A Mandæan Bibliography

Extract

The collection of Mandæan religious texts known as the Ginza Rba (Rabba) or Sidra d Adam (The Great Treasure, Book of Adam) was not the first Mandæan book to reach Europe, but was the first to be translated. It was transliterated into Syriac and translated into Latin by Dr. Matthew Norberg (1815–16). In 1925, using the German Dr. Petermann's facsimile of the text (published in 1867) for reference, and with access to various copies of the sacred codex in European libraries, Mark Lidzbarski produced a fine and scholarly translation (Göttingen; Vandenhoeck and Rupprecht, 1925). It had been preceded by his translations of the Draša d Ydhia (Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer: Töpelmann, 1915) and a selection from the 'niania (Mandäische Liturgien: Berlin, 1920), both with transliterations in Hebrew script.