Open Questions

Open Nehunya ben HaKanah

Why It Is Open The Mishnah preserves only two short sayings in Nehunya ben HaKanah's name and places him among the sages of the generation around the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. No source records a death year, and the later medieval attribution to him of the Bahir and the Ana BeKoach prayer is treated by scholarship as pseudepigraphic, supplying no genuine biographical date.

What Would Settle It A datable document or independent notice fixing a year in Nehunya ben HaKanah's later life, distinct from the Mishnah's generational placement of his two recorded sayings.

Expertise Needed Talmudic chronology, history of the generation of the Temple's destruction

Question posed in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem.

Open Musaylima

Why It Is Open Everything known about Musaylima comes from the testimony of the people who defeated him, Islamic accounts written after his death at the battle of Aqraba in 632 or 633, concerned with his revelation, his following among the Banu Hanifa and his death rather than his early life. No source records when he was born.

What Would Settle It A source independent of the Islamic accounts that defeated and denounced him, from within the Banu Hanifa's own oral or documentary memory, naming a birth year or generation for Musaylima.

Expertise Needed Early Islamic history, pre-Islamic Arabian history

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

Open Dhu Nuwas

Why It Is Open Dhu Nuwas is known only from the years of his reign, fixed by Sabaic inscriptions issued under his regnal name Yusuf Asar Yathar and by Syriac Christian accounts of the Najran massacre around 523, both windows onto the final years of his rule rather than his early life. No source records a birth year.

What Would Settle It A Himyarite inscription or independent South Arabian record naming Dhu Nuwas, under his own regnal name or his personal name, before the events of his reign that the surviving inscriptions and Syriac accounts already cover.

Expertise Needed South Arabian epigraphy, late antique Himyarite history

Question posed in The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam, G. W. Bowersock.

Open Duke of Zhou

Why It Is Open The Duke of Zhou is known only through his role as regent after his brother King Wu's death, an event whose absolute date is not settled. Proposed dates for the Zhou conquest of Shang, on which every early Zhou chronology depends, range across nearly a century of scholarly reconstruction, and no source independently records his own birth or death year.

What Would Settle It A settled absolute date for the Zhou conquest of Shang, which archaeoastronomical and bronze-inscription chronology projects continue to refine, together with an inscriptional or textual source naming the Duke of Zhou's own birth or death year rather than only his role in dynastic events.

Expertise Needed Early Chinese history, Zhou dynasty chronology, Sinology

Question posed in The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (eds.).

Open Karma Lingpa

Why It Is Open No source independent of Nyingma tulku-lineage tradition records when Karma Lingpa was born or died. The commonly repeated dates of 1326 and 1386 come from later biographical and lineage compilations rather than from any record contemporary with him.

What Would Settle It A Tibetan document contemporary with Karma Lingpa, distinct from the later tulku-lineage biographies that supply his conventional dates, naming a year for his birth or death.

Expertise Needed Tibetan Buddhist studies, history of the Nyingma tertön tradition

Question posed in The Hidden History of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Bryan J. Cuevas.

Open Thonmi Sambhota

Why It Is Open No source contemporary with Thonmi Sambhota records when he died. His entire biography comes from Tibetan histories composed from about the eleventh century onward, several centuries after the events they describe, and modern scholarship treats the man himself as an uncertain figure whose attributed grammatical treatises cannot be independently dated to the seventh century.

What Would Settle It A Tibetan imperial-period inscription or document contemporary with Songtsen Gampo's reign, distinct from the eleventh-century-and-later histories that supply Thonmi Sambhota's conventional biography, naming him or fixing a year for his death.

Expertise Needed Tibetan history, history of the Tibetan script and early Tibetan grammar

Question posed in Tibet: A History, Sam van Schaik.

Open Fatima of Nishapur

Why It Is Open Fatima of Nishapur is dated to the ninth century only through her documented circle, her marriage to Ahmad ibn Khadrawayh and her correspondence with Bayazid Bistami and Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri, both of whom rated her spiritual standing above any man they had known. No contemporary source records her actual birth or death year; her fullest biography, Attar's Tadhkirat al-Awliya, was compiled some three centuries after she lived.

What Would Settle It A datable document or independent biographical notice about Fatima of Nishapur contemporary with her own life, rather than only the later hagiographical tradition and the death dates of the male contemporaries she corresponded with.

Expertise Needed History of early Sufism, Islamic studies

Question posed in Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill), 2nd and 3rd editions, P. Bearman et al. (eds.).

Open Svatmarama

Why It Is Open Svatmarama is known only as the compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a text the manuscript evidence places around 1400 CE. No source independent of the text names a birth year, a birthplace or a patron, and even his name may describe a spiritual role rather than record a birth name.

What Would Settle It A manuscript colophon, inscription or independent Natha lineage record naming Svatmarama's birth year, distinct from the composition date of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika itself.

Expertise Needed History of yoga, Sanskrit textual studies

Question posed in Roots of Yoga, James Mallinson and Mark Singleton (trans. and eds.).

Open Bahya ibn Paquda

Why It Is Open The Encyclopaedia Judaica records only that Bahya ibn Paquda was active in the second half of the eleventh century in Zaragoza, exact dates not recorded, and no medieval document independent of his one surviving work fixes an actual birth year.

What Would Settle It A datable communal or legal document from Zaragoza naming Bahya ibn Paquda in his role as dayan, independent of the Duties of the Heart itself, fixing a year in his life.

Expertise Needed Medieval Jewish intellectual history

Question posed in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.).

Open Gorakhnath

Why It Is Open No chronicle, inscription or hagiography records an actual death for Gorakhnath. The scholarship that debates his period treats it as a span of activity rather than as separated birth and death years, and Nath tradition itself holds he attained a deathless, perfected state through hatha yoga rather than dying an ordinary death, so no source within the tradition he founded proposes a death date either.

What Would Settle It A dated inscription, monastic record or textual notice external to Nath hagiography naming an end to Gorakhnath's activity or a named successor's own dated era.

Expertise Needed History of Hinduism, Nath Sampradaya studies

Question posed in The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India, David Gordon White.

Open Matsyendranath

Why It Is Open No source records when Matsyendranath died. He is known only through Nath and Kaula textual tradition and through ongoing worship in the Kathmandu Valley as the rain-bringing deity Machindranath, celebrated annually rather than commemorated as deceased, which supplies no death tradition an ordinary biography could draw on.

What Would Settle It An external documentary or epigraphic record independent of Nath, Kaula and Newar devotional tradition naming an end to Matsyendranath's activity.

Expertise Needed History of Hinduism, Nath and Newar religious studies

Question posed in The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India, David Gordon White.

Open Zhang Sanfeng

Why It Is Open No contemporary record confirms Zhang Sanfeng lived at all. Regional gazettes give a traditional birth in 1247 and report him still being sought as late as 1464, a span of more than two hundred years that scholarship reads as evidence of a composite legendary figure rather than a single dateable life, while competing traditions place his birth as early as 960 or as late as 1279.

What Would Settle It A contemporary Yuan or early Ming record independent of later Wudang cult tradition and imperial search-party accounts, confirming a single historical individual existed and naming his actual dates.

Expertise Needed History of Daoism, Chinese religious history

Question posed in Daoism Handbook, Livia Kohn (ed.).

Open Bruriah

Why It Is Open Bruriah is dated to the second century CE only through her documented relationships, as daughter of Hananiah ben Teradion, martyred by Rome around 135 CE, and as wife of Rabbi Meir, whose teaching activity is placed across the middle decades of the century. No Talmudic passage naming her carries an independent birth or death date, and later medieval legend about her is treated by modern scholars as a later addition rather than earliest-record testimony.

What Would Settle It A datable document or independent notice naming Bruriah, distinct from the undated Talmudic anecdotes and from the death dates of her father and husband, which fix only the generation she belonged to.

Expertise Needed Talmudic chronology, history of the Mishnaic and early Tannaitic period

Question posed in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.).

Open Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair

Why It Is Open Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair is placed in the second century CE only by his standing as a Mishnaic-era tanna and as the son-in-law of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, whose own circle is conventionally dated to the middle of the century. No chronicle or inscription independent of the Mishnah's generational framework fixes an actual birth or death year.

What Would Settle It A datable document or independent notice fixing a year in Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair's life, distinct from the Mishnah's generational placement of his teaching.

Expertise Needed Talmudic chronology, history of the Mishnaic period

Question posed in The Mishnah: A New Translation, Jacob Neusner, trans..

Open Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II

Why It Is Open Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel II is first attested as a youth at the fall of Betar in 135 CE and later as Nasi presiding at Usha from around 140 CE, but no source gives an actual birth or death year for him.

What Would Settle It A datable document or inscription fixing his birth year, and a record of his death independent of his son Judah HaNasi's own, later-attested succession.

Expertise Needed Talmudic chronology, history of the Sanhedrin and the Hillelite patriarchate

Question posed in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.).

Open Zosimos of Panopolis

Why It Is Open Every source on Zosimos, his own treatises and the later Byzantine and Arabic writers who cite him, fixes only the period in which he was demonstrably active, around 300 CE in Greco-Roman Egypt, and none supplies a birth year.

What Would Settle It A dated document, inscription or external biographical notice about Zosimos independent of his own writings, naming a birth year rather than only his working period.

Expertise Needed History of alchemy, papyrology, late antique Egyptian history

Question posed in The Secrets of Alchemy, Lawrence M. Principe.

Open Shimon bar Yochai

Why It Is Open Rabbinic sources record his teaching, his hiding from Rome, and his tomb at Meron, but no source gives an actual birth or death year, and the later literary Shimon bar Yochai of the Zohar complicates any single dating further.

What Would Settle It A datable inscription or external documentary record naming a birth or death year for the historical tanna, independent of the devotional yahrzeit tradition and of the Zohar's own literary framing.

Expertise Needed Rabbinics, history of the Mishnaic and Talmudic period

Question posed in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem.

Open Nehunya ben HaKanah

Why It Is Open The Mishnah preserves only two prayers and a maxim in his name, enough to place him among the tannaim of the generation around 70 CE but not enough to fix an actual birth year, and almost nothing else about his life survives.

What Would Settle It An external documentary or epigraphic record naming a birth year, independent of the brief mishnaic attributions and of the later medieval kabbalistic ascriptions made in his name.

Expertise Needed Rabbinics, history of the Second Temple and Mishnaic period

Question posed in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem.

Open Thonmi Sambhota

Why It Is Open The earliest accounts of Thonmi Sambhota's life were written some four centuries after the events they describe, and even his traditional mission date of 632 is not agreed among them; no source, early or late, gives a birth year, and some scholars question whether a single historical minister stands behind the tradition at all.

What Would Settle It A source contemporary with Songtsen Gampo's seventh century reign naming Thonmi Sambhota and a birth year, which no presently known Tibetan or external record supplies.

Expertise Needed Tibetan history, history of the Tibetan script

Question posed in Tibet: A History, Sam van Schaik.

Open Kartir

Why It Is Open Kartir's own inscriptions and the Paikuli inscription of Narseh together document his public career into 293 CE, but no source records what became of him after that year or gives an actual death date.

What Would Settle It A dated Sasanian inscription, seal or administrative record naming Kartir after 293 CE, or an external source recording his death.

Expertise Needed Sasanian history, Zoroastrian studies, Iranian epigraphy

Question posed in Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, Touraj Daryaee.