Talk:Mani (prophet)

message: The article on Mani says, 'He [Mani] later claimed to be the Paraclete promised in the New Testament, the Last Prophet or Seal of the Prophets, finalizing a succession of men guided by God, which included figures such as Seth, Noah, Abraham, Shem, Nikotheos, Enoch, Zoroaster, Hermes, Plato, Buddha and Jesus.' I am not sure what evidence there is that Mani considered Hermes or Plato prophets. I suggest that this claim be either supported with a reference or else deleted (I've raised the same issue on the Manichaeism talk page). Skoojal (talk) 07:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Hermes and Plato?

message: The statement in the main text:
: "his name to Mani (from "Manes" in Persian, meaning "discourse")."
does not make sense to me! I have consulted various dictionaries (Dehkhoda for modern Persian and various dictionaries on Avestan, Old Persian and Middle Persian) but have proved unable to find any word resembling "Manes". The word "Munes" (companion, friend) does exist in Modern Persian, as well as the verb "Mānestan" (to resemble). In English we have the Latin word "Manes" which according to OED means: "The deified souls of departed ancestors (as beneficent spirits; ...). Also, the spirit, `shade' of a departed person, considered as an object of homage or reverence, or as demanding to be propitiated by vengeance." In short, I am unable to connect "Mani" with the supposedly "Persian" word "Manes", meaning apparently "discourse". The closest that I have been able to get is to the Avestan word "ąnmā", meaning "spirit", "breath", and the Old Persian word "manā", meaning "I". --BF 01:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: On "Manes"

message: I'm not sure what the point is of having a 'Mani in fiction' section. Plenty of novels have been written about Jesus, but the article on Jesus has no section about fiction. Skoojal (talk) 09:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mani in fiction 

message: The article says, 'Mani was an exceptionally gifted child and he inherited his father's mystic temperament.' I have added a citation needed tag for this, but really, I wonder whether it shouldn't just be removed altogether. Obviously there is no way of knowing what kind of temperament Mani may or may not have inherited. For that matter, how can one know for sure that he was an 'exceptionally gifted child'? Skoojal (talk) 23:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unprovable claims 

message: Much of the material in the section I've retitled Legacy seems to over-lap with what can be found in the main article on Manichaeism, so I wonder whether it should be deleted. Skoojal (talk) 23:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legacy 

message: Recently, a 'please expand this article' notice was added to the article. I don't think that expanding the article is the first thing that needs to be done. On the contrary, I think it should be made even shorter, to cut back on repetition. After that, it needs to be properly sourced. Then bit by bit it can be expanded. Skoojal (talk) 21:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expand article? 

message: mani born in iraq he is not persian !
and also Zartcht hes not persians !
:unless Mani was able to be born after 1919 before travelling to the 3rd century, it would have been extremely difficult for him to be "Iraqi". --dab (𒁳) 11:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  mani iraqi not persian 

message: http://books.google.com/books?id=ThDJMif8T5sC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=seal+of+the+prophets+mani&source=web&ots=M1E84ReYFV&sig=4o9_dksWN7d9zRYayytfWhIk2tk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA237,M1
^^read footnote number 3 which shows that the terms "seal of prophets" which is clearly islamic in origin is not found in any Manicheanism document.
If anything the seal of prophets was a latter term borrowed from the islamic tradition and incorporated by Mani's followers  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.238.191.48 (talk) 18:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If we take the term "seal of the prophets" to have a very specific meaning:, i.e., that Mani saw himself as the last in a series of prophets going back to Adam, then we can hardly quibble with its conclusion, as he certainly did see himself in this way. I presume that this is what Al-Bīrūnī would have meant by using this title for Mani. If anything, it would have been Muhammad that was inspired by Mani to make this very claim for himself, just as he also claimed to be the promised Paraclete. Algabal (talk) 23:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seal of Prophets 

message: This article needs to be cleaned up.  It seems every sentence start with "Mani."  It would flow better if the author used a pronoun once in a while.  That and short, choppy sentences detract from the main point.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.14.181.49 (talk) 14:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mani, Mani, Mani 

message: How to pronounce his name? Does it sound like 'money'? please, somebody, add the pronounciation. 
Thanks.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.58.149.33 (talk) 18:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can you say Mani kids? 

message: Needs to be completely re-written from the ground up with proper sources, spelling, grammar, historical accuracy, etc. This is honestly the worst article I've ever seen on Wikipedia. I began to make edits myself but realized the futility very quickly. Right around the un-sourced sections regarding Mani's 3 facets of Jesus, the article turns to shit. Almost that entire section is just someone wildly speculating then tacking on a source link from a much earlier edit to lend credence. This article was - sadly, I must add -  my introduction to Mani. So I wouldn't be the best person to undertake a re-writing of the article. Yet if an authority on Mani could do so, it would greatly aid this article. I'd be happy to help re-vise/re-format, if English is not the primary language of the editor(s).
::I don't know if you'll visit this page back someday. You should know, I think you're right Mr. IP. We can start with deleting sentences linked to no source. I've already deleted some. --SeyitCmesaj 19:09, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terrible article, rewrite! 

message: No source for his "specific" ethnicity? Which Iranian ethnicity? Was he Parthian or Persian? --Zyma (talk) 00:20, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  His ethnicity: Which Iranian group? 

message: The evidence from this source on Manichaeism is not incorporated into the discussions presented in the article. It is probably more important than the Medieval Muslim sources, all of which are of a later date, and were written by Arabic speakers who almost certainly had no access to the Syriac sources. This is of great importance, because Mani wrote in Syriac. 
The dating of the Book of the Scholia is uncertain, but was composed either in the late 8th or in the 9th century. Book Eleven contains a short biography of Mani as well as a synopsis of Manichaean doctrine, written from a sharply critical point of view, but nevertheless corroborating much of the information found in other sources, including the Cologne Mani Codex. Of importance is that Theodore quotes, or claims to quote, an original text by Mani. Of interest is that the names for the divine beings in Theodore's quoted source are all Aramaic, and have no relation with Persian or Iranian Zoroastrianism. Since Mani composed six of his seven works in Syriac, a major dialect of Aramaic, one can safely conclude that this lengthy quotation preserved in the Book of the Scholia is authentic, or nearly so.
The critical edition of the Liber Scholion, made by Addai Scher and published in  is available online; the relevant sections begin here:
https://archive.org/stream/liberscholiorumt00theo#page/311/mode/2up. 
A bibliography of the editions of other recensions may be found here:
http://roger-pearse.com/wiki/index.php?title=Theodore_bar_Koni
Am English translation of the relevant sections on Mani may be found in: A.V.W. Jackson, Researches in Manichaeism, New York, 1932, pp. 222–54.
There is a French translation of Addai Scher's edition: Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium vol. 448, Peeters, 1983.
There is to date no English translation of the entire Book of the Scholia.
Thank you for reading!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.162.75.209 (talk) 06:32, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theodore bar Konai, Book of the Scholia 

message: His mother (Mariam) was of Armenian descent, from the Armenian Arsacid family of Kamsarakan.
Kamsarakan (Armenian: Կամսարական) was an Armenian noble family that began as an offshoot of the Karen-Pahlav Clan, a Hellenistic-Era Armenian house, descended by the fusion of an Arsacid branch with the Karen, one of the seven great houses of Parthia. Leo Freeman (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 23:47, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mother - Armenian origin 

message: I replaced the previous image of Mani with one depicting the prophet in a Manichaean work of art, since the pervious one appears to be an original drawing posted by a user in 2007, but that drawing doesn't seem to have any historical basis. I don't think this is a perfect solution, and if anyone can find a more accurate depiction of Mani please let me know or go ahead and replace the image I just used. Bagabondo (talk) 04:09, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The new image looks much better than the previous one. --Wario-Man (talk) 07:30, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  A proper image of Mani