Ezra's Followers
The URANTIA Book teaches about Ezra, an apparently leading disciple of John the Baptist who refused to accept Jesus. With John's other disciples, Ezra heard John proclaim Jesus "the Son of God, the deliverer of the world!" when Jesus entered the Jordan camp after his baptism and subsequent forty days of momentous decision making in the hills (1505-1506). The next day, Ezra led a group of John's disciples from the camp amid great conflict, maintaining that Jesus could not be as their teacher said, else he should have come "in power and Glory" as the prophet Daniel had foretold. Hurrying south, Ezra and his followers continued to baptize in John's name but steadfastly rejected Jesus. According to The URANTIA Book, a remnant of this cult survives in Mesopotamia today (1526).
The Mandaeans
In the marshes at the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers lives a sect of people who baptize in the name of John the Baptist but do not accept Jesus of Nazareth. These are the Mandaeans, or Subba, a people numbering only a few thousand in 1963. Boatbuilders and workers in gold and silver, the Mandaeans recount in legend that their origin was in Palestine. Their teacher, they say, was John the Baptist. Baptism in flowing water--which they call yardna, perhaps derived from the name Jordan--is their chief sacrament (1).
MANDAEAN PRIEST
performing baptism: total immersion plus the giving of the water to drink
The earlier title of the Mandaeans was Nazarene. Could this be a rendering of the word Nazarite? Several of the disciples of John at the Jordan camp mignt actually have been Nazarites. As a youth, John had taken the Nazarite life vows (1496:6-7). Before beginning his public ministry, he had been a member of the Nazarite colony at Engedi, convincing its members that the end of an age was at hand (1499:3). John's chief disciple was Abner, acknowledged head of the Engedi Nazarites (1497:7; 1624:3-5; 1771:6; 1817:1). John had difficulty fully fraternizing with many of the Engedi brotherhood (1497:7)--which could account for the ease with which Ezra and his followers brought themselves to disagree with their teacher on this most important point. The Mandaeans are not alone in claiming a teacher to the exclusion of his teachings. The URANTIA Book teaches that Christianity has become a religion about Jesus rather than the religion of Jesus (1543:2; 2051:4-5; 2066:6; 2091:11; 2075:2). And URANTIA Book readers, though alerted, will certainly face similar tendencies.
