Divinity Atlas
Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.
3,338 statements marked Debated.
African Initiated Churches, Defining Doctrinal PositionNo single position across the movement's member churches
African Initiated Churches, Religious Movements
Standing
Concerns Defining Doctrinal Position
Currently States No single position across the movement's member churches
African Initiated Churches is a collective name for a large and doctrinally heterogeneous category, Christian churches founded in Africa by Africans without a European or American mission's agency, ranging from Ethiopian churches that separated from mission bodies purely over the question of African leadership while keeping mission doctrine intact, through prophet-healing churches such as the Aladura of Nigeria and the Zion Christian Church of southern Africa that reworked doctrine substantially, to the Kimbanguists of the Congo, who number in the millions. Allan H. Anderson's African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century (2001) treats institutional independence, not shared theology, as what actually defines the category, which is why no single doctrinal position can be stated for it as a whole: the label groups these churches by how they were founded, not by what they teach.
Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century, Allan H. Anderson
African Initiated Churches, Doctrinal Position DetailAllan H. Anderson's African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century (Africa World Press, 2001) argues that African Initiated Churches, ranging from Ethiopian-type churches that separated from mission bodies over African leadership through prophet-healing churches such as the Aladura of Nigeria and the Zion Christian Church of southern Africa to the Congo's Kimbanguists, share no single doctrinal position because what unites the category is institutional independence rather than a common theology, so the doctrinal range runs as wide as the institutional history that produced it.
African Initiated Churches, Religious Movements
Standing
Concerns Doctrinal Position Detail
Currently States Allan H. Anderson's African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century (Africa World Press, 2001) argues that African Initiated Churches, ranging from Ethiopian-type churches that separated from mission bodies over African leadership through prophet-healing churches such as the Aladura of Nigeria and the Zion Christian Church of southern Africa to the Congo's Kimbanguists, share no single doctrinal position because what unites the category is institutional independence rather than a common theology, so the doctrinal range runs as wide as the institutional history that produced it.
Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth Century, Allan H. Anderson
Afro-Asiatic, Homeland HypothesisEither in Africa, most often the Horn, or in the Levant with Semitic as the branch that stayed. The African option is the majority view.
Afro-Asiatic, Language Families
Standing
Concerns Homeland Hypothesis
Currently States Either in Africa, most often the Horn, or in the Levant with Semitic as the branch that stayed. The African option is the majority view.
Five of the six branches are African and only Semitic lies substantially outside Africa, which is the main argument for an African homeland. The alternative places the origin in the Levant or Arabia. The family is old enough that neither case can be closed on the linguistic evidence alone.
Source The Languages and Linguistics of Africa, Tom Guldemann (ed.)
Afterlife, Status Within the TraditionGenuinely disputed within this tradition
Afterlife, Doctrines
Standing
Concerns Status Within the Tradition
Currently States Genuinely disputed within this tradition
The Encyclopedia of Religion (Macmillan Reference, 2005) documents that Second Temple Judaism itself divided over whether resurrection follows death, with the Sadducees rejecting it outright and rabbinic Judaism affirming and liturgizing it afterward. Christianity and Islam both hold a bodily resurrection and a judgement, but whether the resulting punishment is eternal remains contested within each: Christian conditionalists and universalists reject an everlasting hell, and a minority Islamic position associated with the medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyya and his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya argued hell may not be everlasting, a reading the Sunni majority has rejected.
Source Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Ag ࡂ, A Rival System's AttributionThe script's ancestry is assigned either to a cursive form of Aramaic, the derivation favored by most script historians, or to the Parthian chancery script used in Sasanian era administrative documents.
Ag ࡂ, Alphabet Letters
Standing
Concerns A Rival System's Attribution
Currently States The script's ancestry is assigned either to a cursive form of Aramaic, the derivation favored by most script historians, or to the Parthian chancery script used in Sasanian era administrative documents.
According To The Mandaic script
Both derivations are held in the literature and neither has displaced the other. The Aramaic cursive camp points to the letterforms' overall resemblance to other late Aramaic cursive scripts of the region, including Nabataean and Syriac; the Parthian chancery camp points to specific letterforms, including certain medial and final forms, that resemble Pahlavi documentary hands more closely than any Aramaic cursive exemplar. No single find has settled the question, and Mandaic paleography treats it as open pending further comparative work.
Source Iranian Scripts for Aramaic Languages: The Origin of the Mandaic Script, Charles G. Haberl
Agdistis, Scholarly NoteThe Phrygian myth of Agdistis, a hermaphroditic being born from the earth and castrated by the other gods out of fear of its power, whose severed organ grows into a tree that impregnates the nymph Nana with Attis, is preserved chiefly in Arnobius's Adversus Nationes, summarised in Maarten J. Vermaseren's Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult (Thames and Hudson, 1977). Vermaseren records that ancient sources themselves disagree on Agdistis's identity, some treating the figure as a distinct being separate from the Mother goddess Cybele told at Pessinus to explain the ritual self-castration of Cybele's priests, the Galli, others treating Agdistis as an early name for the Mother goddess herself.
Agdistis, Myths & Sacred Narratives
Standing
Concerns Scholarly Note
Currently States The Phrygian myth of Agdistis, a hermaphroditic being born from the earth and castrated by the other gods out of fear of its power, whose severed organ grows into a tree that impregnates the nymph Nana with Attis, is preserved chiefly in Arnobius's Adversus Nationes, summarised in Maarten J. Vermaseren's Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult (Thames and Hudson, 1977). Vermaseren records that ancient sources themselves disagree on Agdistis's identity, some treating the figure as a distinct being separate from the Mother goddess Cybele told at Pessinus to explain the ritual self-castration of Cybele's priests, the Galli, others treating Agdistis as an early name for the Mother goddess herself.
Source Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult, Maarten J. Vermaseren
Age of Aquarius, Proposed DatingNicholas Campion's A History of Western Astrology (Continuum, 2009) surveys the many methods proposed for fixing when the Age of Aquarius begins, keyed to the precession of the equinoxes through the zodiac's twelve signs, and finds no consensus: depending on whether a writer measures from the constellation boundaries, the tropical zodiac or a chosen reference star, and on which of several precession rates is applied, proposed start dates range across several centuries.
Age of Aquarius, Ages
Standing
Concerns Proposed Dating
Currently States Nicholas Campion's A History of Western Astrology (Continuum, 2009) surveys the many methods proposed for fixing when the Age of Aquarius begins, keyed to the precession of the equinoxes through the zodiac's twelve signs, and finds no consensus: depending on whether a writer measures from the constellation boundaries, the tropical zodiac or a chosen reference star, and on which of several precession rates is applied, proposed start dates range across several centuries.
No professional astronomical or astrological body has adopted an official transition date. Precession is a continuous, gradual drift rather than a discrete event, and the constellations themselves have no agreed boundaries in the sky, so there is no natural marker separating the Age of Pisces from the Age of Aquarius for any method to fix.
Source A History of Western Astrology, Nicholas Campion
Age of Aries, Proposed Dating Start Year-2000
Age of Aries, Ages
Standing
Concerns Proposed Dating Start Year
Currently States -2000
Nicholas Campion's A History of Western Astrology (Continuum, London, 2009) applies the same comparison to the Age of Aries that it applies to the other zodiacal ages: an even division of the roughly 25,800 year precessional cycle into twelve 2,150 year shares against a rival method that measures each constellation's actual, unequal angular width along the ecliptic. As with the other ages, Campion's survey finds that a constellation-boundary calculation yields a different range for Aries than the even-division estimate the atlas uses by default, and his review of the astrological literature finds no consensus on which of the two conventions is correct.
Source A History of Western Astrology, Nicholas Campion
Age of Aries, Proposed Dating End Year1
Age of Aries, Ages
Standing
Concerns Proposed Dating End Year
Currently States 1
Nicholas Campion's A History of Western Astrology (Continuum, London, 2009) applies the same comparison to the Age of Aries that it applies to the other zodiacal ages: an even division of the roughly 25,800 year precessional cycle into twelve 2,150 year shares against a rival method that measures each constellation's actual, unequal angular width along the ecliptic. As with the other ages, Campion's survey finds that a constellation-boundary calculation yields a different range for Aries than the even-division estimate the atlas uses by default, and his review of the astrological literature finds no consensus on which of the two conventions is correct.
Source A History of Western Astrology, Nicholas Campion
Age of Pisces, Proposed Dating Start Year1
Age of Pisces, Ages
Standing
Concerns Proposed Dating Start Year
Currently States 1
Nicholas Campion's A History of Western Astrology (Continuum, London, 2009) applies the same comparison of methods to the Age of Pisces that it applies across the zodiacal age scheme: an even division of the roughly 25,800 year precessional cycle into twelve 2,150 year shares against a rival method that measures each constellation's actual, unequal width along the ecliptic. Campion's survey finds this particular boundary is the most contested in the whole scheme, because it sits at the transition into the Age of Aquarius, so both the proposed end dates for Pisces and the proposed start dates for Aquarius span several centuries across the astrological literature he reviews, with no single convention commanding agreement among practitioners.
Source A History of Western Astrology, Nicholas Campion
Age of Pisces, Proposed Dating End Year2000
Age of Pisces, Ages
Standing
Concerns Proposed Dating End Year
Currently States 2000
Nicholas Campion's A History of Western Astrology (Continuum, London, 2009) applies the same comparison of methods to the Age of Pisces that it applies across the zodiacal age scheme: an even division of the roughly 25,800 year precessional cycle into twelve 2,150 year shares against a rival method that measures each constellation's actual, unequal width along the ecliptic. Campion's survey finds this particular boundary is the most contested in the whole scheme, because it sits at the transition into the Age of Aquarius, so both the proposed end dates for Pisces and the proposed start dates for Aquarius span several centuries across the astrological literature he reviews, with no single convention commanding agreement among practitioners.
Source A History of Western Astrology, Nicholas Campion
Age of Taurus, Proposed Dating Start Year-4000
Age of Taurus, Ages
Standing
Concerns Proposed Dating Start Year
Currently States -4000
Nicholas Campion, a historian of astrology (A History of Western Astrology, Continuum, London, 2009), compared two competing methods for locating the boundaries of the zodiacal ages within the roughly 25,800 year precessional cycle. The method the atlas uses for its default date range divides that cycle into twelve equal shares of about 2,150 years each. The rival method Campion documents instead measures the actual, unequal angular width each zodiac constellation occupies along the ecliptic and sets the age boundary where the constellation itself begins or ends. Because the twelve constellations are not equal in width, the two methods place the edges of the Age of Taurus centuries apart, and Campion's survey of the astrological literature finds no consensus on which convention is correct, since the choice is a matter of definition rather than of evidence that could settle it.
Source A History of Western Astrology, Nicholas Campion
Age of Taurus, Proposed Dating End Year-2000
Age of Taurus, Ages
Standing
Concerns Proposed Dating End Year
Currently States -2000
Nicholas Campion, a historian of astrology (A History of Western Astrology, Continuum, London, 2009), compared two competing methods for locating the boundaries of the zodiacal ages within the roughly 25,800 year precessional cycle. The method the atlas uses for its default date range divides that cycle into twelve equal shares of about 2,150 years each. The rival method Campion documents instead measures the actual, unequal angular width each zodiac constellation occupies along the ecliptic and sets the age boundary where the constellation itself begins or ends. Because the twelve constellations are not equal in width, the two methods place the edges of the Age of Taurus centuries apart, and Campion's survey of the astrological literature finds no consensus on which convention is correct, since the choice is a matter of definition rather than of evidence that could settle it.
Source A History of Western Astrology, Nicholas Campion
Age of the Holy Spirit, Proposed DatingJoachim's generation-count method pointed toward a transition around 1260; later Joachimist writers fixed on this date far more insistently than Joachim's own qualified presentation of it
Age of the Holy Spirit, Ages
Standing
Concerns Proposed Dating
Currently States Joachim's generation-count method pointed toward a transition around 1260; later Joachimist writers fixed on this date far more insistently than Joachim's own qualified presentation of it
Marjorie Reeves distinguishes Joachim's own careful, revisable calculation from the firm date-setting of his later followers, who treated 1260 as settled prophecy rather than one output of a complex concordance.
Source The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism, Marjorie Reeves
Age of the Holy Spirit, Proposed Dating Start Year1260
Age of the Son, Proposed Dating End Year1260
Ah ࡄ, A Rival System's AttributionThe script's ancestry is assigned either to a cursive form of Aramaic, the derivation favored by most script historians, or to the Parthian chancery script used in Sasanian era administrative documents.
Ah ࡄ, Alphabet Letters
Standing
Concerns A Rival System's Attribution
Currently States The script's ancestry is assigned either to a cursive form of Aramaic, the derivation favored by most script historians, or to the Parthian chancery script used in Sasanian era administrative documents.
According To The Mandaic script
Both derivations are held in the literature and neither has displaced the other. The Aramaic cursive camp points to the letterforms' overall resemblance to other late Aramaic cursive scripts of the region, including Nabataean and Syriac; the Parthian chancery camp points to specific letterforms, including certain medial and final forms, that resemble Pahlavi documentary hands more closely than any Aramaic cursive exemplar. No single find has settled the question, and Mandaic paleography treats it as open pending further comparative work.
Source Iranian Scripts for Aramaic Languages: The Origin of the Mandaic Script, Charles G. Haberl
Ahimsa (Non-Injury), Attributed Author / CompilerTraditionally attributed to Patanjali, the compiler of the Yoga Sutras. Scholarship debates whether this is the same Patanjali credited with the Sanskrit grammatical treatise of that name, and whether the text as it stands is the work of a single author or an edited compilation of older material.
Ahimsa (Non-Injury), Virtues
Standing
Concerns Attributed Author / Compiler
Currently States Traditionally attributed to Patanjali, the compiler of the Yoga Sutras. Scholarship debates whether this is the same Patanjali credited with the Sanskrit grammatical treatise of that name, and whether the text as it stands is the work of a single author or an edited compilation of older material.
Source The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary, Edwin F. Bryant
Ahimsa (Non-Injury), Origin PeriodDated by scholars anywhere from the second century BCE, on older assumptions of a single ancient author, to as late as the fourth or fifth century CE, on newer philological readings that treat the text as a later compilation. There is no scholarly consensus on a single date for the Yoga Sutras.
Ahimsa (Nonviolence), Origin PeriodThe five mahavratas as a codified set of ascetic vows appear already in the Acaranga Sutra, among the oldest surviving Jain Agamas, with ahimsa named first, though the canon's traditional final redaction at the Council of Valabhi is placed in the fifth century CE, leaving how much of the text predates that redaction unsettled. Their classical formal definition is fixed later in Umasvati's Tattvartha Sutra, a text scholars date anywhere from the second to the fifth century CE.
Ahimsa (Nonviolence), Virtues
Standing
Concerns Origin Period
Currently States The five mahavratas as a codified set of ascetic vows appear already in the Acaranga Sutra, among the oldest surviving Jain Agamas, with ahimsa named first, though the canon's traditional final redaction at the Council of Valabhi is placed in the fifth century CE, leaving how much of the text predates that redaction unsettled. Their classical formal definition is fixed later in Umasvati's Tattvartha Sutra, a text scholars date anywhere from the second to the fifth century CE.
Source The Jaina Path of Purification, Padmanabh S. Jaini