreated in Australian camps where asylum seekers are interned.
Posted by Anonymous | May 28, 2003 5:29 PM
Posted on May 28, 2003 17:29