Divinity Atlas

Open Questions

Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which expertise the answer needs.

These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither one settles it alone.

You can send evidence on some of these. A pilot is open on 55 questions in one field, Palaeography. Each says what would resolve it; send something that meets that bar, with a source anybody can check, and an editor will weigh it. Sending evidence does not guarantee the question will be resolved, and it does not have to be your field to read what is being asked. See what is open.

Grouped by the part of the atlas the question sits in. Start here if you know the territory better than the technique.

Filter By Specialty 99 fields

Showing 101 to 120 of 608 open questions, page 6 of 31.

Traditions & Paths 157

The 1391 Massacres of Spain's Jewish Communities How Many Jews Were Displaced by the 1391 Massacres?

Open The 1391 Massacres of Spain's Jewish Communities

Why It Is Open Modern scholarship documents that survivors of the 1391 massacres either converted, often under direct threat, or fled to Islamic-ruled territory, Navarre, Portugal or France, but no source checked gives a reliable numeric total for those who fled distinct from those who converted or were killed. The one round figure found in circulation (a "100,000 fled" alongside equally round conversion and death figures) is inconsistent with the death-toll range already carefully sourced here and was judged unreliable rather than written.

What Would Settle It A demographic study of Iberian Jewish community registers or tax rolls before and after 1391, cross-referenced against the destinations named in contemporary accounts (North African, Navarrese and Portuguese Jewish community records), of the kind that has been done for the 1492 expulsion but not, so far as could be found, for 1391 specifically.

Expertise Needed Historical demography

Question posed in Nirenberg, Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today (2014), David Nirenberg.

The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain How Many Jews Died During the 1492 Expulsion Journey?

Open The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain

Why It Is Open Contemporary chronicles (Bernaldez among them) and modern accounts alike describe severe hardship during the 1492 expulsion journey, disease, starvation, robbery, shipwreck and, in some accounts, refugees thrown overboard by ship captains, but no source checked, including Jonathan Ray's standard modern academic treatment "After Expulsion," gives a numeric mortality estimate for the journey distinct from the total number expelled, which is already recorded here as a displaced range.

What Would Settle It A dedicated demographic or archival study specifically isolating expulsion-journey mortality from the wider 1492 to 1497 diaspora experience, of the kind Kamen's 1988 Past and Present article did for the total population expelled but for which no equivalent study covering deaths in transit could be found.

Expertise Needed Historical demography

Question posed in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.).

The Kishinev Pogrom How Many People Were Displaced by the Kishinev Pogrom?

Open The Kishinev Pogrom

Why It Is Open Secondary accounts of the April 1903 pogrom's property destruction disagree in a way that reads as citation drift rather than independent corroboration: the number "2,000" recurs but is applied inconsistently to "families" in some accounts and "people" in others, for what appears to be the same underlying claim, and neither version was traceable back to the established academic source already cited here, Judge's "Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom" (1992).

What Would Settle It A page-level check of Judge's 1992 monograph, or the contemporary Russian official commission of inquiry it draws on, for its own stated count of families or individuals left homeless, distinct from the homes-and-businesses-destroyed figures already recorded here.

Expertise Needed Historical demography

Question posed in Judge, Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom (1992), Edward H. Judge.

The Würzburg Witch Trials What Was the Death Toll of the Wurzburg Witch Trials?

Open The Würzburg Witch Trials

Why It Is Open Contemporary execution lists survive for parts of the Wurzburg episode, but the trials ran across the city, the surrounding prince-bishopric and its wider territory, and different surviving lists count these differently; the records are incomplete and no modern historian has reconciled them into a single agreed total, unlike the single well documented parish record behind the Torsaker toll or the court record behind Salem's.

What Would Settle It A systematic reconciliation of the surviving city, diocesan and territorial execution lists against one agreed boundary for what counts as the Wurzburg trials, of the kind regional archival historians have already carried out for other German territories.

Expertise Needed Early modern German history; archival history of the witch trials

Question posed in Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History, Wolfgang Behringer.

The Yellow Turban Rebellion How Many Died in the Yellow Turban Rebellion?

Open The Yellow Turban Rebellion

Why It Is Open Historians frequently repeat casualty figures in the millions for the rebellion, but these numbers, where they can be traced at all, describe the population loss of the following decades of civil war, famine and displacement across northern China rather than deaths in the rebellion itself, and no modern historian has isolated a defensible toll for the rising and its suppression alone.

What Would Settle It A modern historian's attempt to separate combat and reprisal deaths during the 184 CE rising itself from the much larger population loss of the decades of civil war, famine and displacement that followed it and that the rebellion helped set in motion.

Expertise Needed Han dynasty history; historical demography of early imperial China

Question posed in The Encyclopedia of Taoism, Fabrizio Pregadio (ed.).

Epistle to Diognetus Who wrote the Epistle to Diognetus, and when?

Open Epistle to Diognetus

Why It Is Open No ancient writer names or quotes the letter before its single surviving manuscript resurfaces in the thirteenth century, and the letter itself names no author. Its polished rhetorical style differs from the rest of the apostolic fathers collection it is conventionally grouped with, and proposed authors and dates spanning the second and third centuries all rest on style and apparent theological concern rather than direct evidence.

What Would Settle It An independent ancient citation or manuscript witness naming the author or firmly dating the text would settle this; absent that, a scholarly consensus reconciling its style and content with a known apologetic writer's other work would narrow the range.

Expertise Needed Patristics and early Christian textual studies

Question posed in The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Michael W. Holmes), Michael W. Holmes, editor and translator.

Menog-i Khrad (Spirit of Wisdom) Who compiled the Menog-i Khrad, and can it be dated more precisely than the broad Sasanian-to-early-Islamic span?

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.

Arda Viraf Nameh (Book of Arda Viraf) Who composed the Arda Viraf Nameh, and how much of the surviving text reflects its Sasanian-era narrative setting rather than later redaction?

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.

Yarsanism What would a dated, sourced count of Yarsani adherents over time require, given that no state census counts them as a distinct category?

Open Yarsanism

Why It Is Open Yarsani adherents are folded into Iran's broader Muslim population in its national census, and no other government or denominational body maintains a count of them; every published figure is an undated snapshot from fieldwork, advocacy or journalism rather than one point in a tracked series.

What Would Settle It A dedicated demographic study, most plausibly built from community register data the Yarsani community itself might keep informally, or from a specially commissioned survey, giving dated counts that could be compared over time the way this axis compares other bodies.

Expertise Needed Demography, Iranian religious minority studies

Question posed in The Religious Textual Heritage of the Yarsan (Ahl-e Haqq), Philip G. Kreyenbroek.

The Cultural Revolution What Was the Religion-Specific Death Toll of the Cultural Revolution?

Open The Cultural Revolution

Why It Is Open The Cultural Revolution's suppression of Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Confucianism and Christianity is well documented, but no historian has published a death toll isolating deaths caused specifically by anti-religious persecution from the campaign's much larger political death toll, itself estimated across a wide range by different historians.

What Would Settle It A study disaggregating Cultural Revolution-era deaths by the target's religious identity or role, comparable to the campaign-specific tallies that exist for other twentieth-century religious persecutions elsewhere in the atlas.

Expertise Needed Modern Chinese history

Question posed in Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule, Fenggang Yang.

The Mardin Fatwa of Ibn Taymiyya What Year Was the Mardin Fatwa Issued?

Open The Mardin Fatwa of Ibn Taymiyya

Why It Is Open Ibn Taymiyya's own lifetime, 1263 to 1328, and Mongol rule over Mardin are both well documented, but no source pins the fatwa itself to a specific year within that span.

What Would Settle It A securely dated manuscript of the fatwa, or a documented occasion, such as a specific delegation from Mardin, that the text can be tied to.

Expertise Needed Islamic legal history

Question posed in Ibn Taymiyya (Makers of the Muslim World), Jon Hoover.

Purvas Did the lost Purvas genuinely preserve Mahavira's own teaching, as Jain tradition holds?

Open Purvas

Why It Is Open The Purvas do not survive in any form. What is known of them comes entirely from later Jain canonical descriptions of their existence and content, not from the texts themselves, and no source outside the Jain tradition independently confirms either their content or that they trace to Mahavira's own teaching.

What Would Settle It The discovery of a surviving Purva manuscript, or an independent near-contemporary reference describing their actual content, would let the tradition's account of their origin be checked against something other than later restatement of the same tradition.

Expertise Needed Jain textual history and Indology

Question posed in The Jaina Path of Purification, Padmanabh S. Jaini.

Thelema How many people practise Thelema worldwide, across Ordo Templi Orientis, A A and its other initiatory orders?

Open Thelema

Why It Is Open Thelema has no single organisation: its chief initiatory orders keep their own membership rolls, some of it oathbound material, and no outside survey covering the tradition as a whole was found.

What Would Settle It A survey of the major Thelemic orders' own reported membership, or an independent sociological study using a stated, defensible definition of practice, aggregated across the tradition's known organised currents.