Divinity Atlas
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 expertise recorded on each question, in the words the question itself uses. Most of these are held by a single question.
Filter By Specialty 99 fields, 1 selected
Showing 1 of 608 questions, filtered to 1 specialty.
Koine Greek lexicography and Levantine field botany. 1
Lily
Which flower is meant by the lily of the field in the Sermon on the Mount?
Open Lily
Why It Is Open The Greek krinon is a general word for a showy flower rather than a botanical name. Anemone coronaria is the most commonly proposed candidate on grounds of what actually grows abundantly and conspicuously in Galilean fields, but Lilium candidum and several others remain in the running and the text gives no distinguishing detail.
What Would Settle It Nothing in the text can settle it; the question would move only on evidence about which flowers were locally called krinon in first-century Galilean usage.
Expertise Needed Koine Greek lexicography and Levantine field botany.
Question posed in
Plants in the New Testament, Terry B. Ball, Entry for lily.