Open Questions

Open Elsie Wheeler

Why It Is Open Every account of her, including this entry, is drawn from Marc Edmund Jones's own description of her in his writing on the 1925 Sabian sitting. No independent biographical, genealogical or newspaper record naming her birth or death year has surfaced in the sources checked for this entry.

What Would Settle It A genealogical or California newspaper archive search for a clairvoyant medium named Elsie Wheeler active in the San Diego area in the 1920s, or a period Theosophical Society membership record naming her.

Expertise Needed Biographical and archival research

Question posed in The Sabian Symbols in Astrology, Marc Edmund Jones.

Open The Alhambra Decree

Why It Is Open The decree of 31 March 1492 ordered a permanent exclusion, and no repealing act is catalogued in this atlas. That a formal revocation took place in the twentieth century is very widely repeated in general accounts, and none of them that the atlas has been able to check cites the repealing instrument. Spain has acted concretely to reverse the decree's effects, most recently through Ley 12/2015, which offered Spanish nationality to Sephardim of Spanish origin and frames itself in its preamble as a redress of the expulsion, but that law does not purport to repeal the decree and does not refer to any earlier act that did.

What Would Settle It A citation to the Boletin Oficial del Estado, or to a scholarly account working from it, identifying the repealing instrument, its date and its scope. A negative finding would be equally useful: if the decree was left standing and simply became inoperative, that is a fact about how spent instruments die and belongs in the record.

Expertise Needed Spanish legal history; Sephardic studies; archival research in the Boletin Oficial del Estado

Question posed in Ley 12/2015, de 24 de junio, en materia de concesion de la nacionalidad espanola a los sefardies originarios de Espana, Cortes Generales de Espana.

Open The Herem on Baruch Spinoza

Why It Is Open The writ was entered in the minute book of the Talmud Torah congregation of Amsterdam and no act rescinding it has been catalogued here. The ban was of a kind that could be lifted on submission, and Spinoza never submitted. Proposals to lift it have been raised publicly in modern times, and the atlas has not verified a decision in either direction, nor identified who would have the standing to make one now.

What Would Settle It The minute books of the Amsterdam Portuguese Jewish congregation for any later entry on the case, or a statement from the congregation or its rabbinate. A finding that no such act exists is equally useful and would close the question.

Expertise Needed Early modern Jewish history; Dutch archival research; halakhic scholarship on the law of the ban

Question posed in Spinoza: A Life, Steven Nadler.

Open Korban (The Israelite Offering)

Why It Is Open The Mishnah was redacted around 200 CE, more than a century after the Temple was destroyed, and it is the only detailed source for most of the procedure. Josephus, Philo and the Qumran texts corroborate the institutions but very little of the fine detail, and the two bodies of evidence were produced for different purposes.

What Would Settle It A systematic detail-by-detail comparison of Mishnaic procedure against the pre-70 evidence, distinguishing points corroborated by Josephus, Philo, Qumran and the surviving epigraphy from points attested only in the Mishnah, would show where the account is anchored and where it is not. Fresh documentary or epigraphic material from the Temple period would move individual points.

Expertise Needed Rabbinics, Second Temple history, epigraphy

Question posed in From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Shaye J. D. Cohen.

Open Kabbalah

Why It Is Open Posed by glyph-ceremonial-w5, 2026-07-25. At least three mutually inconsistent sigil sets exist for these 72 angels: the Wellcome Ms.4662 seals, Eliphas Levi's 36 double talismans, and the Golden Dawn's own seals as compiled by Lazare Lenain. None of the source images were fetchable as precise stroke data with the tools available this run (a 403 on the Wellcome material via academia.edu). Choosing one tradition and drawing it from memory would be fabrication presented as attested fact.

What Would Settle It Owner guidance on which tradition to follow, plus visual access good enough to trace that tradition's seals faithfully.

Expertise Needed Practical Kabbalah

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

Open The Words of Institution

Why It Is Open A group of early witnesses gives a shorter text of Luke 22 that stops after the first mention of the cup, and the longer text, printed in most modern critical editions, gives the bread and a second cup. The two readings shape the passage differently and the argument has run for more than a century. This run recorded the dispute on this page but did not establish where the weight of current textual scholarship sits.

What Would Settle It A current survey of the manuscript evidence and of the argument over the Western non-interpolations, with the editorial reasoning of the major critical editions set side by side.

Expertise Needed New Testament textual criticism

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

Open Tamid (The Daily Offering)

Why It Is Open The tractate narrates the daily service circumstantially, from the priests rising to the completion of the offering, and that circumstantiality is exactly what makes its status hard to judge: a literary reconstruction written to be persuasive would look the same. It was redacted long after the last offering was made, and no pre-70 source describes the sequence in comparable detail.

What Would Settle It A point-by-point comparison of the tractate against Josephus, Philo, the Temple Scroll and the Qumran calendrical material, separating items with independent support from items attested only there, would show how much of the sequence is anchored. Priestly course inscriptions and any further Temple-period administrative material would add anchor points.

Expertise Needed Rabbinics, Second Temple history, Dead Sea Scrolls studies

Question posed in From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Shaye J. D. Cohen.

Open Church of Scientology

Why It Is Open Accounts of a 2007 decision of the Audiencia Nacional are consistent with one another but every readable one traces back either to the organisation's own publications or to aggregators repeating them. The judgment itself was not obtained during this run, so the claim was kept out of the entry rather than asserted on that footing.

What Would Settle It The text of the judgment from the Spanish judicial documentation service, or the registry entry from the Ministry of Justice, either of which would fix the court, the date and what was actually ordered.

Expertise Needed Law (Spanish administrative and ecclesiastical law)

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

Open Nine worlds

Why It Is Open The Eddas refer to nine worlds without ever enumerating them in one place. The lists that circulate today are modern reconstructions assembled from names scattered across the Poetic and Prose Eddas, not a set any medieval text sets out as such.

What Would Settle It A systematic philological collation of every Old Norse cosmological realm named in the Poetic Edda (Voluspa, Grimnismal, Vafthrudnismal among them) and the Prose Edda, checked for internal consistency, by an Old Norse philologist.

Expertise Needed Old Norse philology

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), art. Germanic Religion.

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 Church of Scientology

Why It Is Open Two dates circulate for the same event, September 2007 and November 2007, and the sources carrying them are the organisation's own material and secondary summaries. The registration number quoted in those accounts was not checked against the Portuguese register.

What Would Settle It The entry in the Portuguese register of collective religious entities, or the United States Department of State International Religious Freedom report for Portugal read in full rather than in summary.

Expertise Needed Law (Portuguese religious registration under the 2001 Religious Freedom Act)

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

Open Church of Scientology

Why It Is Open The closing agreement was not published by the agency and its reasoning has never been set out on the public record. Reporting in 1997 raised the question of how the reversal came about without settling it, and the agreement's own terms were reported rather than officially released.

What Would Settle It Release of the agency's internal deliberative record, or a completed freedom of information action producing the file behind the decision rather than the agreement alone.

Expertise Needed Tax law and administrative history

Question posed in Scientologists' Deal With IRS: $12.5 Million, The Seattle Times.

Open Frankincense and Myrrh Blend

Why It Is Open The nativity account names the two resins together but does not describe them blended or burned as one compound, and a genuine combined incense recipe naming both resins together has not been located.

What Would Settle It A study of ancient or early Christian liturgical incense recipes identifying the earliest instance in which frankincense and myrrh are compounded into a single burned mixture, rather than named or given as a symbolic pair.

Expertise Needed Liturgical history, history of pharmacy

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open Nag Champa

Why It Is Open Nag Champa's origin is commonly attributed to a twentieth century Indian ashram or mission, but no specific, checkable, dated source for its first formulation has been located.

What Would Settle It A documented company or ashram history naming the specific date and maker of the first Nag Champa formulation, as opposed to a general or promotional claim.

Expertise Needed Modern religious and commercial history

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open The Braucherei Charm Tradition

Why It Is Open Braucherei was carried to Pennsylvania by German-speaking migrants and was then given a printed form by Hohman in 1820 and by the collections that followed. Practitioners distinguish sharply between a charm received from a person and one read in a book, but the two streams have been running alongside each other for two centuries and the printed texts drew on oral material to begin with. Which direction any particular charm travelled is not generally recoverable from what has been recorded.

What Would Settle It Systematic comparison of the Pennsylvania repertoire against continental German charm collections of the same and earlier periods, in particular the Palatine and Rhineland material from which the migration came, tracing individual charm types rather than the collections as wholes. Manuscript charm books held privately in Pennsylvania German families, where access can be negotiated on the families' terms, would be the decisive evidence.

Expertise Needed German folklore studies, Pennsylvania German studies and comparative charm scholarship

Question posed in Powwowing among the Pennsylvania Dutch: A Traditional Medical Practice in the Modern World, David W. Kriebel.

Open Geomancy

Why It Is Open The same structure of sixteen four position figures appears across West Africa, Madagascar, North Africa and medieval Europe. Some scholars read the African systems as local developments of Islamic geomancy carried across the Sahara; others argue for substantially independent development. Neither position rests on datable evidence from the relevant period.

What Would Settle It Datable material evidence from before the earliest surviving testimony: excavated divining apparatus, or a dated text describing the practice, from either side of the Sahara. Comparative linguistic work on the figure names across the four traditions would also constrain the answer.

Expertise Needed History of religions; archaeology of West and North Africa; historical linguistics

Question posed in Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa, William Bascom.

Open Diloggun

Why It Is Open The two are the same oracle by descent, and most of the sixteen parent names carry across, but the earliest substantial documentation of Cuban practice dates from the twentieth century, long after the transatlantic crossing. Everything between is inferred from the state of the two traditions when they were finally recorded.

What Would Settle It Earlier documentary evidence of Cuban practice: colonial administrative or ecclesiastical records describing cowrie divination, or dated libretas from the nineteenth century with a secure provenance.

Expertise Needed History of Afro-Cuban religion; archival history of colonial Cuba

Question posed in Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New World, William Bascom.

Open Western Astrology

Why It Is Open The table reaches us as a table. Vettius Valens transmits it in the Anthology and Claudius Ptolemy records it in the Tetrabiblos, and Ptolemy is himself the source of the complaint: he objects that the Egyptian writers set out no proof and no ordering principle for the boundaries they give, which is his stated reason for offering a set of his own. Nothing in the surviving sources states the rule that produced the sequence of rulers or the width of each of the sixty stretches. Modern scholarship has not established one either. This is not a disagreement between camps with positions a reader could go and weigh; it is a gap nobody has filled, which is why the atlas records the sixty figures as transmitted and supplies no rationale behind them.

What Would Settle It A Greek or demotic astrological papyrus that gives the bounds together with any statement of how they were arrived at would settle it directly. Failing that, a securely dated table earlier than Valens showing the boundaries in an intermediate state would show whether they were computed or inherited. A third route is arithmetical rather than documentary: the five planetary totals in this table are Venus 82, Jupiter 79, Mercury 76, Mars 66 and Saturn 57, summing to exactly 360, and a systematic comparison of those figures and of the individual widths against the planetary period numbers used in Babylonian and Hellenistic astronomy would show whether the table is derived from them or independent of them.

Expertise Needed History of ancient astronomy and astrology; Greek and demotic papyrology; Babylonian mathematical astronomy

Question posed in Tetrabiblos, Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Book I.

Open Payt (Pha) ጰ

Why It Is Open Payt writes an ejective p, which has no Semitic ancestor. It is usually explained as a sign made by altering tayt, on the resemblance of the two forms and on the position of payt late in the order, but the explanation is an inference from shapes rather than a documented act, and it competes with an account deriving both Ge'ez p letters from Greek.

What Would Settle It A palaeographic sequence for both letters from dated Aksumite material, showing whether the earliest forms of payt resemble tayt more closely than the later ones do, would test the derivation directly.

Expertise Needed Ethiopian epigraphy and Semitic palaeography

Question posed in The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.).

Open Psa (Pa) ፐ

Why It Is Open Psa writes a plain p, a sound Ge'ez did not inherit, because the Semitic p had become f in this branch. The letter therefore has to be an addition to an order that was already fixed, and two explanations circulate: that it is the Greek pi, borrowed with the Greek names and vocabulary that made a p letter necessary, and that it is a modification of an existing fidel sign. Both are readings of the letterform and of its position at the end of the order. Neither rests on a document.

What Would Settle It Dated Aksumite and post-Aksumite inscriptions and manuscripts showing the earliest forms of psa and payt, read against the Ancient South Arabian signary and against Greek letterforms in use in Aksum, would show whether the sign entered the script from outside or was built inside it.

Expertise Needed Ethiopian epigraphy and Semitic palaeography

Question posed in The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.).