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To: Destro

This fellow is a Mandaean. Mandaeans are not Christians. They are throwbacks to the Gnostics and the Mystery Religions of Hellenistic times.

They believe that John the Baptist once led their group and that Jesus was a renegade member.

They call their priests "nasurai" ("keepers of the mysteries" in Aramaic) which may be the origin of the Greek word "nazoraios" (rendered in English as "Nazarene") in the New Testament.


23 posted on 08/06/2004 9:17:47 AM PDT by Inyokern
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To: Inyokern
They call their priests "nasurai" ("keepers of the mysteries" in Aramaic) which may be the origin of the Greek word "nazoraios" (rendered in English as "Nazarene") in the New Testament.

Well, this term is applied to the priesthood of the New Testament:
"Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God."
(1Cor:4:1)

BTW, I would rather say that it was New Testament Greek which influenced Aramaic. Educated Jews/Christians of that time used Greek, especially outside of Palestine (in ALexandria or Rome). So they used Greek version of Old Testament Scriptures (Septuaginta) and so the New Testament was in Greek.

24 posted on 08/06/2004 10:08:17 AM PDT by A. Pole (Gen Ripper:"I cannot allow communist infiltration, to sap and impurify, our precious bodily fluids.")
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