The Ginza Rabba, whose name means simply "the great treasure," is physically and structurally unlike almost any other major scripture: it is bound as a single volume containing two distinct works read from opposite ends toward the middle, the Right Ginza opening from what would ordinarily be the front cover and the Left Ginza opening upside down from the back, a layout Mandaean tradition ties directly to the text's own symbolism of right and left, light and its complement. The Right Ginza sets out Mandaean cosmology and theology at length, describing a supreme, transcendent World of Light from which lesser divine and angelic beings emanate, alongside an account of the material world's troubled origin and extensive ethical instruction for how Mandaeans should live in a world Mandaean cosmology regards as, in important respects, a place of exile from the light.
The Left Ginza turns to what happens after death, describing in detail the soul's ascent through a series of watchstations, cosmic checkpoints where its conduct in life is examined before it can return to the World of Light, material central to Mandaean funerary practice and to the community's broader teaching on moral accountability. Mandaeans revere John the Baptist as a central prophetic figure, and Mandaean tradition holds a complex, generally critical relationship to both Judaism and Christianity, regarding itself as a distinct, older revelation rather than a derivative of either.