Talk:Manichaeism/Comments

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I give this article a "B" rating. While a number of scholarly paragraphs have been added here and there, it does not compare to the excellent article found under Zoroastrianism for example, which is in its entirety maintained by people who have fairly authoritative scholarly knowlege of Zoroastrianism.

The problem is that this article on Manichaeism got off to a bad start with people with little or no knowlege of the subject (who openly admit it, nonetheless!), attempting to create and contribute to the article. (View the talk section of the article to see the discussions about having to look up things that would be common knowlege to any Manichaean scholar or informed student of Manichaeism). Some sections of the article are written from a viewpoint completely lacking in any comprehensive linguistic or historical understanding of the phenomenon of Manichaeism. Additionally, the original article was cut and pasted from other internet sites, which were using outdated public domain material over 50 years old.

To solve this problem, people should not contribute to this article unless they have read and thoroughly understood at least a few recent scholarly books/outlines of Manichaeism, and additionally, are familiar with the textual problems of reading at least one of the Manichaean writings in its source - whether it be in Latin, Coptic, Greek, Syriac, Middle Persian, Soghdian, Turkish, or Chinese, or at least a secondary source, such as Latin, Greek, Modern Persian, or Arabic. Jimhoward72 11:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is an excellent place to start:

• Manicheism Complete Manichaean bibliography and selection of source texts in PDF format.Jimhoward72 11:08, 6 May 2007 (UTC)