Editorial Standards

This page explains how chapters are researched, sourced, checked and corrected. If a chapter ever falls short of it, please tell us.

1. The academic mainstream is the default

Each chapter's main narrative follows the current consensus of peer-reviewed scholarship in the relevant fields: history, archaeology, philology, epigraphy and archaeogenetics. We do not present minority or devotional positions as the mainstream, and we do not caricature them either: where a question is open, the chapter's Debates section gives the strongest version of each position.

2. Every claim is cited

Claims cite the specific primary source (a verse, inscription, excavation report, manuscript, law or court judgment) and/or the secondary scholarship they rest on. References are numbered on each page and link to the work itself where a legitimate free copy or DOI exists. Our build refuses to publish a citation that does not resolve to a registered source. Outbound links are only added when the target's own metadata matches the cited author and title, and are re-checked periodically, since a link that goes somewhere wrong is worse than no link.

3. Every claim says how sure we can be

• Consensus: Broad agreement across the relevant field. Stated as fact.
• Majority view: The mainstream position, with a real scholarly minority view that is noted.
• Contested: Open: competing schools with serious arguments. Both are given.
• Speculative: A reading worth knowing about, resting on thin evidence. Flagged as such.
• Politically contested: A dispute driven by modern politics as much as by data. Each side’s strongest case is stated.

4. Primary sources are shown, not paraphrased

Where a passage carries weight in the argument, it is quoted in the original script, given in standard transliteration and translated, followed by a short statement of what the passage does and does not prove. Dates given are the first datable attestation of an idea or practice, not the date it began, which is usually unknowable.

5. Questions people hold sacred

Some questions here touch what people believe about their prophets, scriptures and ancestors, or are argued over in modern politics. On those the site describes and dates the evidence; it does not judge whether a belief is true, and it does not take a side in a dispute between communities. Each tradition's own account is stated in its own terms and kept separate from the historical reconstruction, so a reader can see which claim rests on which kind of reason. Where a question is argued in modern politics as much as in scholarship, it carries the Political tag, and the strongest case on each side is given.

6. Corrections

We correct errors promptly and visibly. Substantive corrections update the chapter's “Updated” date. To report an error, email us with the page, the claim, and ideally the source that contradicts it; see contact.

7. Independence

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