DeConick A.D

331
PLEASANTVILLE RELIGIONS
In her priestly role, Miriai is regarded as a vine or great tree that shelters
birds who wish to nest. Her fruit provides the birds with sustenance.
Anush comes and sits in her branches as a white eagle, teaching the birds
to join up with Miriai and stay with her no matter what happens. He tells
them that he is a great ‘uthra from the realm of light, come to heal Miriai
and her converts via water baptism, which will raise up their souls. He is
the voice of life, rousing them from sleep. He baptizes Miriai in the running
waters of the Jordan, establishing her baptism as the model for the
religion’s baptismal practices.
During his time in Jerusalem, Anush is said to convert three hundred
and sixty-five people to his way. These converts preach about the Lord of
Glory and then are killed by the Jews, who do not believe them. Because
the Jews scoff at Miriai and persecute her people, Anush the eagle takes
punitive flight over the city. As punishment, Anush destroys the Temple,
sets fire to Jerusalem, and decimates the city’s population. When Anush is
finished, he ascends to the realm of light. Miriai’s people abandon the city
and migrate east into Persian territories. There, she is pictured sitting on
a throne at the mouth of the Euphrates river with a white priestly banner
next to her, a sacred scroll in her lap, a priestly belt wrapped around her
waist, and a staff in her hand that commands the living waters. People bow
before her as she teaches them about the God she has come to know, a
God who is not YHWH (Book of John 35).
What are we to make of this story, especially given that, in later Mandaean
memory, Anush is not Jesus but Jesus’ rival? And that Miriai is
understood by the Mandaeans to be Mary, Jesus’ mother, not a visionary
and priest of a new religion? And that Jesus is a lapsed Mandaean, a false
prophet, whereas his teacher John the Baptist is the real deal? What this
points to is change. The Mandaean religion today is not what it was when
it started. Like all religions with a long history, Mandaeism has shifted to
accommodate and respond to the needs, experiences, and desires of its
people.
Nazoraean Gnostics
So what did Mandaeism look like when it first started, before Jesus lapsed
and Miriai became Mary his mother, before John the Baptist became an
essential prophet in the Mandaean bid to convince Muslim authorities of