The Ginza Rba - The Mandaean Scriptures, part of a vast collection of materials dealing with Gnosis and Gnosticism, both ancient and modern. The site includes . Mandaeans’ holy book the “Ginza Rba”. The Ginza names this tractate as raza usidra qadmaia d-Suta haita qadmaita “The Mystery and the First Book of the First. The Ginza Rabba or Great Treasure is Mandaeans’ largest collection of religious principles and instructions. According to their beliefs, the Ginza was the first.

Although Mandaeans neglected to document their history and raabba lost much of their oral traditions, they were quite eager to keep their religious heritage by copying their manuscripts. They therefore adopted strict regulations for copying their sacred manuscripts, to maintain and preserve them from one generation to the next.

According to their beliefs, the Ginza was the first revelation of God to Adam and thus considered as their holy book. As unique as these people are, their holy book is specially arranged: The way of binding gizna volumes together is very particular and used by the Mandaeans only for this book. The Ginza Rabba varies in its contents and deals with spiritual, even metaphysical aspects.

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It also deals with the mortal life of human beings and describes ancient visions concerning life after death. Generally, the Ginza Rabba represents consecutively the principles of the Mandaean doctrine: God therefore sent the saviour to protect the soul, along with messengers to guide the people to a pious life according to His will.

When the soul completes its predestined lifespan, the saviour will come to accompany it back from the body to its origins, whereupon it has to pass through several stations of purification. In more recent times, Mandaeans have been facing serious difficulties in reading and understanding the Ginza Rabba, and explaining its contents to their children and neighbors because of its original Mandaic language. In the past, there were several serious attempts to translate the Ginza Rabba into foreign languages by scholars as part of their studies of Mandaean religion.

Then the German scholar Wilhelm Brandt attempted to translate the whole book into German, but only published some portions in His colleague Mark Lidzbarski produced the first translation of the whole book into German in Other scholars included in their publications some passages translated into English, usually relying upon the German version.

Despite these considerable efforts, Mandaeans were unable to use these editions in Iraq and Iran due to the unfamiliarity of German and Latin there.

Ginza Rba - WikiVisually

As the result of an increasing need to have a comprehensible Ginza in Iraq, the headship finza the Mandaeans decided to translate the Ginza Rabba into Arabic. Since the last quarter of the twentieth century, the Mandaeans have been forced to leave their homelands. They have escaped to many countries, so that three-quarters of them are now living in the Diaspora. Due to their emigration to foreign countries, the new generation of Mandaeans is becoming fully integrated into their new societies.

However, they have to sustain their identity by means of understanding their own religion and presenting their faith to other interested people. As a result of this, it became necessary to translate the Ginza Rabba into English, so that coming fabba will maintain their religious education in a language which is of common use. Even though this edition represents a translation of the meaning, reflecting the intentions behind the original text rather than a literal translation, we were quite careful and attentive towards conveying the spiritually worded text from its Mandaic origins to an understandable language.

The Ginza Rabba should be easily read and understood by everyone; our aim is to make its ancient heritage coherent with modern usage, so that readers are not confused.

This project was according to the permission and supervision of Rishema Sattar Jabbar Hillo the head of the Mandaeans in the world and Rishema Salah Jabbar Tawos the head of the Mandaeans in Australia.

I would like to thank them for involving me in this important project. The Mandaeans of Iraq Since Rate this item 1 2 3 4 5 12 votes.

Ginza Rabba

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