Review: 1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans

Jorunn Buckley begins her book 1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans with a bold claim right in the first sentence. “The Mandaean religion can be traced back to the 1st century, directly related to John the Baptist” (p.ix). I am not sure why the next statement is to concede that this “is not the regular scholarly view” since so few scholars have made this a focus of their attention. Buckley, on the other hand, has dedicated her life to the study of this tradition, and her conclusion should carry appropriate weight. Hopefully the unique and fascinating character of Mandaean sources will once again grab the attention of a wider array of scholars. As Buckley emphasizes, they have a much more voluminous literature than any other Gnostic tradition, and their baptismal ritual is likewise complex. “Christian forms of baptism are embarrassingly short and simplified by comparison” (p. x).

Buckley’s fascinating career as the only person making the Mandaeans her primary focus is important reading for all would-be doctoral students. For everyone else, the book is worth reading for the twists and turns, such as Buckley teaching Bible at MIT (p.xii). On the one hand, this book is going to baffle those who turn to it expecting it to be a standard academic monograph. On the other hand, it will delight and fascinate those who are not looking for answers to specific questions about the Mandaeans, but who find the entire field and its history remarkable and colorful in ways that are delightful and enchanting. The former will wonder why the book begins with vignettes the first of which is about Lady Ethel Stephana Drower smuggling a couple of mongooses back to England with her. Mandaean studies is a neglected field in which areas as diverse as Orientalism, oral history, New Testament studies, Gnosticism, the antiquities trade, and textual criticism intersect. The vignettes illustrate this well.

A Review of 1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans

I know that Review of Biblical Literature prohibits me from making my recently-published review of Buckley’s book that I wrote for them freely available in its entirety, and so I decided to provide a small portion from its introduction above. Eager to share more in recommending the book, I realized that this provides a good opportunity to further evaluate NotebookLM. How would it turn my review into a blog post that provides a digest of my review? Below is what it came up with.

The Last Gnostics: 5 Surprising Truths About John the Baptist’s Possible Heirs

The Last Echo of a Lost World

When we think of the Gnostics, we imagine ancient spiritual movements and complex mythologies that vanished into history, leaving behind only fragmented texts and scholarly debates. We think of them as an intellectual puzzle, a lost world stamped out nearly two millennia ago. But what if one of these groups never disappeared?
The Mandaeans are the only ancient Gnostic group to have survived down to the present day, a living link to a world long thought extinct. A recent review of a remarkable book by Jorunn Buckley, one of the world’s leading scholars on the Mandaeans, sheds light on this unique community. But her book is not a dry academic monograph; it is an academic memoir, a deeply personal account of a lifetime of encounters.
Through her story, we discover truths that challenge our assumptions not just about the Mandaeans, but about the very nature of preserving history. Here are five surprising takeaways from her life’s work.

Takeaway 1: They Might Be John the Baptist’s Original Followers

In her book, 1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans, Jorunn Buckley makes a bold claim: “The Mandaean religion can be traced back to the 1st century, directly related to John the Baptist.” While this may contradict the widespread assumptions of generalists, such as New Testament scholars, it is a view widely held among the small circle of specialists who have dedicated their lives to the subject. As the reviewer notes, Buckley’s conclusion “should carry far more weight.”
This is a startling possibility championed by those who know the tradition best. It recasts a small, often-overlooked religious minority as the direct inheritors of the tradition founded by one of the most significant figures in Western religious history. Far from being a historical footnote, Mandaeism could represent a continuous, surviving link to the world of the Gospels.

Takeaway 2: Their Rituals and Writings are Incredibly Rich and Complex

Contrary to what one might expect from a small community with ancient roots, the Mandaean tradition is profoundly deep and intricate. As Buckley emphasizes, they possess “a much more voluminous literature than any other Gnostic tradition.”
Their core rituals are equally complex. The Mandaean baptism, which can still be observed today, is a detailed and elaborate ceremony. Buckley’s observation, highlighted by the reviewer, puts its complexity into sharp perspective: “Christian forms of baptism are embarrassingly short and simplified by comparison”
This richness in both text and ritual underscores a tradition that has been carefully maintained and passed down through centuries of tribulation.

Takeaway 3: Studying Them Requires Navigating a World of Trust and Tantalizing Clues

For scholars of major religions like Judaism or Christianity, ancient manuscripts are typically accessible in university libraries. Studying the Mandaeans is a different world entirely, one built on personal relationships and scholarly lineage. Buckley’s career serves as a bridge, connecting her work to that of the pioneering scholar Ethel Stephana Drower. She often discovered that the families she worked with had direct connections to this earlier generation of research.
Because the Mandaean community is “so small, and now so scattered,” scholars like Buckley depend on the goodwill of families who possess unique manuscripts and priceless historical memories. This is what gives her memoir its title, 1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans; through her unique study of scribal notes, or colophons, she has personally encountered the names and work of generations of Mandaeans stretching back nearly two millennia. This intimate dynamic creates “tantalizing possibilities,” such as connecting a scribe known only by a baptismal name in an ancient text to an individual known by a secular name in other historical records.

Takeaway 4: Their Heritage Is in a Race Against Time

This intimate, family-based preservation of Mandaean culture also exposes its greatest vulnerability. The tradition faces the urgent threat of accidental loss. As the community is displaced and generations change, irreplaceable historical knowledge is in constant danger of disappearing forever.
The review provides a sobering example of this risk, noting that “There have been instances of families not valuing the old manuscripts that had been passed down in their family, and tossing them in the garbage.” But the potential loss extends beyond texts. At risk are also family photos, personal heirlooms, and “of course the stories that individuals might tell if they or others take the time to record their memories.” The review is clear that the “only hope to prevent such loss… is through connections between academics and Mandaean families.”

Takeaway 5: The Scholars Who Study Them Can Literally Save Lives

The final section of Buckley’s memoir shifts from preserving history to preserving human life. It details the modern “plight of Mandaeans as refugees from their historic homelands in Iran and Iraq.” In this crisis, the role of a highly specialized academic takes on a profound new meaning.
Scholars can serve as “expert witnesses in asylum cases,” and Buckley has done so on numerous occasions. Her deep knowledge of Mandaean history, culture, and identity provides the critical evidence needed to support their claims for refuge. This reveals a powerful reality: academic work that begins with ancient manuscripts can end by protecting a living community. In some cases, this scholarship “can even literally save lives.”

Conclusion: More Than an Academic Puzzle

The story of the Mandaeans, as told through the life’s work of a dedicated scholar, is more than a niche historical investigation. It is a field where the study of the past directly intersects with the urgent modern challenges of cultural preservation, migration, and human rights.
Buckley’s work is ultimately not just a window into a fascinating religion, but an invitation—an invitation for us to recognize what scholarship can be. It challenges us to play a part, however small, in unlocking the mysteries of our shared human past and, in doing so, enriching the lives of those who carry that past into the present. It proves that the most profound histories are not just read about; they are lived, protected, and honored, one human connection at a time.

Debrief

What did you think? While based on what I wrote in my review, I still felt that this part of the blog post that NotebookLM created packed a punch:

This is a startling possibility championed by those who know the tradition best. It recasts a small, often-overlooked religious minority as the direct inheritors of the tradition founded by one of the most significant figures in Western religious history. Far from being a historical footnote, Mandaeism could represent a continuous, surviving link to the world of the Gospels.

I shared the thoughts in my review of 1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans at the AAR/SBL book review session “Recent Books About the Mandaeans” in November 2025. Another book discussed there was Sandra van Rompaey’s book Mandaean Symbolic Art, which I had been planning to review on the blog and somehow in the process wrote two blog posts about!

What did you think of what NotebookLM did with my review of Jorunn Buckley’s book 1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans published by Gorgias Press? I am especially interested to hear your opinion if you are someone who has access to the review published in Review of Biblical Literature. One of my plans for my upcoming course on “The Bible and Misinformation” is to get students to put an article into NotebookLM, read the article as well as listening to the podcast summary, and evaluate the tool. It is an extremely useful one, but it is also crucially important to recognize that sometimes you need the full treatment a book or article offers, and a summary just won’t cut it.

Here is an example of what NotebookLM provides as a podcast summary of my review of 1800 Years of Encounters with Mandaeans and I think it does an even better job of illustrating how truly useful and powerful this technology is. Its description of the antiquity of this tradition and its importance as “jaw dropping” is absolutely appropriate.

On the other hand, there are places where, in elaborating on the review, the AI conversation gets things wrong. That is also something that happens in real human podcasts at times, and so that in itself is not an absolute disqualifier of the usefulness of NotebookLM and other tools. It is just a cautionary reminder that AI does things with texts through an algorithmic process. Humans make mistakes. AI fabricates and pattern matches. Navigating information online requires understanding the limits of both AI-generated summaries and journalistic or other non-expert ones. I’m looking forward to exploring that in my class on “The Bible and Misinformation”!