Jae Han
Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and the Program for Judaic Studies
Brown University
Dr. Jae Han received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 and is currently an Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and the Program for Judaic Studies at Brown University. He is the author of the forthcoming book, “Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East,” published with Cambridge University Press. His publications have appeared in Harvard Theological Review, Journal of Late Antiquity, Numen, and others. He is interested in the potential of lesser-known forms of ancient Christianity for rethinking scholarly accounts and narratives of ancient Christianity.
Paper Title: Redescribing Christian Origins in Mesopotamia through Mani’s Letters
Abstract: Manichaean materials provide scholars with the earliest robust corpus of evidence for Christianity in Mesopotamia. At the same time, it is clear that this corpus itself is not homogeneous but reflects different moments or circles of Manichaeans following the Apostle Mani’s execution. This makes the study of Mani’s letters, which is available through the laborious work of Iain Gardner in particular, especially important for understanding the earliest development of this church. In this presentation, I suggest that these letters offer scholars an opportunity to see the growth of the Manichaean Church from the perspective of the local churches dotting the banks of Mesopotamia, rather than through the prism of Mani’s center in or near the Sasanian imperial center of Ctesiphon. When seen from their perspectives, I argue that Mani was not so much a centralized leader able to dictate the conditions or affairs of a local church from afar, but a tactical option for local clergy to settle problems of division and oppression their way. If this argument is sound, this means that the church of Mani was not “unified” even under Mani, which further suggests that Manichaean cultural and literary production should be resituated away from Mani as a historical figure and towards the largely anonymous Manichaean communities across Mesopotamia following his death.
