Disputed Statements

De Jing, Scripture Portions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Point in Dispute

Currently States Whether the eighty-one chapter division belongs to the text

The division into eighty-one chapters, a number that is nine squared and carries its own numerological weight, is not present in the Mawangdui manuscripts and has no counterpart in the Guodian slips, where the material appears in three bundles with different groupings and no chapter marks. One position treats the division as a Han period editorial imposition on an anthology of independent sayings. Another holds that many of the units are genuine and that the received arrangement preserves older groupings. The atlas records the number because every citation uses it, and records that it is editorial.

Source Mawangdui silk manuscripts of the Laozi, Laozi (attributed) tier 1

De Jing, Scripture Portions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Attributed Author / Compiler

Currently States Traditionally ascribed to Laozi, though most modern scholars regard the Tao Te Ching as a compilation assembled from older sayings rather than the work of a single author.

The De Jing, the second of the Tao Te Ching's two traditional divisions, is ascribed by tradition to Laozi alongside the Dao Jing, but the Guodian bamboo slip manuscripts, excavated in 1993 and studied in Robert G. Henricks's Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian (Columbia University Press, 2000), are the earliest surviving physical witnesses to the text and do not preserve it in the received two-part division. The method is manuscript-based textual criticism, comparing the material and ordering of the third century BCE Guodian slips against the received text's De Jing material to determine how much of it existed, and in what form, at that early date. Because the Guodian find shows only a partial selection arranged differently from the received text, whether the De Jing existed as a distinct, complete unit attributable to one author at the time reflected in the earliest manuscript evidence is not settled by the manuscript record Henricks studies.

Source Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian, Robert G. Henricks tier 1

De Praestigiis Daemonum, Esoteric Texts

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns How Its Legacy Is Contested

Currently States Nineteenth century psychiatry adopted Weyer as a founder of the discipline and republished him as an early textbook of mental illness.

Historians of medicine are divided on the reading. One position holds that Weyer's clinical observation of melancholy and delusion is a genuine forerunner of psychiatric description. The other holds that the diagnostic vocabulary of 1563 is not that of 1860, and that reading him as a proto-psychiatrist removes him from the theological argument he was actually having and flatters the book by mistaking its purpose.

Source The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, Brian P. Levack tier 1

Dead Sea, Bodies of Water

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Region

Currently States Bordered by Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. What the settlement at Qumran on its northwestern shore was is argued: a sectarian community with ritual pools, probably Essene, or a fortified farm or villa with the scrolls brought from Jerusalem for safekeeping

Magness defends the sectarian settlement reading; the farm and villa proposals are the standing alternatives. The dispute concerns the site, not the significance of the manuscripts.

Source The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jodi Magness tier 1

Deborah, Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Historicity

Currently States Historicity debated

Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman's The Bible Unearthed (Free Press, 2001) examine the two accounts of Deborah in Judges, the prose narrative of Judges 4 and the archaic poem of Judges 5, the Song of Deborah, which most philological reckoning places among the oldest passages in the Hebrew Bible. Their method is comparative literary and archaeological, and they find historians divide over how much the underlying conflict with the Canaanite king Jabin and his commander Sisera reflects an actual battle fought before Israel had a monarchy, for which the old poem is sometimes read as contemporary or near-contemporary evidence, against how much of the developed prose narrative built around that older poem is later literary composition.

Source Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman tier 2

Deer, Animals & Totems

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Contested or Appropriated Modern Use

Currently States The words spirit animal and totem are used in popular Western practice for a personal animal ally. Native scholars and communities object to both usages, on the ground that they take the vocabulary and the authority of particular Indigenous traditions and apply them to a generic and commercial practice.

Suzanne Owen's The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality (Continuum, 2008) documents the objection Indigenous communities in North America raise, ongoing and in the present tense, against the commercial "spirit animal" genre. Owen's study examines how the practice borrows specific Indigenous terms and claimed lineages, presenting them as licensing a service sold to outside customers, and sets that use against the communities' own accounts of what those terms and practices mean within their traditions. What is disputed, on Owen's reading, is not that people generally feel a kinship with animals, a widely attested feeling that belongs to no one tradition, but the specific commercial borrowing of Indigenous vocabulary and claimed authority. The atlas records the animal, records that the modern commercial practice exists, and records that this documented objection is made, without adjudicating between the parties.

Source The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality, Suzanne Owen tier 1

Deetman Commission Report, Abuse Inquiries and Response Policies

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Victim Estimate

Currently States 20000

A population survey extrapolation (34,000 respondents), not a count of individually verified victims, and scoped to a narrower sub-period, 1945 to 1981, than the commission's own wider 1945 to 2010 investigation window. Kept distinct from the 800 accused figure above, which is the commission's own direct-complaint count.

Source Sexual Abuse of Minors in the Roman Catholic Church (the Deetman Commission report), Commission of Inquiry into Sexual Abuse of Minors in the Roman Catholic Church (Wim Deetman, chair) tier 1

Defensor del Pueblo Report on the Catholic Church, Abuse Inquiries and Response Policies

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Victim Estimate

Currently States 440000

A population survey extrapolation from 8,000 respondents, not a count of individually verified cases; the report itself states this figure separately from the 487 directly investigated cases rather than combining them. Recorded debated for the same reason the CIASE / Sauve report's population estimate is.

Source Report on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church and the Role of Public Authorities (Defensor del Pueblo), Angel Gabilondo, Defensor del Pueblo (Spanish Ombudsman) tier 1

Deggua of St Yared, Hymns & Liturgical Texts

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Attributed Author / Compiler

Currently States Ethiopian tradition credits the sixth century Aksumite deacon Yared with composing the Deggua after learning the song of paradise from three birds and founding the church's three chant modes, ge'ez, ezl and araray. Kay Kaufman Shelemay and Peter Jeffery's Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant: An Anthology (A-R Editions, 1993) treats Yared's historicity and his role in founding the chant tradition as held by the church's own record, while treating the vision narrative itself as devotional hagiography rather than documented history.

Kay Kaufman Shelemay and Peter Jeffery's Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant: An Anthology (A-R Editions, 1993) examined the Ethiopian church's own record crediting the sixth century Aksumite deacon Yared with composing the Deggua and founding its three chant modes, ge'ez, ezl and araray, after a vision in which he learned the song of paradise from three birds. Weighing the church's historical record for Yared and his role in founding the chant tradition against the vision story specifically, it holds the former as historically grounded while treating the vision narrative itself as devotional hagiography rather than documented history.

Source Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant: An Anthology, Kay Kaufman Shelemay and Peter Jeffery tier 1

Delta ⲇ, Alphabet Letters

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period

Currently States Greek letters wrote Egyptian from about the first century CE, settled by the fourth

According To The Coptic alphabet of Christian Egypt

The World's Writing Systems (Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, eds., Oxford University Press, 1996) surveys the small corpus of Old Coptic texts, pre-Christian magical and astrological papyri in which Egyptian was first written out using Greek letters plus a few signs borrowed from Demotic, against the standardised Coptic used in Christian scripture translation from around the third century CE onward. Comparing the two corpora, its contributors find the evidence thin enough to support two readings: that the Old Coptic magical texts already fixed the practice of writing Egyptian in Greek-based letters, or that the Christian translation project, needing a stable and teachable orthography for scripture, was the decisive act that standardised the script that survives. Because both readings draw on the same handful of surviving texts and no source describes an official act of decision, the volume treats the question as open rather than favouring either camp.

Source The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.) tier 1

Dene-Caucasian, Language Families

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Classification Status

Currently States Proposed macro-family, not accepted by mainstream comparative linguistics

Dene-Caucasian is a proposed macro-family joining Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dene of North America, Basque, the North Caucasian languages and Burushaski, argued from proposed shared vocabulary and grammatical features rather than from the standard comparative method's normal reconstructive apparatus. Its proponents have been a small number of specialists working since the mid-twentieth century; mainstream comparative linguistics has not accepted the proposal. The reason given for rejecting it is a matter of method rather than of any specific counter-evidence: the languages involved, if related at all, would have separated so long ago that the comparative method's normal tools for distinguishing inheritance from chance resemblance and contact are held not to function reliably at that time depth. Because the disagreement is over whether the evidence can be trusted at this remove in time rather than over a specific reconstructed form, no single finding could settle it; the proposal remains an open minority position precisely because the mainstream objection is to the method's reach rather than to a checkable claim within it.

Source Nostratic: Sifting the Evidence, Joseph C. Salmons and Brian D. Joseph (eds.) tier 1

Der Ring des Nibelungen, Musical Works

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Religious Subject Matter

Currently States Draws its central figures directly from Norse mythology: Wotan is built on Odin, chief of the gods; Brunnhilde is a Valkyrie; the cycle ends with the gods' hall destroyed by fire. But Wagner combined several distinct textual traditions freely, the German Nibelungenlied alongside the Old Norse Volsunga Saga and the Eddas, choosing what suited his drama over what any one tradition actually says, and reshaped what he took. His Wotan is written as cunning and manipulative, scheming across generations to reclaim the ring, a significant departure from Odin as the Eddas and sagas present him. And where the Eddas' account of Ragnarok is followed by a cyclical renewal, a reborn world rising from the ashes of the old, Wagner's Gotterdammerung ends in destruction alone, an intentionally pessimistic reworking rather than a staging of the Norse sources' own eschatology.

Ronald Witzke's peer reviewed article in Christian Scholar's Review argues Wagner transformed his composite mythic sources through Greek dramatic form, patterned after the Oresteia, to carry Neo-Platonic and panentheistic concerns largely absent from the Eddas and sagas themselves. Tony Carnes' essay for A Journey through NYC Religions reaches a related conclusion from a different angle, arguing Wagner used the material toward a deliberately secularizing end, to have the gods leave the stage after educating mankind toward freedom, substituting his own aesthetic experience for the religious belief the myths originally carried. Both readings agree the cycle borrows Norse mythology's figures far more than it preserves Norse mythology's own account of them.

Source Witzke, "Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen: Another Look," Christian Scholar's Review, 2021, Ronald Witzke tier 1

Deva-Asura Dichotomy, Doctrines

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Standing as a Comparative Category

Currently States Used, but its validity as a comparative category is disputed

Devas and asuras recur across Vedic, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain material as rival classes of powerful beings, but Zoroastrianism inverts the vocabulary entirely: ahura, cognate with asura, names the supreme divine headed by Ahura Mazda, while daeva, cognate with deva, names the demons the faithful are commanded to reject. Mary Boyce's A History of Zoroastrianism (1989) is the standard source for this reversal, and Indo-Iranian specialists remain divided on what caused it, a real historical schism between the communities ancestral to the Vedic and Avestan traditions, a deliberate shift originating in Zoroaster's own reform, or independent drift in each branch after the two traditions separated. Because the reversal's cause bears on how old and how deliberate the good and demon assignment is in each tradition, and no single account commands the field, the standing is recorded as contested rather than settled.

Source A History of Zoroastrianism, Mary Boyce tier 1

Deva-Asura Dichotomy, Doctrines

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Scholarly Standing Detail

Currently States Whether the daeva/ahura reversal reflects a real historical schism between the communities ancestral to the Vedic and Avestan traditions, a shift originating with Zoroaster's own reform, or independent drift in each branch remains argued among Indo-Iranian specialists.

Source A History of Zoroastrianism, Mary Boyce tier 1

Devadasi, Religious Roles & Titles

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Standing as a Comparative Category

Currently States Soneji argues that abolition removed a livelihood and a memory as well as an abuse, and that the surviving communities were left with the stigma and none of the standing. The reform account and the devotional account of the same institution are both still in print and they do not agree.

The stigma is borne by living people. This entry states the abuse and the loss together because writing either alone has been done to these communities repeatedly and by both sides.

Source Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India, Davesh Soneji tier 1

Devanagari Dda ड, Alphabet Letters

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period

Currently States Where the retroflex series came from is unsettled: one camp derives it from contact with Dravidian, the other from sound change internal to Indo-Aryan

According To Historical linguistics of South Asia

The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright with contributions from specialists in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian historical linguistics, Oxford University Press, 1996, sets out two competing accounts of how Sanskrit's retroflex consonants arose, camps that remain both currently held. The contact account points to retroflexion attested across unrelated South Asian language families and to its presence in Dravidian from the earliest reconstructable stage, treating language contact as the cause. The internal account instead derives most Sanskrit retroflexes by regular sound-change rules from earlier consonant clusters, with no appeal to contact at all, and some scholars argue for a combination of internal development reinforced by contact. The volume's comparative historical linguistic method cannot produce decisive evidence either way because the relevant contact period is prehistoric for both families and the Indus script, which might otherwise bear on the question, remains undeciphered. This atlas names the camps and does not choose between them.

Source The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.) tier 1

Devanagari Ddha ढ, Alphabet Letters

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period

Currently States Where the retroflex series came from is unsettled: one camp derives it from contact with Dravidian, the other from sound change internal to Indo-Aryan

According To Historical linguistics of South Asia

The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright with contributions from specialists in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian historical linguistics, Oxford University Press, 1996, sets out two competing accounts of how Sanskrit's retroflex consonants arose, camps that remain both currently held. The contact account points to retroflexion attested across unrelated South Asian language families and to its presence in Dravidian from the earliest reconstructable stage, treating language contact as the cause. The internal account instead derives most Sanskrit retroflexes by regular sound-change rules from earlier consonant clusters, with no appeal to contact at all, and some scholars argue for a combination of internal development reinforced by contact. The volume's comparative historical linguistic method cannot produce decisive evidence either way because the relevant contact period is prehistoric for both families and the Indus script, which might otherwise bear on the question, remains undeciphered. This atlas names the camps and does not choose between them.

Source The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.) tier 1

Devanagari Nna ण, Alphabet Letters

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period

Currently States Where the retroflex series came from is unsettled: one camp derives it from contact with Dravidian, the other from sound change internal to Indo-Aryan

According To Historical linguistics of South Asia

The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright with contributions from specialists in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian historical linguistics, Oxford University Press, 1996, sets out two competing accounts of how Sanskrit's retroflex consonants arose, camps that remain both currently held. The contact account points to retroflexion attested across unrelated South Asian language families and to its presence in Dravidian from the earliest reconstructable stage, treating language contact as the cause. The internal account instead derives most Sanskrit retroflexes by regular sound-change rules from earlier consonant clusters, with no appeal to contact at all, and some scholars argue for a combination of internal development reinforced by contact. The volume's comparative historical linguistic method cannot produce decisive evidence either way because the relevant contact period is prehistoric for both families and the Indus script, which might otherwise bear on the question, remains undeciphered. This atlas names the camps and does not choose between them.

Source The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.) tier 1

Devanagari Tta ट, Alphabet Letters

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period

Currently States Where the retroflex series came from is unsettled: one camp derives it from contact with Dravidian, the other from sound change internal to Indo-Aryan

According To Historical linguistics of South Asia

The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright with contributions from specialists in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian historical linguistics, Oxford University Press, 1996, sets out two competing accounts of how Sanskrit's retroflex consonants arose, camps that remain both currently held. The contact account points to retroflexion attested across unrelated South Asian language families and to its presence in Dravidian from the earliest reconstructable stage, treating language contact as the cause. The internal account instead derives most Sanskrit retroflexes by regular sound-change rules from earlier consonant clusters, with no appeal to contact at all, and some scholars argue for a combination of internal development reinforced by contact. The volume's comparative historical linguistic method cannot produce decisive evidence either way because the relevant contact period is prehistoric for both families and the Indus script, which might otherwise bear on the question, remains undeciphered. This atlas names the camps and does not choose between them.

Source The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.) tier 1

Devanagari Ttha ठ, Alphabet Letters

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period

Currently States Where the retroflex series came from is unsettled: one camp derives it from contact with Dravidian, the other from sound change internal to Indo-Aryan

According To Historical linguistics of South Asia

The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright with contributions from specialists in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian historical linguistics, Oxford University Press, 1996, sets out two competing accounts of how Sanskrit's retroflex consonants arose, camps that remain both currently held. The contact account points to retroflexion attested across unrelated South Asian language families and to its presence in Dravidian from the earliest reconstructable stage, treating language contact as the cause. The internal account instead derives most Sanskrit retroflexes by regular sound-change rules from earlier consonant clusters, with no appeal to contact at all, and some scholars argue for a combination of internal development reinforced by contact. The volume's comparative historical linguistic method cannot produce decisive evidence either way because the relevant contact period is prehistoric for both families and the Indus script, which might otherwise bear on the question, remains undeciphered. This atlas names the camps and does not choose between them.

Source The World's Writing Systems, Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.) tier 1