Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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Disputed Statements

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.

3,862 statements.

The Birth of Muhammad, HistoricityThe Year of the Elephant is traditionally associated with a failed Abyssinian military expedition against Mecca described in the Quran; the exact correspondence between this traditional dating and independently attested regional events is debated by historians.

The Birth of Muhammad, Religious Events

Standing

Concerns Historicity

Currently States The Year of the Elephant is traditionally associated with a failed Abyssinian military expedition against Mecca described in the Quran; the exact correspondence between this traditional dating and independently attested regional events is debated by historians.

Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)

The Birth of Rama, HistoricityThe Ramayana places Rama's birth in the Treta Yuga, one of four cosmic ages in Hindu cosmology understood as vastly longer than recorded history; the narrative is treated within Hindu tradition as itihasa, sacred history, rather than history in the modern critical sense.

The Birth of Rama, Religious Events

Standing

Concerns Historicity

Currently States The Ramayana places Rama's birth in the Treta Yuga, one of four cosmic ages in Hindu cosmology understood as vastly longer than recorded history; the narrative is treated within Hindu tradition as itihasa, sacred history, rather than history in the modern critical sense.

Source A Survey of Hinduism, Klaus K. Klostermaier

The Birth of the Buddha, What It SettledBorn Siddhartha Gautama, a prince of the Shakya clan; later Buddhist tradition holds he was born already able to walk and speak, taking seven steps and declaring his own future enlightenment, an episode read as devotional elaboration by most scholars.

The Birth of the Buddha, Religious Events

Standing

Concerns What It Settled

Currently States Born Siddhartha Gautama, a prince of the Shakya clan; later Buddhist tradition holds he was born already able to walk and speak, taking seven steps and declaring his own future enlightenment, an episode read as devotional elaboration by most scholars.

Source Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo, Richard Gombrich

The Birth of the Buddha, HistoricityThe Buddha's existence as a historical figure is not seriously disputed by scholars, though most details of his birth and early life, recorded centuries after the events they describe, are treated as legendary elaboration around a historical core that cannot be independently recovered.

The Birth of the Buddha, Religious Events

Standing

Concerns Historicity

Currently States The Buddha's existence as a historical figure is not seriously disputed by scholars, though most details of his birth and early life, recorded centuries after the events they describe, are treated as legendary elaboration around a historical core that cannot be independently recovered.

Source An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices, 2nd edition, Peter Harvey

The Birth of the Buddha, When It HappenedTraditionally 623 BCE according to the long chronology used in much of Theravada Buddhist tradition; a revised short chronology proposed by scholars at a 1988 symposium places his birth closer to the mid-fifth century BCE.

The Birth of the Buddha, Religious Events

Standing

Concerns When It Happened

Currently States Traditionally 623 BCE according to the long chronology used in much of Theravada Buddhist tradition; a revised short chronology proposed by scholars at a 1988 symposium places his birth closer to the mid-fifth century BCE.

Source An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices, 2nd edition, Peter Harvey

The Black Book of Satan, Scholarly ReceptionScholars of esotericism are divided over the Order of Nine Angles' own founding narrative and the identity behind the pseudonym Anton Long. One camp, including Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Per Faxneld and Jacob Senholt, treats the identification of Anton Long with the neo-Nazi activist David Myatt as well supported by ideological and stylistic parallels between their writing; Massimo Introvigne has concluded the Order has, in effect, acknowledged the identification itself. A second camp, including Jeffrey Kaplan, George Sieg and Ethan Doyle White, finds that identification implausible or unproven, pointing to differences in writing style and personality, or holds that "Anton Long" may conceal more than one person. The Order's own position is that its historical accounts are, in its words, tales to be accepted or rejected rather than verified as fact, which keeps the underlying question of authorship open rather than closed by either camp.

The Black Book of Satan, Literary Works

Standing

Concerns Scholarly Reception

Currently States Scholars of esotericism are divided over the Order of Nine Angles' own founding narrative and the identity behind the pseudonym Anton Long. One camp, including Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Per Faxneld and Jacob Senholt, treats the identification of Anton Long with the neo-Nazi activist David Myatt as well supported by ideological and stylistic parallels between their writing; Massimo Introvigne has concluded the Order has, in effect, acknowledged the identification itself. A second camp, including Jeffrey Kaplan, George Sieg and Ethan Doyle White, finds that identification implausible or unproven, pointing to differences in writing style and personality, or holds that "Anton Long" may conceal more than one person. The Order's own position is that its historical accounts are, in its words, tales to be accepted or rejected rather than verified as fact, which keeps the underlying question of authorship open rather than closed by either camp.

Both named camps and the primary source's own stated position on its unverifiability are drawn from direct search of secondary academic literature on the Order of Nine Angles before writing; no attribution here is invented.

Source Secret Identities in the Sinister Tradition (The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity), Jacob C. Senholt

The Bois Caiman Ceremony Marks Vodou's Public Emergence, DescriptionVodou had been forming gradually since the sixteenth century among enslaved Fon, Bakongo and Yoruba Africans in Saint-Domingue, syncretizing their traditions with French colonial Catholicism into a recognizable religion by around the mid-eighteenth century. Its first widely cited public appearance came on the night of 14 August 1791 (one account gives 24 August), when roughly 200 enslaved people gathered in woods near Le Cap; the Houngan Dutty Boukman presided with the mambo Cecile Fatiman, a pig was sacrificed to Ezili Dantor, and the assembly sealed a pact of rebellion. Within days the Northern Plain was in revolt, the traditional opening of the Haitian Revolution; French authorities captured and beheaded Boukman soon after. No first-hand account of the ceremony survives, the earliest written record is colonist Antoine Dalmas's in 1814, more than two decades later, and some scholars, Leon-Francois Hoffmann among them, argue the episode as commonly told may be a later mythologized creation for political unity rather than a precisely reported historical event; this atlas names that dispute rather than treating the ceremony as settled fact. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

The Bois Caiman Ceremony Marks Vodou's Public Emergence, Spread Events

Standing

Concerns Description

Currently States Vodou had been forming gradually since the sixteenth century among enslaved Fon, Bakongo and Yoruba Africans in Saint-Domingue, syncretizing their traditions with French colonial Catholicism into a recognizable religion by around the mid-eighteenth century. Its first widely cited public appearance came on the night of 14 August 1791 (one account gives 24 August), when roughly 200 enslaved people gathered in woods near Le Cap; the Houngan Dutty Boukman presided with the mambo Cecile Fatiman, a pig was sacrificed to Ezili Dantor, and the assembly sealed a pact of rebellion. Within days the Northern Plain was in revolt, the traditional opening of the Haitian Revolution; French authorities captured and beheaded Boukman soon after. No first-hand account of the ceremony survives, the earliest written record is colonist Antoine Dalmas's in 1814, more than two decades later, and some scholars, Leon-Francois Hoffmann among them, argue the episode as commonly told may be a later mythologized creation for political unity rather than a precisely reported historical event; this atlas names that dispute rather than treating the ceremony as settled fact. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source Bois Caiman (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors

The Bois Caiman Ceremony Marks Vodou's Public Emergence, Start Year1791

The Bois Caiman Ceremony Marks Vodou's Public Emergence, Spread Events

Standing

Concerns Start Year

Currently States 1791

1791 (most commonly 14 August, one account 24 August) is the traditional date of the Bois Caiman ceremony; its historicity as commonly told is itself disputed, since no first-hand account survives and the earliest record dates to 1814, more than two decades later.

Source Bois Caiman (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors

The Boko Haram Insurgency (2009 to Present), Death Toll Minimum34261.000000

The Boko Haram Insurgency (2009 to Present), Wars & Conflicts

Standing

Concerns Death Toll Minimum

Currently States 34261.000000

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project's own tracking, covering June 2011 through June 2018 and compared directly against the Council on Foreign Relations' Nigeria Security Tracker in Campbell and Harwood's analysis, recorded thirty four thousand two hundred sixty one deaths; this is the lower of the two independently maintained conflict-event datasets for that window, not the insurgency's full toll before or after it.

Source Boko Haram's Deadly Impact, John Campbell and Asch Harwood

The Boko Haram Insurgency (2009 to Present), Death Toll Maximum37530.000000

The Boko Haram Insurgency (2009 to Present), Wars & Conflicts

Standing

Concerns Death Toll Maximum

Currently States 37530.000000

The Council on Foreign Relations' own Nigeria Security Tracker, covering the same June 2011 through June 2018 window, recorded thirty seven thousand five hundred thirty deaths, nearly double the twenty thousand figure conventionally cited in earlier reporting; this is that dataset's own higher count for the same period, not a claim it supersedes ACLED's figure.

Source Boko Haram's Deadly Impact, John Campbell and Asch Harwood

The Boko Haram Insurgency (2009 to Present), Death Toll AssessmentTwo independently maintained conflict-event datasets, the Council on Foreign Relations' Nigeria Security Tracker and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, tracked the insurgency across the same June 2011 to June 2018 window and recorded thirty seven thousand five hundred thirty and thirty four thousand two hundred sixty one deaths respectively, both far higher than the twenty thousand figure often cited in earlier reporting; both trackers note their own counts likely understate the true toll given limited access to affected areas. A separate and much larger figure, a United Nations Development Programme assessment's estimate of nearly three hundred fifty thousand deaths in Nigeria's northeast through the end of 2020, measures a different quantity: it adds indirect deaths from the malnutrition and lack of medical care that followed mass displacement to the roughly thirty five thousand direct conflict deaths it separately counts, and is not adopted here as a bound on direct conflict mortality, though it is named because it is the figure most often quoted for the insurgency's full human cost.

The Boko Haram Insurgency (2009 to Present), Wars & Conflicts

Standing

Concerns Death Toll Assessment

Currently States Two independently maintained conflict-event datasets, the Council on Foreign Relations' Nigeria Security Tracker and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, tracked the insurgency across the same June 2011 to June 2018 window and recorded thirty seven thousand five hundred thirty and thirty four thousand two hundred sixty one deaths respectively, both far higher than the twenty thousand figure often cited in earlier reporting; both trackers note their own counts likely understate the true toll given limited access to affected areas. A separate and much larger figure, a United Nations Development Programme assessment's estimate of nearly three hundred fifty thousand deaths in Nigeria's northeast through the end of 2020, measures a different quantity: it adds indirect deaths from the malnutrition and lack of medical care that followed mass displacement to the roughly thirty five thousand direct conflict deaths it separately counts, and is not adopted here as a bound on direct conflict mortality, though it is named because it is the figure most often quoted for the insurgency's full human cost.

Source Boko Haram's Deadly Impact, John Campbell and Asch Harwood

The Book of Abramelin, Era of Composition Start Year1400

The Book of Abramelin, Esoteric Texts

Standing

Concerns Era of Composition Start Year

Currently States 1400

The text's own narrative frame claims composition in 1458 by Abraham of Worms, but no surviving manuscript predates the early seventeenth century, and Georg Dehn's edition, compiled from every extant German manuscript rather than the single one Mathers used, finds the linguistic evidence pointing to a fifteenth or sixteenth century origin instead. Dehn further attributes authorship to the German rabbi Yaakov Moelin, a proposal later scholarship has disputed, so both the date and the author remain open questions rather than settled facts.

Source Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies

The Book of Abramelin, Era of Composition End Year1600

The Book of Abramelin, Esoteric Texts

Standing

Concerns Era of Composition End Year

Currently States 1600

The text's own narrative frame claims composition in 1458 by Abraham of Worms, but no surviving manuscript predates the early seventeenth century, and Georg Dehn's edition, compiled from every extant German manuscript rather than the single one Mathers used, finds the linguistic evidence pointing to a fifteenth or sixteenth century origin instead. Dehn further attributes authorship to the German rabbi Yaakov Moelin, a proposal later scholarship has disputed, so both the date and the author remain open questions rather than settled facts.

Source Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies

The Book of Abramelin, Attributed Author / CompilerSome scholars, following the historian Georg Dehn's edition, treat Abraham von Worms as a real fifteenth century figure whose own account frames the text; others read the frame narrative as a literary convention many grimoires use to lend borrowed material a false historical authority, and doubt any such person existed.

The Book of Abramelin, Esoteric Texts

Standing

Concerns Attributed Author / Compiler

Currently States Some scholars, following the historian Georg Dehn's edition, treat Abraham von Worms as a real fifteenth century figure whose own account frames the text; others read the frame narrative as a literary convention many grimoires use to lend borrowed material a false historical authority, and doubt any such person existed.

The debate turns on the framing narrative itself, since no record independent of the text confirms a real fifteenth century Abraham von Worms, and grimoires of this kind routinely invent an authoritative narrator to make compiled material seem older and more trustworthy than it actually is. Dehn's edition argues the internal biographical detail is too specific to be pure invention, while skeptical scholars counter that specificity is itself a common device such texts use to seem authentic, and neither reading has displaced the other.

Source Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies

The Book of Durrow, Date AttributedGenerally placed in the second half of the seventh century. Those favoring a Northumbrian origin argue on paleographic grounds for a date around 680; the place of origin itself, Durrow, Iona, or Northumbria, remains genuinely unsettled among specialists, though current scholarship leans toward Durrow.

The Book of Durrow, Textual Witnesses

Standing

Concerns Date Attributed

Currently States Generally placed in the second half of the seventh century. Those favoring a Northumbrian origin argue on paleographic grounds for a date around 680; the place of origin itself, Durrow, Iona, or Northumbria, remains genuinely unsettled among specialists, though current scholarship leans toward Durrow.

Source The Book of Durrow: A Medieval Masterpiece at Trinity College Dublin, Bernard Meehan

The Book of Mormon (Musical), Religious Subject MatterSatirizes the LDS missionary experience and, in the number "All-American Prophet," stages a comic retelling of Joseph Smith's founding narrative, the First Vision and the recovery of the golden plates, for a general Broadway audience rather than a Latter-day Saint one. The show's missionary characters are treated with more warmth than contempt by the show's own end, and the musical ultimately affirms the practical, communal good the missionaries' faith does in the village even as it mocks the missionaries' training and doctrine along the way.

The Book of Mormon (Musical), Musical Works

Standing

Concerns Religious Subject Matter

Currently States Satirizes the LDS missionary experience and, in the number "All-American Prophet," stages a comic retelling of Joseph Smith's founding narrative, the First Vision and the recovery of the golden plates, for a general Broadway audience rather than a Latter-day Saint one. The show's missionary characters are treated with more warmth than contempt by the show's own end, and the musical ultimately affirms the practical, communal good the missionaries' faith does in the village even as it mocks the missionaries' training and doctrine along the way.

Whether that combination reads as respectful satire or as mockery of sacred material is genuinely unsettled among the people it is about. Hale's peer reviewed study of Mormon audience reactions finds a real range rather than a single verdict, from real offense to genuine enjoyment, and the Church's own contemporaneous statement drew a firm line between the show as entertainment and the actual Book of Mormon as scripture without condemning the production outright.

Source Hale, "Mormon Reactions to The Book of Mormon," Comedy Studies, 2021, Adrian Hale

The Calles-Era Persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico, Death Toll Minimum90000.000000

The Calles-Era Persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico, Religious Events

Standing

Concerns Death Toll Minimum

Currently States 90000.000000

This range covers the whole three-year armed Cristero War the persecution provoked, combatants on both sides and affected civilians together, not persecution deaths alone; no compiled total exists for clergy and lay Catholics killed specifically for practicing their faith, independent of the Church's own canonization process, which the article on this page names directly.

Source The Cristero Rebellion: The Mexican People between Church and State, 1926-1929, Jean Meyer

The Calles-Era Persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico, Death Toll Maximum250000.000000

The Calles-Era Persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico, Religious Events

Standing

Concerns Death Toll Maximum

Currently States 250000.000000

The wider figure some accounts give for the full three-year conflict, again spanning both combatant and civilian deaths on both sides rather than persecution deaths in isolation. As with the lower bound, this total is Jean Meyer's own scholarly synthesis rather than an official government count, since Mexican federal casualty records from the period are incomplete and contested.

Source The Cristero Rebellion: The Mexican People between Church and State, 1926-1929, Jean Meyer

The Campaign Against Tibetan Buddhism in China, DescriptionSince the 2000s, and intensifying through the 2020s, the Chinese government has pursued a wide ranging campaign to bring Tibetan Buddhist religious life under state control: transferring an estimated one million Tibetan children into state run boarding schools, requiring monasteries to undergo mandatory patriotic education and state supervision, banning new monk recruitment at some monasteries, prohibiting traditional festivals including Saga Dawa in Lhasa, asserting state control over the recognition of reincarnate lamas including the Dalai Lama's own succession, and demolishing more than three hundred Buddhist stupas and statues at Lungrab Zang-ri near Janggang Monastery in Drakgo County, Sichuan province, between late May and June 2025. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom's 2026 annual report documents these measures and recommends China be redesignated a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom.

The Campaign Against Tibetan Buddhism in China, Religious Events

Standing

Concerns Description

Currently States Since the 2000s, and intensifying through the 2020s, the Chinese government has pursued a wide ranging campaign to bring Tibetan Buddhist religious life under state control: transferring an estimated one million Tibetan children into state run boarding schools, requiring monasteries to undergo mandatory patriotic education and state supervision, banning new monk recruitment at some monasteries, prohibiting traditional festivals including Saga Dawa in Lhasa, asserting state control over the recognition of reincarnate lamas including the Dalai Lama's own succession, and demolishing more than three hundred Buddhist stupas and statues at Lungrab Zang-ri near Janggang Monastery in Drakgo County, Sichuan province, between late May and June 2025. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom's 2026 annual report documents these measures and recommends China be redesignated a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom.

USCIRF's 2026 report characterizes this campaign as cultural genocide aimed at dismantling Tibetan Buddhist identity, a characterization Tibetan advocacy organizations including the International Campaign for Tibet share. The Chinese government presents the same boarding school system, monastery oversight and language policy changes as ordinary administrative, educational and development measures applied uniformly across its territory rather than as religious persecution specifically targeting Tibetan Buddhism. This atlas records both readings rather than adopting either as settled.

Source USCIRF 2026 Annual Report, China Chapter, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

The Cave, the Planets and the Journey of the Soul, Point in DisputeWhether the cave was taught as an image of the cosmos through which the soul travels. Porphyry reports that it was, and Roger Beck and others hold that the astral programme in the iconography supports him; others hold that Porphyry is reading his own school cosmology into a cult he never belonged to.

The Cave, the Planets and the Journey of the Soul, Doctrines

Standing

Concerns Point in Dispute

Currently States Whether the cave was taught as an image of the cosmos through which the soul travels. Porphyry reports that it was, and Roger Beck and others hold that the astral programme in the iconography supports him; others hold that Porphyry is reading his own school cosmology into a cult he never belonged to.

Source The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire, Roger Beck