About DeityDB
A source-traceable ontology of divine beings, cosmologies, and theological relationships across the Western religious imagination.
What is DeityDB?
DeityDB is an open-source comparative-religion database covering 136 traditions — from Greek and Egyptian antiquity through Second Temple Judaism, Gnosticism, Islam, and medieval Jewish and Christian mysticism. It maps over 3,838 entities, 7,106 relationships, and 463 sources into a structured, queryable graph.
The project's core commitment is source traceability: every entity classification and every relationship traces to a specific academic edition or primary text in the source registry. Nothing is asserted without citation.
The data lives in a PostgreSQL database with a formal schema. This public explorer serves a read-only SQLite snapshot so anyone can query it without installation.
Why build this?
Comparative religion scholarship is rich but fragmented. Pantheons are documented tradition by tradition, making cross-cultural patterns hard to see at scale. DeityDB attempts to bridge that gap with a typed graph model that treats traditions as data rather than isolated silos.
It distinguishes entity kinds — gods, angels, demons, aeons, archons, jinn, saints, heroes, daimones, cosmological realms — rather than collapsing everything into a single "deity" category. Relationships are typed (patron_of, emanates_from, reception_of, syncretized_with…) for precise ontological queries.
The goal is a scholarly resource useful for researchers, students, and anyone curious about how divine beings travel across traditions.
Design Principles
Entity kinds, not categories
Gods, angels, demons, aeons, archons, jinn, saints, prophets, imams, heroes, daimones, spirits, monsters, cosmological realms, ritual categories, and personified abstractions are kept distinct. Collapsing them would lose theologically significant distinctions.
Source-first classification
Every entity and relationship traces to a record in the sources table — academic editions, primary texts, authoritative reference works. Unsourced assertions are flagged and queued for verification, not silently accepted.
Typed relationships
The schema prefers precise relationship types — patron_of, dwells_in, rules, opposes, emanates_from, member_of, reception_of, parallel_to, syncretized_with — over generic edges. Vague "associated_with" links are treated as placeholders pending a typed replacement.
Diachronic tracking
The reception_of relationship chain traces how figures travel across traditions and accumulate new attributes. Moses → Musa → Idris → Enoch is a computable path through the graph, not a footnote.
Zero dangling references
The database enforces referential integrity: every relationship references entity IDs that exist. The release target is 0 unresolved references, validated by automated pre-flight checks before every commit.
Open and reproducible
The full PostgreSQL schema, seed data, and upgrade scripts are open-source under the MIT license. Every transformation produces a re-runnable SQL script committed to the repository. The data is yours to fork, extend, or critique.
Traditions Covered
The database currently covers 136 distinct tradition labels. Coverage depth varies — some traditions have dozens of entities with full relationship graphs; others are nascent and marked for expansion. See the Tradition Overview for entity counts.
How to Cite
Boone, Jeb. DeityDB: A Comparative Religion Ontology, v2.1.12. 2026. github.com/jebboone/deitydb. MIT License.
For citing specific relationships or classifications, note the source IDs from the source bibliography query — each record points to the academic edition or primary text underpinning the claim.
Technical Stack
- PostgreSQL — primary database (PL/pgSQL schema)
- SQLite — read-only public snapshot (via db-to-sqlite)
- Datasette 0.65.2 — web explorer and JSON API
- Docker + Fly.io — containerized, scale-to-zero hosting
- MIT License — schema, seed data, and scripts are open-source
The full PostgreSQL setup and seed pipeline are documented in CONTRIBUTING.md.
Raphael, The School of Athens (1509–1511) · Apostolic Palace, Vatican City · Public domain