Crazy how two projects I’m currently working on “converge” in such a way, between the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon and the Mandiac Book of John. 🙂

August 02, 2010 via Biblical Archaeology Review

“The Israel Science Foundation will be funding a three-year research project to transcribe and study the unpublished manuscripts of the Mandaic culture. Mandaean religious texts were written in a dialect of Eastern Aramaic, which is very grammatically similar to Jewish Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud. Mandaeans are the last surviving Gnostic religious group and can be traced back to the Talmudic period; political problems over the past few decades have threatened the continued existence of this ancient culture.

The Mandiac texts themselves will be kept in Israel, but they will be digitized through the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. This will be the first time the texts will be made accessible to the public. They will eventually be made into a dictionary of the Mandaic language.”

Peace,
-Steve