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APPENDIX
1
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~ Life
& Times of Yeshu the Nazorean
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Source Documents
- The ancient scrolls of the Order
The Dositheans are a Gnostic religious sect
which sprang up in the first century; so called because they believed that
Dosith’eus had a divine mission superior to that of prophets and apostles.
Dositheus was a Samaritan Heresiarch who broke from the legitimate Nazorean
Stream headed by Yeshu after the death of John. The Clementine literature
speaks of this Dosithius being the teacher of Simon Magus. (Dositheos is
the Greek version of names such as Dosa, Dostai, Dusis or Dustan.)
Epiphanius tells us that the Dositheans were
a sect which began in the time of the Maccabees and called God only Elohim
not Yehouah or Lord. They rejected the normal dates of festivals, insisted
that every month had thirty days and that members should bathe every day.
More accurately, Dosith’eus became the head of a breakoff branch of the
Nazoreans which predated the Macabees. A fourteenth century Arab
source confirms Epiphanius, but adds that this sect lived near Jerusalem
and were prosecuted by the High Priest. Origen states that "Dositheus the
Samaritan, after the time of Jesus, wished to persuade the Samaritans that
he himself was the Messias prophesied by Moses" (Contra
Celsum, VI, ii)
In a desire to be the leader of his own sect,
Dositheos probably rejected Yeshu after Yohanna's death and set up his
own school from whence came Simon Magus and the later Mandaeans who were
known as Dosithians by certain Arab historians several centuries later.
This would explain why the Mandaeans of Mohammed's time redacted
the older Nazorean texts and interpolated into them certain criticisms
of Yeshu and Mohammed.
Zazai d-Gawazta, son of Hawa
272 AD: This is the date associated with one
of the earliest known Mandaean copyists named Zazai d-Gawazta, son of Hawa.
Zazai d-Gawazta is considered by the Order of O:N:E: to be the founder
of modern Mandaeanisn, being the main link between them and earlier Dosithean
Nazoreanism that resulted from a breakoff branch of Christian Nazoreanism
during the first century A.D. These Dosithean Sabians (Sabeans, Sabaeans)
are mentioned in several Bahai writings.
“...when after the martyrdom of the
son of Zachariah some of his followers did not turn to the Manifestation
of the All-Merciful, that is Jesus and strayed from the way of the Unity
of God. They still dwell on earth and are known by some as the Sabeans..”
Zazai is the earliest copyist of the: The Thousand
and Twelve Questions, Alma Risaia Zuta, Diwan Masbuta d-Hibil Ziwa, Qolasta,
and he is mention in the Abahatan Qadmaiia. The language at this time represents
a fully developed Babylonian-Aramaic idiom and a poetic skill that has
never been match or surpassed in any later Mandaean literature. The classical
period ends with the redaction of the Ginza in the first Muslim century.
600's AD: After Zazai came the copyist Ramuai
son of Qaimat from the Tib lived who seems to have redacted many earlier
writings and possibly interpolated the negatie remarks therein concerning
Christ. This period is known as the Post Classical Mandaic. There is evidence
that there is still the classical Mandaic being spoken but already the
written literature show the introduction of Arab words and Islamic influences
after 639 AD: The Ginza was once again redacted during this time.
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