Category موضوعي
Evidence and research methods
Reading evidence, comparing interpretations and assessing the limits of inference.
Advanced search →Artifact 9 Entity 197 Period 2 Person 52 Site 17 Study 82 Ancient text 10
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Original photograph
Entity
Leviathan
A poetic sea being in Hebrew texts, related to Ugaritic ltn; its role varies between combat and creation imagery.
Fragments of Ugaritic KTU 1.5, Louvre AO 16641 and AO 16642, c. 1400–1200 BCE. The Baal Cycle text mentions ltn; the artifact does not depict the creature. Photograph by Rama, 2007, CC BY-SA 2.0 France via Wikimedia Commons; original unchanged
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Original photograph
Entity
Etemenanki
Babylon’s ziggurat in the Esagil complex, associated with Marduk and attested in royal inscriptions and a later measurement tablet.
Clay cuneiform cylinder from Nebuchadnezzar II’s reign commemorating reconstruction of Etemenanki at Babylon; neither a picture of the tower nor a depiction of Genesis. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 86.11.284, public-domain image; resized and converted to WebP for display
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Original photograph
Entity
Ninmah
A major goddess involved in human making and in assigning fates to fashioned bodies in the Sumerian composition.
Clay tablet of Atraḫasīs at the British Museum. The photographer identifies it with the flood tradition, not the human-creation lines. Photograph: SpeakingArch, 2026 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; resized and converted to WebP for display
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Original photograph
Entity
Namma
A goddess who asks Enki to relieve the gods’ labor in Enki and Ninmah.
Clay tablet of Atraḫasīs at the British Museum. The photographer identifies it with the flood tradition, not the human-creation lines. Photograph: SpeakingArch, 2026 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; resized and converted to WebP for display
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Original photograph
Entity
Adapa
Wise figure of Eridu associated with Ea; multiple texts recount his ascent to Anu and refusal of offered food.
Adapa fragment A, MLC 1296, Neo-Assyrian, about the seventh century BCE, Morgan Library & Museum. Preserves the opening; not Amarna EA 356 or a portrait of Adapa or Adam. Photograph: Daderot, 2020; CC0 1.0
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Original photograph
Entity
Qingu
Tiamat’s commander, whose blood forms humanity in Enuma Elish.
Enuma Elish tablet K.3473, from Nineveh, Neo-Assyrian period; British Museum. A witness to the poem’s transmission, not its first composition
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Original photograph
Entity
Apsû
Primordial waters and divine progenitor in Enuma Elish.
Enuma Elish tablet K.3473, from Nineveh, Neo-Assyrian period; British Museum. A witness to the poem’s transmission, not its first composition
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Original photograph
Entity
Shamash
Mesopotamian god of the sun and justice, shown before Hammurabi on an eighteenth-century BCE stele preserved in the Louvre.
Relief at the top of the Sun-God Tablet from Sippar, ninth century BCE. Shamash sits before a solar disc; a Babylonian king and two intermediary figures stand to the left. British Museum, 91000. Photograph by Prioryman, 22 January 2012
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Original photograph
Entity
Plastered skulls
Human skulls with material added to model a face, sometimes with shell eyes; postmortem treatment distinct from modification during life.
Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction
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Original photograph
Entity
Chemosh
Prominent Moabite deity whose anger and favor explain defeat and recovery in Mesha’s royal inscription.
Mesha Stele, basalt from Dhiban, ninth century BCE, Louvre AO 5066. The displayed monument is reassembled with restored missing areas
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Illustration
Entity
Oral transmission
Circulation through performance and hearing, potentially involving change.
Distinct claims: population contact alone does not prove reading or narrative transfer
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Illustration
Entity
Epic of Gilgamesh
Mesopotamian literary tradition whose standard Tablet XI contains Utnapishtim’s flood.
Compare specified witnesses; flood narratives do not share every detail
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Illustration
Entity
Literary motif
Recurring narrative element whose presence alone does not establish dependence.
Placement at the bank differs from release into the current; no scene is reconstructed
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Illustration
Entity
Dating texts
Distinguishing narrated time, composition and surviving copy.
The protagonist does not date the story; the copy does not identify its first formulation
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Illustration
Entity
Parallelomania
Exaggerating parallels into insufficiently supported dependence.
A working tool for this study, not an automatic test or universally weighted checklist
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Illustration
Entity
Independent development
Similar elements arising without historical transmission between them.
Alternatives can overlap; this diagram does not document a particular narrative’s route
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Illustration
Entity
Shared tradition
Inherited material reaching several texts without direct dependence between them.
Structural continuity proves neither a copied Ugaritic tablet nor a deity-to-angel identity
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Illustration
Entity
Literary dependence
A relationship explaining a text’s composition through another text.
Relationship, source, direction and route can have different levels of support
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Illustration
Entity
Literary borrowing
Use of material from an earlier text or tradition in a new work.
Alternatives can overlap; this diagram does not document a particular narrative’s route
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Illustration
Entity
Bi-lā kayf
Affirming attribute language without specifying modality or creaturely likeness.
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
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Illustration
Entity
Kalām
Islamic traditions of doctrinal reasoning with diverse approaches to attributes and transcendence.
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
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Illustration
Entity
Christian incarnation
The Word becoming flesh; distinct from every divine body or sensible manifestation.
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
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Illustration
Entity
Negative theology
Speaking of God through negating limitations while resisting comprehension of essence.
Different methods may coexist; they cannot all be reduced to one metaphor or delegation
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Illustration
Entity
Divine anthropomorphism
Human bodily or emotional descriptions of God; not alone proof of corporeal essence.
Analyzing a phrase differs from reconstructing divine corporeality; words provide different kinds of evidence
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Illustration
Entity
Divine simplicity
Metaphysical noncomposition, not simply belief in one God.
Three distinct axes, not one historical transition or a doctrine shared by every school
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Illustration
Entity
Divine incorporeality
Denial of a material divine body; distinct from image prohibition and simplicity.
Three distinct axes, not one historical transition or a doctrine shared by every school
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Illustration
Entity
Neoplatonism
Modern label for later Platonic traditions associated with Plotinus, centuries after Philo.
Modern simplification of some Plotinian dependencies, not a spatial map or Christian Trinity. This third-century CE school postdates Philo
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Illustration
Entity
Divine immutability
Inquiry into divine change, distinguished from fidelity and impassibility.
Modern conceptual distinction; connecting the levels requires argument, and terminology alone does not deny love or providence
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Illustration
Entity
Allegorical exegesis
Reading narrative elements for further meanings; not inherently abolition of literal practice.
Modern diagram of Philo’s approach, not a rule for every Jewish reader. Migration of Abraham rejects neglecting laws because of symbolic interpretation. [11][12]
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Illustration
Entity
Unmoved mover
Aristotelian principle explaining eternal motion without its own transition from potentiality to actuality.
Modern comparison of explanatory principles, not three names for the same god. Plato’s ordering does not establish creation from nothing; Aristotle’s mover is not automatically the biblical God. [6][7][13]
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Illustration
Entity
Demiurge
Maker or organizer of the world in the Timaeus; not automatically a creator from nothing.
Modern comparison of explanatory principles, not three names for the same god. Plato’s ordering does not establish creation from nothing; Aristotle’s mover is not automatically the biblical God. [6][7][13]
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Illustration
Entity
Hanif
Quranic description of Abraham linked to submission and rejection of association.
Modern summary of passages about heavenly beings and Abraham, not depictions or an independent Abrahamic biography. Roles and surviving names do not establish a particular ancient god’s conversion into an angel. [9][10][11][27][23]
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Illustration
Entity
Intercession
Mediation subject in the cited Quranic texts to permission and approval, not divine independence.
Modern comparison of intermediary arguments with the permission condition. Neither denial of all intercession nor a complete history of interpretation. [18][19][25][9]
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Illustration
Entity
Rabb
Title of lordship, ownership or care by context; applied to God in Lord of worlds.
Word functions in Quranic witnesses, not an etymological tree or four gods. Modern explanatory diagram; Allah’s possible derivation is a separate issue. [15][16][17][25]
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Illustration
Entity
Raḥmānān
Divine designation rḥmnn in late Sabaic inscriptions before Islam.
Modern diagram of the Raḥmānān designation and settings, based on the passages read from Kjær. Not an inscription image or claim of uniform belief
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Illustration
Entity
Al-Raḥmān
Quranic divine designation co-referring with Allah.
Word functions in Quranic witnesses, not an etymological tree or four gods. Modern explanatory diagram; Allah’s possible derivation is a separate issue. [15][16][17][25]
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Illustration
Entity
Filioque
Later western Latin addition concerning the Spirit’s procession, absent from the expanded Greek creed.
Modern diagram of debate, showing arguments, politics and worship together. No claim that one decision immediately made all Christians agree
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Illustration
Entity
Modalism
Label for positions opponents argued erased Father/Son/Spirit distinction.
Modern diagram of debate, showing arguments, politics and worship together. No claim that one decision immediately made all Christians agree
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Illustration
Entity
First Council of Nicaea
Council convened by Constantine in 325, a major stage that did not immediately end dispute.
Modern timeline of witnesses and formulations, not one birth date for belief or immediate consensus. It distinguishes 381 from the expanded creed’s attestation in 451
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Illustration
Entity
Nicene Creed
Creed associated with the 325 council, distinct from the expanded form associated with 381.
Modern comparison of transmitted texts, not a tablet or original council minutes. The expanded form is ecclesially attributed to 381 and clearly displayed in Chalcedon’s 451 documentation
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