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 shape of the gap rather than its subject: what sort of thing is unresolved.
Filter By Specialty 99 fields, 1 selected
Showing 1 of 608 questions, filtered to 1 specialty.
attribution 1
Who said or wrote or made something, where the record is incomplete.
Thealogy
Who first used the word thealogy in its current sense, and when?
Open Thealogy
Why It Is Open The word is variously credited to different writers of the 1970s and this pass could not establish a first attested use from a source it had checked. Goldenberg's use in 1979 is documented; earlier uses are asserted in secondary literature without a locus.
What Would Settle It A first-attestation search across feminist religious periodicals and conference papers of the 1970s, giving a dated printed occurrence with page reference.
Expertise Needed History of religions; lexicography
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.