Manichaean Universalism and Religious Pluralism in Late Antique Iran

The Workshop in Late Antiquity presents
"Manichaean Universalism and Religious Pluralism in Late Antique Iran"

A lecture by Jason BeDuhn, Northern Arizona University
October 5 2010
Texas Union, Lone Star Room (3.208)

The gradual recovery of primary sources from the extinct Manichaean religion is helping us to fill in the religious landscape of late antiquity between Rome and India.  We are discovering a dynamic world of religious encounter and exchange, in which the Manichaeans positioned themselves self-consciously by both challenging and appropriating prior traditions.  Newly deciphered sources, such as the Chester Beatty Kephalaia from Egypt, reveal Manichaean engagement with Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, as well as Christianity, and articulate the religion’s universalist solution to this pluralistic religious environment.