Philosophy 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.
Grouped by the field an answer needs. A question sitting between two disciplines appears under both, which is why the group counts add up to more than the number of questions.
Filter By Specialty 99 fields
Showing 781 to 781 of 781 open questions, page 40 of 40.
Not Yet Classified 508
Mount Hor
Which mountain is the Mount Hor of the Torah?
Open Mount Hor
Why It Is Open The biblical text places Mount Hor in an itinerary rather than at a location, on the border of Edom between camps that are themselves unidentified. The traditional identification with Jebel Harun above Petra is comparatively late and rests on the tradition itself. A competing identification places the mountain considerably further north, nearer the edge of the Negev, on a different reading of the route.
What Would Settle It Excavation or survey producing an independent identification of any camp on the wilderness itinerary, or an early inscription or cultic deposit on either candidate summit that ties it to Aaron independently of the later shrine tradition. Failing that, the question stays open and the atlas records the identification as traditional.
Expertise Needed Biblical archaeology and historical geography of the southern Levant
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.