Open Questions

Open Scylla and Charybdis

Why It Is Open Standard etymological reference works record both Skylla and Kharybdis as of unknown origin. Scylla's traditional folk association with skylax ("young dog") and skyllein ("to tear") fits her description but is not treated as a confirmed derivation, and no comparable folk etymology exists for Charybdis at all.

What Would Settle It A securely attested Pre-Greek or other substrate source for either name, or a phonologically sound Indo-European derivation succeeding where the traditional dog-and-tearing folk etymology for Scylla has not been confirmed as more than an apt later association.

Expertise Needed Historical and comparative Indo-European linguistics, Pre-Greek substrate studies

Question posed in Online Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper.

Open Theban

Why It Is Open The whole case for a medieval Theban script is one sentence in the Polygraphia, and that sentence has been tested. The passage Trithemius cites is not in the works of Pietro d'Abano, and the one manuscript of the Sworn Book of Honorius that carries the alphabet says it took the characters from Agrippa, who was Trithemius's own pupil, so the script travels outward from 1518 rather than into it. What that leaves is an absence: nobody has named who cut the letters, and nobody argues for a rival origin, so this is a gap in the record rather than a dispute between camps. It is one question about one script, which is why it is asked here once rather than twenty six times over the letters.

What Would Settle It A witness to the letterforms from before 1518, in the Solomonic, ars notoria or alchemical manuscript traditions, or a systematic survey of those traditions returning nothing, which would be a real answer and not a failure. Failing either, work on Trithemius's own papers establishing whether he devised the script himself.

Expertise Needed History of Renaissance occultism; codicology of late medieval Latin magical manuscripts; history of cryptography

Question posed in The Sworn Book of Honorius (Liber Iuratus Honorii), Joseph H. Peterson's edition, Honorius of Thebes; Joseph H. Peterson (ed. and trans.).

Open The Attribution of the Theban Alphabet to Honorius of Thebes

Why It Is Open The investigation established that the citation Trithemius gave cannot be traced in the works of Pietro d'Abano, and that the one Sworn Book manuscript carrying the alphabet took it from Agrippa, who had it from Trithemius. That closes the route by which the script was said to be medieval. It does not close the possibility that a witness survives somewhere unexamined, and it names nobody as the maker, so the origin of the letterforms is still an absence rather than a settled sixteenth century invention.

What Would Settle It A pre-1518 manuscript carrying the letterforms, found in the Solomonic, ars notoria or alchemical manuscript traditions, or a systematic survey of those traditions returning nothing, which would be a real answer rather than a failure. Failing either, a study of Trithemius's own working papers establishing whether he devised the script himself.

Expertise Needed History of Renaissance occultism; codicology of late medieval Latin magical manuscripts; history of cryptography

Question posed in The Sworn Book of Honorius (Liber Iuratus Honorii), Joseph H. Peterson's edition, Honorius of Thebes; Joseph H. Peterson (ed. and trans.).

Open Theban J J

Why It Is Open J was not a separate letter of the Latin alphabet Trithemius was ciphering in 1518, and the earliest Theban sets carry no sign for it: the sign for I served for both. The Theban J in circulation today is a later supplement, usually described as adapted from the I, but nobody has identified the chart or edition in which it first appears, or the hand that made it. The modern twenty six letter Theban set therefore contains one letter with no traceable origin at all.

What Would Settle It A bibliographic collation of printed Theban charts in sequence, from Polygraphiae in 1518 and Agrippa's De occulta philosophia in 1533, through the eighteenth and nineteenth century grimoire reprints, to the twentieth century witchcraft revival, to locate the earliest surviving witness of the supplementary sign and to name the edition that introduced it.

Expertise Needed History of the printed book, analytical bibliography of occult literature

Question posed in Theban alphabet (reference article), Wikipedia contributors, Section on letters: the modern characters J and U are not represented and are often transliterated using the Theban characters for I and V..

Open Theban U U

Why It Is Open U and V were one letter in the Latin alphabet Trithemius was ciphering in 1518, and the original Theban set has a single sign covering both. The separate Theban U now in general use is a later supplement, conventionally taken over from the V, but the chart in which it first appears has not been identified and neither has whoever added it. The sign is used daily in modern practice with no known first witness behind it.

What Would Settle It A bibliographic collation of printed Theban charts in sequence, from Polygraphiae in 1518 and Agrippa's De occulta philosophia in 1533, through the eighteenth and nineteenth century grimoire reprints, to the twentieth century witchcraft revival, to locate the earliest surviving witness of the supplementary sign and to name the edition that introduced it.

Expertise Needed History of the printed book, analytical bibliography of occult literature

Question posed in Theban alphabet (reference article), Wikipedia contributors, Section on letters: the modern characters J and U are not represented and are often transliterated using the Theban characters for I and V..

Open Mursili II

Why It Is Open Mursili II's own Annals and Plague Prayers fix his father Suppiluliuma I's reign and his own accession after two elder claimants died of plague, but nothing independent of that political record gives a birth year for Mursili himself.

What Would Settle It A Hittite administrative or dynastic text naming Mursili II's age at accession or his birth year, distinct from the Annals' political narrative of the succession crisis.

Expertise Needed Hittite history, Late Bronze Age Anatolian chronology

Question posed in Hittite Prayers, Itamar Singer; Harry A. Hoffner Jr. (ed.).

Open Puduhepa

Why It Is Open Puduhepa appears in the documentary record as a priest's daughter married to the future king Hattusili III, then as high priestess and co-ruler through his reign and into that of her son Tudhaliya IV, one of the longest documented careers of any Hittite queen. Nothing fixes an actual birth or death year, only the span of her documented activity in seals and correspondence.

What Would Settle It A Hittite dynastic text naming Puduhepa's age at marriage or at death, distinct from the sealed correspondence that fixes only the span of her public activity.

Expertise Needed Hittite history, Late Bronze Age Anatolian chronology

Question posed in Hittite Prayers, Itamar Singer; Harry A. Hoffner Jr. (ed.).

Open Menog-i Khrad (Spirit of Wisdom)

Why It Is Open The text names no individual author or compiler and, like most surviving Pahlavi andarz literature, is transmitted as an anonymous product of the Zoroastrian priesthood. Its manuscript tradition post-dates its composition by centuries, leaving both authorship and a precise date unrecoverable from the text itself.

What Would Settle It An independent contemporary Sasanian or early Islamic-era reference naming the text or its compiler would settle this; absent that, a philological study placing its Pahlavi against securely dated Pahlavi texts could narrow the range.

Expertise Needed Iranian philology and Zoroastrian textual studies

Question posed in Pahlavi Texts, Part III: Dina-i Mainog-i Khirad (E.W. West), E.W. West, translator.

Open Arda Viraf Nameh (Book of Arda Viraf)

Why It Is Open The text is framed as a first-person report of Viraf's own journey rather than a work with a credited literary author, and no compiler is named in the surviving manuscript tradition, which itself postdates the narrative's dramatic setting by an uncertain span.

What Would Settle It An independent contemporary or near-contemporary Sasanian or early Islamic-era reference to the text or its compiler would help settle authorship; a philological study distinguishing linguistic strata within the surviving Pahlavi could help separate earlier from later material.

Expertise Needed Iranian philology and Zoroastrian textual studies

Question posed in The Book of Arda Viraf (Martin Haug and E.W. West), Martin Haug and E.W. West, translators, with Dastur Hoshangji Jamaspji Asa.

Open Ise Grand Shrine

Why It Is Open Japan's Religious Corporations Law exempts income associated with worship from both taxation and standing financial disclosure, and Shinto shrines including Ise Grand Shrine generally do not publish their offering income; the only widely reported figure, about 57 billion yen, is a one-time capital fundraising total for the shrine's periodic rebuilding, not an annual income or budget figure.

What Would Settle It A change in Japanese religious corporation disclosure requirements, or a voluntary published account from the Jingu Administration Office naming Ise Grand Shrine's own annual offering income or operating budget.

Expertise Needed Japanese religious corporation law and Shinto shrine administration, and financial or investigative journalism covering Japan's religious institutions.

Question posed in Shrine Funds: Japan's Religious Sites and Their Undisclosed Cash (Japan Times via Green Shinto, 2018), Philip Brasor and Masako Tsubuku.

Open Meiji Shrine

Why It Is Open The only widely circulated figure for Meiji Shrine, an estimated 1.3 billion yen over the three-day New Year holiday, comes from an outside estimator rather than the shrine's own published accounts and covers only that three-day window; Japan's Religious Corporations Law exempts worship-related income from the disclosure that would otherwise make a fuller, annual figure available.

What Would Settle It A voluntary published account from Meiji Shrine's own administration naming its annual offering income or operating budget, or a change in Japanese religious corporation disclosure requirements.

Expertise Needed Japanese religious corporation law and Shinto shrine administration, and financial or investigative journalism covering Japan's religious institutions.

Question posed in Shrine Funds: Japan's Religious Sites and Their Undisclosed Cash (Japan Times via Green Shinto, 2018), Philip Brasor and Masako Tsubuku.

Open Ixmucane

Why It Is Open Ixmucane carries clear role-titles in the Popol Vuh's own text, Grandmother of Day and Grandmother of Light among them, but the literal root of her proper name draws competing candidate readings from the text's Mayanist translators, with no single derivation settled.

What Would Settle It A philological study of the K'iche' text against related Mayan languages, testing the existing translators' competing conjectures for the name's root against a wider comparative vocabulary, to reach a reading the field can agree on.

Expertise Needed K'iche' Maya philology, Mesoamerican historical linguistics

Question posed in Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life, translated by Dennis Tedlock.

Open Ixpiyacoc

Why It Is Open Ixpiyacoc carries the Popol Vuh's feminine ix- prefix despite being the pair's male member, a detail the text's Mayanist translators note without a settled explanation, and the literal root behind piyacoc draws competing candidate readings rather than one agreed derivation.

What Would Settle It A philological study addressing both the root itself and why the text marks a male figure with the feminine ix- prefix, which existing commentary notes but does not resolve, tested against a wider comparative K'iche' and Mayan vocabulary.

Expertise Needed K'iche' Maya philology, Mesoamerican historical linguistics

Question posed in Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life, translated by Dennis Tedlock.

Open Christus Victor

Why It Is Open Aulen argued that a unified dramatic view ran through the patristic period and through Luther, and was obscured by the scholastic and liberal accounts. Specialists in patristics have objected that victory language sits alongside sacrificial, medicinal and pedagogical language in the same writers, and that sorting the material into three types flattens the evidence. The theological position and the historical claim are frequently defended and attacked as though they were one thing.

What Would Settle It A survey of the atonement language in the principal patristic writers that counts and contexts each register separately rather than assigning each writer to a type. This would establish whether the dramatic language is dominant, co-ordinate, or one register among several.

Expertise Needed Patristics; historical theology

Question posed in Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, Gustaf Aulen.

Open Sin as Illness in Orthodox Theology

Why It Is Open Twentieth century Orthodox theology drew the contrast strongly and rested a great deal of it on the reading of a single clause of Romans 5:12. Other scholars hold the difference is overdrawn, and that Greek writers do at times speak of an inherited culpability. Both positions are held now, and the atlas carries the fact as debated rather than choosing between them.

What Would Settle It A systematic survey of the Greek patristic corpus for language of inherited culpability, conducted independently of the Romans 5:12 reading, with the Latin material read on the same terms and by the same criteria.

Expertise Needed Patristics; historical theology

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open Hellenic Polytheism (Hellenismos)

Why It Is Open Greece's 2017 court recognition of Hellenismos as a known religion created no accompanying census requirement, and the Greek government has published no official count of its followers. Every figure reported in the press, from roughly two thousand to five thousand committed practitioners up to a much larger circle of one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand people described as having some interest, traces back to estimates offered by the movement's own leadership, the Supreme Council of Ethnic Hellenes, rather than to an independent survey or government body.

What Would Settle It A Greek national census question on religious affiliation fine grained enough to separate Hellenismos from the ninety eight percent Greek Orthodox majority, or an academic survey of Greek Hellenic polytheists conducted by a body outside the movement's own leadership.

Expertise Needed Sociology of religion, religious demography

Question posed in Wikipedia, "Hellenism (Religion)", Wikipedia contributors.

Open Kemeticism

Why It Is Open Kemeticism has never been independently counted. No government census records religious affiliation at this level of detail, no recognized religious-statistics body has surveyed it, and its own reference literature, including its English-language Wikipedia treatment, states no membership figure of any kind. The 1994 United States federal recognition of Kemetic Orthodoxy as a tax-exempt religious organization established legal standing, not a headcount.

What Would Settle It A dedicated survey of Kemetic practitioners conducted by a body independent of the movement's own clergy, or a government religious-affiliation census large enough to sample reconstructionist Egyptian religion as its own category rather than folding it into a broader Pagan or Other total.

Expertise Needed Sociology of religion, religious demography

Question posed in Wikipedia, "Kemetism", Wikipedia contributors.

Open Aja Ekapada

Why It Is Open He has no hymn, no described act, no attribute and no epithet, and appears almost only inside enumerations of gods. Aja is either a goat or, read as a-ja, the unborn, and ekapada is one-footed or having one support. Readings were proposed in the nineteenth century and nobody has defended any of them at length since, because there is no passage anywhere against which one could be tested. This is a gap rather than a disagreement. He appears only in enumerations, almost always beside Ahi Budhnya, so no domain can be read off the surviving text either.

What Would Settle It A passage from outside the Rigveda that describes rather than merely names him, whether in the Brahmana literature, the Atharvaveda or a comparative Indo-Iranian source; or a demonstration that the formulaic pairing with Ahi Budhnya is itself the whole content of the name, which would close the question by showing there is nothing behind it. A comparative Indo-European study connecting the name to a documented mythic role would serve equally.

Expertise Needed Vedic philology and comparative Indo-Iranian religion

Question posed in Vedic Mythology, Arthur Anthony Macdonell.

Open Ahir Budhnya

Why It Is Open Budhna means bottom, base or root, and three readings are in use: the lower atmosphere, the floor of the sea, and the foundation of the world. The atmospheric reading rests on the company he keeps in the enumerations rather than on anything said about him, and the enumerations are formulaic.

What Would Settle It A Vedic or Brahmana passage that places him rather than merely lists him, or comparative evidence from Iranian material for a serpent of the deep whose location is specified.

Expertise Needed Vedic philology and comparative Indo-Iranian religion

Question posed in Vedic Mythology, Arthur Anthony Macdonell.

Open Gayatri Hymn

Why It Is Open The hymn's placement in the family books, the oldest stratum of the Rig Veda, is secure on internal linguistic grounds. The absolute date of that stratum is not: proposed dates range across the whole second millennium BCE, and no inscription, datable artefact or external synchronism fixes any point in that range.

What Would Settle It A securely dated inscription, artefact or archaeological correlate that can be tied to the language or content of the family books, comparable to the role the Mitanni treaty plays in dating other early Indo-Iranian material, would anchor the range.

Expertise Needed Vedic philology, Indo-Iranian archaeology

Question posed in The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India, Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton.