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Question: Was the Edict of Cyrus a true historical event or a Biblical story? From what I can find, arguments on either side of that question are mostly propaganda in support of a political agenda for or against Zionism and claims of Jewish indigeneity to the Levant. In answering this question, it seems to make sense to approach its various parts chronologically, so this essay will begin with a whirlwind overview of the evidence of Israelite-Judean presence in the Levant, then cover evidence for the historicity of the Edict of Cyrus, and finally briefly-but-not-really-at-all touch on claims of indigeneity and modern political philosophy as it applies to the modern state of Israel....

This post is in progress and/or possibly abandoned. Introduction This essay hopes to establish the psychopompic fuction of Horse, the enigmatic homeless man in the 2019 Netflix series Russian Doll. This essay treats the first season as a self-contained standalone story. What Is a Psychopomp? psychopomp (plural psychopomps) (religion) A spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife. (Wiktionary, 2024) A psychopomp ferries the souls of the dead from this world to the next....

This post is in progress and/or possibly abandoned. Introduction Prequels occupy a unique space within their fictional universes. It would be reckless to suggest that Ballad truly precedes the main trilogy in thought, that Coriolanus’s experiences with Lucy Gray inform his interactions with Katniss. On the contrary, Coriolanus’s interactions with Katniss inform his interactions with Lucy Gray. The prequel novel draws on the material in the main trilogy and recontextualizes it to give the main trilogy a level of depth that it previously lacked....

Nicea, canonization, and the Aryan Heresy In the middle of the 4th Century CE, in bustling Alexandria, Egypt, a presbyter name Arius argued that Jesus Christ was a “god from nothing”. He believed that Jesus was created ex nihilo, from nothing, the same way that the rest of Creation was. While he may have believed Jesus was the Son of God, and was divine himself, he was not himself God, or made up of the same substance as God....