Ancient greece mascots

I was raised in a Fundamental Baptist household and ended up losing my faith and leaving the church in high school when I began questioning my sexuality and gender identity. I've always been fascinated by Greek mythology in a sense of them just being old stories, but after probably the worst 4 years of life. I felt alone halfway across the country from my family and having a general feeling of emptiness in my life. I find myself being drawn to (these?) Gods. I know enough about ancient Greece to know same sex and Bisexual relations weren't uncommon or largely frowned upon, but I don't remember anything about being trans or a change in gender identity. I left Christianity because I felt like me being bi (my gender crisis was much later after leaving the church) was proof that God had abandoned me or never loved me in the first place. I guess my big worry is, will the Gods accept me being trans? Will I be rejected by them for transitioning?

We are a Greek Mythology inspired RP with elements of Percy Jackson taking place in ancient Greece.
-All literacy levels welcomed.
-Unlimited OC slots
-You can play as any Gods, Demigods, Mortals, Canon or just anything.
-weekly events
-a safe place for everyone
-Open to any suggestion and non toxic!
-an easy-to-follow template
-Fair RP system
-New lore so everyone is involved.
Something dark and sinister is rising in the backgound and it is up to you and other heros of camp halfblood to save, or to be the ones to see the destruction of the Greek world. The strings of fate is in your hands.
Perm invite link, invite your friends!
https://discord.gg/st2gEh4gU2
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Welcome to my post!
Let's just cut to the chase. I'm an African-American female living in NYC. I am looking for a like-minded individual in hopes of establishing a friendship that blossoms into a long-term relationship with that special someone. If you believe that we would get along and connect- please put effort into your first message and give me an idea of who you are as a person.
About me:

• 29 years old.
• Average weight
• I'm a social worker in NYC.
• Graduated with my masters degree in public health.
• I enjoy ancient Greek/Roman history.
• Dry sense of humor.
• Long term goal is to visit all of the Smithsonian museums.
• I'm an avid podcast listener- enjoying various podcasts: We're Here to Help, Tigerbelly, Factually, etc.
• I enjoy video games! The first game I ever played was Pokemon Red for the GBC. Currently trying out Hades 2 on the PC. I also own a Nintendo Switch and a PS5.
• My long-term goal is to travel more- I have some trips planned for the rest of the year. I aim to go to Hawaii, Greece, Spain, Japan, & Italy hopefully next 5 years.
• I enjoy reading fiction novels, particularly anything mystery, adventure & romance genres. I also own a few comic books (mainly Marvel comics).

I'm looking to make memories & have lots of laughs with the right person.
Looking for:

• Male between the ages of 26-36 years of age.
• Resides in NYC/Long Island/Westchester OR JC/Hoboken/North Jersey area. NO LONG DISTANCE.
• Someone who has a good sense of humor.
• Has similar hobbies/commonalities as mine.
• Willing to explore the city (food/movies/culture/museums).
• Enjoys traveling.

If anything in my post sparks interest, please DM me with a blurb about yourself.

Most deepest past in time the Assassin's Creed series went is with the AC Odyssey which is set in the Peloponnesian War of the Greece during the 431-422 BCE or even further 480 BCE if you take the starting mission into the consideration where Leonidas and his men fight against the Persians during the Battle of Thermopylai.
And the most recent timeline the series went is the subjective matter where : Obviously If you consider only the mainline AC games, then it is the AC Syndicate which is set in the 1868 and it's the DLC, Jack The Ripper which is set 20 years later after the base game which is the 1888.
If you also consider the sideline AC games, then it is the AC Chronicles: Russia which is set in the 1914 during the Russian Revolution.
Even if you take the setting where the game only takes you for a specific sequence/mission, then it is the World War I/II. AC Syndicate's one of the sequences is set during the World War I and the AC Unity's one of the sequence is set in the World War II. This means the most modern the series takes you is the World War II means up until 1945.
Personally I prefer the future AC games to set during the Babylonian/Sumerian/Mesopotamia civilization which is about 1000-2000 years even before the AC Odyssey's setting (depends on the exact timeframe the devs will choose tho) which is very ancient, mysterious and unexplored settings in the video-games where they can tell lot of cool and untold stories of these Ancient civilizations and it's people.
And the most modern AC setting I want to see in the mainline AC game is the World War II, which would be the lastest appriopriate setting for the series and I don't think anything modern than this will works for the nature of the series because it starts to look like the GTA/Mafia games and not the typical AC game. Also mainline AC game set in the WWII is also not my top favorable setting because there's still dozens of better settings to explore than the overrated WWII where they can only explore when they finally run out of the ideas.

I have heard this claim recently, along with a list of non-binary gender identities recognized by different ancient cultures
The Sekhet of Egypt, the Hermaphrodites of Greece, the Tritiya-Prakriti of India, the Khanith of Arabia, the Gala of Mesopotamia, the Chibados of West Africa, the Two-Spirit of the Americas, and the Tai Jian of China.
Looking these terms up seems to confirm that they are indeed real ancient gender identies. But I'm wondering how true the initial claim is. And whether these genders were actually recognized by the mainstream in their respective societies or not

Inscriptions made by sailors wishing for safe voyages in ancient Greece often included the words eúploia ‘good sailing / fair voyage’ or eutukhía ‘good luck’ and variants. Thus, the roughly 2,000-year-old inscription cut into a cliff on the desert islet of Vryonisi in Eastern Crete which contains euplous ‘good sailing’ (an adj., not a noun) should be easily regarded as another example. However, Martín González takes it as a name (since some people were named Euplous) because there is “a crucial obstacle: there is no parallel for the use of the adjective eúplous, instead of the ubiquitous substantive eúploia, among the related inscriptions”. Now, many words known from inscriptions only appear once, yet they still exist. Since most inscriptions were probably lost, it is not odd that, even if many of this type once existed, only one (or none) of its kind might now remain. For instance, if only 20 welcome mats remained 2,000 years in the future, how many would have ‘welcome’ vs. ‘we welcome you’? If only one verb remained, would some future linguist say it was impossible because “there is no parallel for the use of the verb welcome, instead of the ubiquitous interjection”? I see no reason to take this as evidence against the obvious. For her reading:
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Euthu-
timos
Khrusip-
pos
[dolphin]
Nikanoros
euplous
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I would translate it, “Euthutimos (and) Khrusippos (wish) a fair voyage for Nikanōr”. This would be a very simple and undestandable expression of good wishes, whatever the frequency of one of the words.
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This still leaves the question of the meaning of the carving of the dolphin (see image in the link below). It is directly among the words, not above or below, so it’s not certain that it is merely an addition used because dolphins were said to save sailors in need (Apollo’s connection with dolphins is probably folk etymology, really from Delphi). It seems like it might be homophone used in a rebus, since the Greek word for ‘dolphin’ was delphī́s (from *gWelbhiHn-s, derived from délphax ‘pig’, formerly ‘*young animal / piglet’ < delphús ‘womb’, probably related to Go. kalbo, E. calf, and maybe also E. whelp) it would start with the same syllable as :
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*(e)gWela > Mac. izéla ‘good luck’, G. bále ‘oh that it were so!’
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Though this alone is possible, there is more to my idea. It is possible that the entire pronunciation of ‘dolphin’ in Crete might have additional meaning. The origin of *(e)gWela is not clear, but it greatly resembles
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*gWhel()- ‘wish / want / will / be/make willing’> OCS želja ‘wish’, ON gilja ‘allure/entice/seduce/beguile’, G. (e)thélō ‘be willing’, (e)thelontḗn ‘voluntarily’
​
Not only is the meaning the same, but the optional e- matches optional 0- vs. i- in Macedonian (which might come from *gWhelH1- > *H1gWhel-). The difference in *gWh vs. *gW could come from a dialect with PIE *gh > g, etc. (like Macedonian). Such variation is seen on Crete (G. dáptēs ‘eater / bloodsucker (of gnats)’, Cretan thápta, Polyrrhenian látta ‘fly’), so the needed features all exist there. Also, words like (e)thelontḗn often appear in inscriptions as formal parts of various requests or sacrifices. These supposedly show that the deed was done ‘voluntarily’ or ‘of one’s own free will’, but some might also retain the older meaning ‘wishing (that it comes to pass / that it is pleasing (to the gods)’, etc. This allows further comparison to be made for *(e)gWhelont-s ‘wishing’ and *gWelbhiHn-s ‘dolphin’. Since these words are already quite close (with regular *-nts > *-ns), and I suspect that the changes in *(e)gWela > Mac. izéla were matched in parts of Crete, other changes in dialects might have made them even closer. Some have alternation of ph / w, like *swe-es > spheîs ‘they / themselves’; the centaur Márphsos & the satyr Marsúas (Whalen 2024a). This could produce *gWelon-s and *gWelwi:n-s, possibly with later *on > *un (which might be supported by the lack of Linear A syllables with Co vs. many with Cu, see Chiapello) and *wi > *wu (then *Cwu > *Cu). With this alone, *gWelun-s and *gWelu:n-s would be nearly identical, and maybe exactly the same if *-onts became *-o:ns first (attested as -ōn in the nominative for nt-stems). I would ask for all such images to be examined carefully, and considered in the context of known changes in Greek dialects, even down to Cretan Hieroglyphs (Whalen 2024b). Younger’s claim that the cat’s head symbol stood for MA (compared to Linear A and B signs for the syllable MA) is supposedly imiation of “meow”, but many IE words for ‘cat’ and other noisy animals come from *maH2- ‘bleat / bellow / meow’ (Skt. mārjārá- ‘cat’, mārjāraka- ‘cat / peacock’, mayū́ra- ‘peacock’, māyu- ‘bleating/etc’, mayú- ‘monkey?/antelope’), and it would not be possible to name all symbols after the sounds made by the things represented (like mountains, stocks). It seems many of these symbols start with the sounds found in the Greek words for them, and continuing to examine the evidence could lead to proof of their Greek origin.
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Chiapello, Duccio (2024) The Linear A inscribed idol of Roccacasale: authentic, forgery… or both? An analysis based on the “Minoan Greek” hypothesis
https://www.academia.edu/112932884
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Martín González, Elena (2017) A Sailors' Inscription Revisited
https://www.academia.edu/33135646
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Whalen, Sean (2024a) Linear B *79, e-wi-su-zo-ko, e-wi-su-79-ko
https://www.academia.edu/114741659
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Whalen, Sean (2024b) The X’s and O’s of Cretan Hieroglyphic (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/114973571
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Younger, John (2023) Linear A Texts: Homepage
http://people.ku.edu/~jyoungeLinearA/
​

I apologize in advance for the length of this thread, but by far this is the user that wrote the most comments in the video of our song. At first, he suggested Scepter and Reign, but he debunked this lead by saying: "Scepter and Reign can be crossed off. I have been corresponding with the lady whose name is mentioned in the legal document, Naomi (first name used with her permission, and only her first name) since Thursday. She was legitimately shocked her name was on the document because in all these years NOBODY ever contacted her regarding it. She thinks they may have realized how much money it would cost and probably withdrew. She knew both bands fairly well, scale of 1-10 she answered "6.5 maybe 7'ish". She designed 1 "logo" for each band that was literally just a sketch she made with their band names on them she could print out in the Xerox store she worked at. Scepter's original name was actually "Dungeon Master" but they changed it to fit their name on her design. As for the abandoned demo from Scepter, she said they abandoned it because they couldn't afford to produce it. They didn't even make it far enough to name their 3 or 4 songs. So, on to the big question, are either bands involved with this song? According to her both bands came out in 1985, and according to her this "The Falling King" song predates both bands by a year or 2. This is not Scepter or Reign, this song is older than both bands. According to her, she first heard this song on a Detroit station while visiting family. Even back then, the Detroit station personnel had absolutely NO CLUE who this was. She remembers her father making fun of the singers accent claiming it was a "Posh" accent and also used to think the lyric was "The fall, the fall in the king" lol. I explained how this song was recorded off of several stations in 1987 and she replied "How many songs do you hear on the radio that are several years old?". She was stumped this was played on Z-Rock because this does not sound like an amateur band to her. She is not the only person to make comments that this does not sound like an amateur band, this sounds professionally recorded and produced, something EXTREMELY few amateugarage bands could have done. I thought i had something, but at least i tried. By the way, apparently Reign still performs in the Pittsburgh area under the name "Metallic Thunder"." (THIS IS HIS LATEST COMMENT) If this is true, it means our search will be even more difficult.
In one of his earliest comments he said this: "My 2 oldest sisters (born in 1970 and 1972) actually remember this song being played by garage bands and local talents in the Coatesville PA area. However, they both swear on mom and dads ashes that the first time they heard this song, a local music festival in Exton PA, I was NOT born yet (I was born in 1984). Even back then nobody could say who it was or what the title was. In fact the one band from Downingtown PA used to refer to it as "The Dungeons and Dragons song". And by that i mean, according to my sisters the lead singers girlfriend (or his sister....they could never tell?) would be in the crowd and when they were ready to end their performance she would shout "Play the Dungeons and Dragons song". My sisters also remember the adults thinking this song was somehow a promotional thing for the PA Renaissance Fair. Unfortunately they cannot offer any clues to the identity of this band or songs title, their guess, back then and still today, was Manowar."
At first, he claims our band is Manowar, explaining: "I do not think Manowar is an obscure band, nor do my sisters. The "obscure" bands mentioned in my postings are all the local garage/amateur bands that they remember playing this song and most of those garage/amateur bands even back then, along with my sisters, were under the impression this was a Manowar song. Many people, not just on this post but others feel this is Manowar "pitch" song, other bands thrown around have been Iron Maiden, Overdrive (Or Overkill, i'm not sure if it's the same band?), Blackmane, Axis and Cirith Ungol (spelling?). Keep this in mind, it's not that uncommon for mainstream/well known bands to have unreleased music in their "library". A good example, ask the most diehard Rammstein fans what their first song ever was, they'll probably answer Du Recht So Gut or Rammstein. Most people have never heard their 1992-1993 pitch song, "Tier" (Monster, beast). In fact, Till Linderman himself stated in 2018 he was unaware Tier was ever recorded by anyone, yet alone put up on the internet. Like this "Fall of the King" song, "Tier" was toted as an mystery song for years but was in a group of 4 or 5 other songs that Rammstein did but never released. One of my favorite bands, Corvus Corax, actually had something similar happen, a song they did back in the early 90's, "Vampire", opening for another band was recorded by a fan in the audience and made rounds on the Neo Folk community ages later. Corvus Corax themselves heard it on a radio station in Denmark roughly 2009'ish and called them asking how and when they got that song because they NEVER recorded it for public use. Personally i cannot give a wager who this is? I am not that good with this genre so i go with what people older than me and much better with this music say. To me it could be Manowar, something they never intended to be released publicly, it could be the Z'Rose a bunch of people feel it is, it could be Overdrive/Overkill (i do not know if these names are the same band or 2 separate ones?), it could be me time traveling impersonating my great uncle Fred......ok that last one was just meant to be a joke lol." Then someone says: "has your sister contacted erik to see about the the song?" and he says "OH HELL NO!!! They haven't spoken since they broke up in 1991-1992. I did reach out to his brother probably a year ago and never heard back."
He suggests it's either Manowar or Sarissa (he mispelled them): "@aSome1 There's some confusion, my sisters never said Z'Rose was playing the song in our hometown area. Local teenage to early college yrs bands were playing it. They recognized this song when I was on a family Zoom chat, i had this song on in the background (by accident actually lol) and my oldest sister (#1 born in '70) asked what i was listening to. I turned it up and she shook her head and asked the other sister (#2 born in '72) "Oh my gosh isn't that that stupid Manowar song Erik and his brother used to play all the time?". Erik was the name of her high school boyfriend. They remember hearing it first at an amateur music fest when my brother (born in '82) was still a baby. Mainly they remember mom fitting all of them in her old "Batmobile" station wagon. By the time i was born in '84 that station wagon was gone for at least several months. The band names they specifically remember playing this, and keep in mind these were "Garage bands" from the 80's were: Venomous Vomit, Razors in your Coffee (Erik's band), Ash to Ash, Cauldron Kings, Coven of Metal, Pridesville, South of Hell and Purgatory. They said there were a few more, but didn't remember....or care....to know their names. (Disclaimer: Several peoples associated with those mentioned bands have been contacted by me and several have replied.....the most common reply is "How the hell do you know us!?" lol)
"I have actually been looking at this song for almost 3yrs. I've had some "good leads" and some "bad leads" and i've also had "WTF leads".......but at the end it is still unsolved. So far the biggest contenders, from people way better with this music than me (I'm more a symphonic or extreme metal person) have been: Manowar, Iron Maiden, OverDrive, Overkill, Onslaught of Destruction and Sonic Mahem. My sisters really believe it is possibly an unreleased or "pitch demo" of Manowar but they also said it might be a Greek band from the early 80's called Sarassa or something like that?"
Then he denies it's Z-Rose: "@lostwavefinder587 I have seen that name tossed around a lot on forums and random chats (this being one of them). Most people way smarter and better with this music than myself seem to have the opinion that it is not Z'Rose. They range in reason from: the equipment sound professional and they were not, the dates don't add up, Z'Rose only did covers so even it is them in the recordings it's still not their song.....one individual (a supervisor at work who lived in Texas during this time frame) actually said "Z'Rose wouldn't have been sober enough to finish that song". I have only heard 1 Z'Rose recording, and unfortunately the person who recorded it (I think the date says 1989?) spends the majority of the 5 minute video talking during the performance so all i hear is them and not the singer. I have to emphasize about %99 of this info i'm presenting is NOT from me but people who know this genre of music way better than me....i'm more Symphonic metal and neo folk (Corvus Corax, Heilung, Faun etc."
"Out of curiosity, since a lot people think this might be Z'Rose, has anyone contacted the family/families of Nick or Joe Cavazos? My "team" is looking into a blog page from 2018 of a pretty intense exchange between a blogger and a woman who is believed to be "Rocker Joe's daughter. In this exchange she states this song is NOT her dad and uncle's band. But it gets pretty rough because the blogger keeps pressing and let's just say some NSFW language is exchanged. I will only say this, the woman's name does match one of the names in Julio "Joe" Cavazos obituary, but they can't tell if it is actually HER or someone posing. I also find it interesting that in another posting of this song someone is claiming to be the nephew of both Nick and Joe.....but about a dozen people ask about this song and he does not answer them......but someone else will ask something unrelated to this song and he answers??"
"About a year ago on another posting of this song, someone had a link to a conversation with a woman who was allegedly Joe Cavazos daughter. She very adamantly denied this was her dads band, Z'Rose. They person kept pressing her and she did not budge a single inch, "NO, its not my dad's band". The only thing that could be confirmed was the woman's name did match a name in Julio "Joe" Cavazos obituary as his daughter. But if it was her or not I can't say? Many peoples on other postings and on forums have all claimed to have gotten in contact with Z'Rose and stated they responded "No" to this being theirs.
So the "Kings Fall" song by Bernard Cavazos is actually a completely different song. He is also not related to the Z'Rose Cavazos. Somewhere I read that the "Kings Fall"/"Fallen King" song by Bernard Cavazos is about a corrupt politician or mafia like "king" not an actual king. Again none of this is from me, it's from things I read, not me.
When 'Wang' did a video about several mystery songs he included this one. In his video (I don't know if he made more than one?) he talked about how that Bernard Cavazos has been contacted and has denied this is his Fall of the King song. If my memory is correct Wang read a message from him explaining his "king" was a corrupt politician or gang leader like king. Wang also mentioned there was another Bernard Cavazos who was a doctor and he is sick and tired of people contacting him about this song"
Someone that replied to him said:
"@CharlesMarkward probably this tape recording was an attempt from them to make something of their own, many bands have started this way, an example is the Brazilian power metal band Angra, they were first meant to be an Iron Maiden tribute but as things went by, they have decided to release things of their own...I couldn't find anything about this "Z'Rose" band in metal-archives, neither at Google with a simple research, but the data gathered until this moment make sense: the Z Rock radio is from Texas, the so called "Z'Rose" band is also from Texas, it was the 80's, so, without internet, this was the way bands used to promote their work...but your story adds some drifts from this sensible data available until now...they are/were from Texas, ok...but until then, they weren't any big group, which means they were probably 9 to 5 salarymen whose musician activity was on weekends and the money earned wasn't enough to keep up with, so, a trip from TX to PA is a long ranged one and expensive for their then standards, I can remember when I've read the Mick Wall's Metallica biography, in which they highlight how hard was for them to go all the way from CA to NY to record Kill em' All, well, unless someone sponsored the so called "Z'Rose from Texas" (like the Zazula couple to Metallica) to play in the events you've mentioned in PA...which means they were good and had potential (this "mysterious recording" doesn't let me lie), because it takes a lot for someone at the other eastern extreme of a big country like the USA to call someone all the way from TX to play in an event when probably there were good bands around and without the need of a sponsorship to travel and get some place to sleep and eat..."
Therefore Charles says: "Also, i am not the one saying it's not them. People much better with much more access to metal archives/records are saying it's not them. BUT, everything you said makes perfect sense to me and I have no argument against any of it. It would make perfect sense if it was a possible pitch demo Z'Rose recorded and kept along for a few years before a station played it. My sisters are %98 certain it was a Manowar song, the only other band they mentioned as a possibility is a Greek band i can't find anything about called something like Sarassa??"
Someone told him to contact Erik: "A little bit ago someone in here suggested i contact my sisters ex and ask where he got this song. I could not get a hold of him, but i did get in contact with his brother he played with. According to the brother they got the song from their aunt who lived in Philly (Center City) and would send them tapes of songs to play. This song was on a tape sandwiched between "4 or 5" Manowar songs. He specifically remembered this for 2 reasons: 1, their aunt wrote "Killing of the king by No Name" and 2, the last song on the this tape was labled as a Venom song (he did not recall which) but was actually "Melody of Love" by Bobby Vinton😂. So i think this is why my sisters keep saying it's Manowar, because if it was on a tape with a bunch of their songs that chances are they heard a crapload of times?"
He contacted Erik's brother (Erik is supposedly the ex boyfriend of one of his sisters) and received this reply: "Erik's brother returned another email I sent about this song. I made a post about it about a week ago. The brother says their aunt who lived in Philly included this song on a mix tape of stuff for him and his brother to play. This song was sandwiched between several Manowar songs and the last song on the tape was supposed to be a Venom song but was actually Bobby Vinton's "Melody of Love" 🤣"
Therefore debunking the possibility it's a Manowar song, he also adds: "She (the aunt) passed in 2014. She would record songs off the radio for them. She lived in Philly (Center City) but also had a place in Florida, so he was never sure which cities radio stations she would record from. This song she wrote "Killing the King?" As the title and "???" as the band name, but it was between several Manowar songs. I think this might be why my oldest sisters are so insistent this is a Manowar song because they may have listened to it with Erik and his brother.....it's a theory lol"
He also thought of Iced Earth as the possible band: "lostwavefinder587 I immediately thought of Iced Earth when I heard this song. Although it's likely just a coincidence, it's interesting to note that Iced Earth was originally called "The Rose".
Someone said to him: "if that's any help, the Greek band's name you're talking about is probably Sarissa. I don't think it's them, though: the vox sound kinda different, and their songs are mostly Ancient Greece-themed." And he replied: "Yes, thank you! All this time I've been spelling it wrong. I gave a quick listen to a demo of theirs from '86. In terms of sound and beat and tempo etc, they are pretty close to this song. In terms of vocals, they sound nothing alike." Therefore, he debunked Sarissa himself.
Now here he changed his version and provides a new lead given by his sisters:
"Holy crap for some reason my last post got cut in half and didn't include the following info, sorry! So the individual i spoke to and got the new possible lead is the former singer of the one band my sisters mentioned, Purgatory, (i do NOT have his permission to use his real name but his stage name was Tarantula). He confirmed he played this song "once or twice" but didn't know the lyrics so they just repeated several "blocks" over and over again. He heard it from a band in NJ and when he asked if he could use the song they replied along the lines of "It's not our song, we don't care" but gave no indication who it was or they even knew who it was? He suggested the band "Knightmare" because they were from Texas and he remembers all of their songs being medieval or medieval fantasy related. Supposedly they wore what looked like full on plate armor (he does not know if it was actual metal armor or something made to look like it). He saw them perform a handful of times because he spent summers in Texas on his grandfathers (mistakenly said uncle in my last post, sorry) ranch and would sneak off at night to "the metal scene" (i do not know if that was a club name or if he just meant that in general?). He began visiting his grandfathers ranch in 1980 and stopped when his grandfather retired in 1992. He gave an estimated timeline for "Knightmare" of 1981-1989."
He corrects himself by saying they are not called "Knightmare": Interestingly, my supervisor at work lived in Texas during this timeline (roughly mid 70's to mid 90's from what i can gather?) and when I asked him about Knightmare he had no idea. But when i mentioned they dressed up like knights in armor he suddenly looked startled and said "That wasn't their name, their name was Battle Battalion or some s*** like that".
But then he says: "So i posted a few months ago about this song, my sisters remember garage bands in the area playing this… I checked every band called Knightmare on Metal Encyclopedia and it doesn’t look like it’s our band." "Forgive my French.....Damn. I thought maybe it could have been a lead but i guess like dozens of others I've come across, dead end. I did a quick search for Knightmare a few weeks ago and I got all excited i saw one band dressed up like monks or Druids, but that band only came out in 2017. I think it's safe to say the name has been used by many bands."
Then someone asks him: "Does the name "Battle Battalion" show up on any Metal "pedia" sites? That's what my supervisor claims this "dressed up in medieval armor" bands name was?" and another one told him: "I saw some bands with Battalion on the metal encyclopedia and discogs and none of them are our band. I don’t think we should go based on what a band wears as our lead."
Then he debunks the Knightmare (and the Conquest) lead: "So a little bit ago i mentioned a band name "Knightmare" as a possibility for this song. Well the band was actually called "KnyghtBlyde" (Knight Blade) and i got in contact with the daughter of the vocalist last night. I played this song for her and after some confliction/hesitation she said it is NOT her dad. The biggest thing was all of her dads songs were based of Aruthurian lore and filled with references to Camelot, Arthur, Morgana, Lancelot, Excalibur etc. Since this song has none of that, its not them. She has no idea who this is. I did a quick search "Conquest 80's metal band Texas" and found 3 results. Conquest from San Antonio, split in either '85 or '87. Conquest from Dallas, '86 - '90. Khan'quest (possibly same band as Khanquistador?), no location given but split up in '88 then reformed in 2000 then......nothing? I could not find anything about any of their songs or demos or releases or band members. But it's obvious I was thinking of the wrong Conquest bands 😂 Conquest was ruled out. Someone who owns the tape was contacted and told us this isn't them."
And he says the singer of KnyghtBlade is convinced this song is from Battallion:
"So a little bit ago I mentioned getting in contact with KnyghtBlyde singers daughter who states that this is NOT her dad. She contacted me this morning, her father thinks this song might be by a band called Battalion. But her father said Battalion also went by the name AAA, Anti Aircraft Assault (or Artillery) in their early days. According to her father AAA/Battalion were from Texas but at least 2 of their members were originally from Chicago. Has anyone ever heard of either Battalion or AAA, Anti Aircraft Assault? The closest I can say is my one supervisor at work mentioned a band Battle Battalion from Texas when he lived there."
Then someone replies to him: "you are right there is a band named Battalion formed in 1984" He says: "I cannot find a single piece of music from this particular "Battalion"? From what I could find they formed between 1983 and 1985, split, reformed under a few possible names, split, repeat. 2 people I asked did say they remember a band of some sort from "out west" Anti Aircraft A-something, but neither could give any info."
Now here, he suggests it could be a Talon song:
"So here's a potential lead for everyone: I was just playing this song for a friend who is obsessed with all metal music. She asked me "Where did you get that Talon song?" Talon was/is a German heavy metal band from the early 80's that released several demos and full on albums between '83-'89. Almost all of there songs were medieval themed, especially their 2 demos. Herr's the thing, they supposedly have 3 unnamed tracks from both demos, one allegedly called "King Slayer". I listened to a bunch of there songs and I have to say there are several songs where the singer sounds exactly like our mystery singer, but then the next song they sound nothing alike. There was one song called something like "Execution" that the opening guitar sounds like this songs opening only slower? I'm not saying it is Talon, but it is possibly something to look into or at least consider?"
He also claimed the singer sounds like Bruce Dickinson (which has been suggested many times):
"I've said many times that I personally feel this vocalist sounds extremely close to Bruce Dickinson. There is a clip of Bruce singing Tom Jones' "Delilah" on either a talk or game show, and his opening of that song is nearly identical to this Fall of the King vocals! Tone, tempo, cadence, pitch......it's really really on spot. I am NOT saying it is Bruce, I'm just saying whoever it is does a good job singing like him."
He says this song could be made by Eviscerator:
"Hello again everyone, has anyone ever heard of a band from Britain, late 70's through late 80's called "Eviscerator"? Very very long story short: I played this song at a Viking/Pagan/Neo-Folk/Black Metal "bar" about half a mile up the road from my place and the one patron who looked like Elvira and Lilith Bathory had a daughter together (HOT HOT HOT) comes over and asked me to replay it and she sang along with the recording with about %95 accuracy! Oddly, at the end after the 4 or 5 "The Fall of the King"s, she suddenly sang "The evil one now wears the crown, all hail the evil one" and head banged for a few moments. According to her, this song was by a band called "Eviscerator" and they always claimed this song was written as a pitch track for the movie Heavy Metal? I mentioned how this song by numerous accounts was recorded here in the USA in 86-87 from stations in Texas, Chicago, Cleveland, NYC and (by only one account) possibly Florida. She didn't feel there was an issue with that as stations will often play random things just to fill the spot including songs that are several years older. I asked about her added line at the end and she stated "I didn't add s*** bud, whoever recorded it must have cut it off before they got to it". I mentioned how numerous people strongly believe this is the work of Z'Rose, she said they probably covered it a bunch of times but it is not their song and even stated that this particular recording sounds like it could be them covering. She was more familiar with Z'Rose than me, she commented "The 3 Cavlaros brothers from Texas right? The singer was the oldest brother Jeff?" (I know that's not their name, i only included it for aunthenticity per context of our discussion, the last name is Cavazos and there was only 2 of them right?). She also told me Z'Rose had about a dozen other names through their years including "Gypsy Rose". I asked how she knew this British band "Eviscerator" and she answered that she lived in London from 78-85 and this song was played a lot on "amateur hour" on several stations, especially university stations. This kind of took me by surprise because i thought she looked younger than me (I'm 39) but she lived in England for college and her first husband in the late 70's??"
"In my last comments i mentioned a bar i went to was going to have a mini concert featuring bands that specialize in black metal and 80's tribute metal and i would play this song to see if any of the band peoples or concert goers would chime in. I did just that and got a few hits on the radar with a few of the band members. The one band, Inviaat, the singer says he remembers this song being played on a radio station in Philly PA for an entire summer because that station was trying to find the band. He does not remember the specific station but said it was near the Taylor University campus (my understanding is that there is several?) because the station thought it was the students from that university's music program. When i asked him when exactly that would have been he said Summer of 1983 because he was married on Halloween 1983 and was hoping the station would find the band so they could play at his wedding. A member from the local band "inductus Mortis" said he recalls that song being played "somewhere in the mid 80's" but does not remember if he heard it in Chicago or Cleveland because he bounced between them. I asked several bands, include the Venom tribute band Poisonous Whisper if anyone had ever heard of a band name Eviscerator from the 80's. Only one person thought he heard the name but it wasn't a band name it was a compilation album of NWOBHM from roughly '83-'84, but couldn't tell me anything other than that. As for the other concert goers, the #1 response i got from them was along the lines of "Dude you can sing, you should go pro!".....in other words they thought it was me promoting myself (I wish i could sing like that!!). the #2 response was people thought it was Manowar. After those 2 the guesses were the usual ones i have seen here and everywhere else this topic comes up: Blackmaine, Axis, Overkill, Overdrive, Black Sabath, Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Slayer, WitchAxe and 2 people even asked if it was an Ozzy Osbourne demo."
"I asked around, including my oldest sisters I've mentioned in my postings, about Eviscerator. The only person who heard of them, the one from this time-frame not the other 8 or 9 bands from the 2000's with that name, said they were a generic ManowaIron Maiden/Judas Priest tribute or more accurately, ripoff, band who sucked. I am not saying I buy this woman's account, but i'm also not discrediting it or calling her a liar. Her familiarity with this song and her accuracy with the lyrics makes me believe she knows this song from somewhere.....what that somewhere is, i can't comment because i don't know?"
"So far my friends and I have several "pings" to look into, the name Eviscerator has absolutely nothing from the time frame we're looking at. But there is (was?) a "Lee Lesaat" Canadian/British "mercenary" (did not belong to any band but would play for others) drummer who now lives in NYC my friends are looking into.
There is an 80's metal/black metal tribute concert this Saturday at the bar I was at last weekend. After the bands play their sets they have an open mic like set up where you can play your own music (as long as it fits the theme). I'm going to try and play this song and see if anyone, bands or crowd or food vendors etc, have any reaction.
And by "pings" I just mean responses/possible possible long shot leads. The guy or girl claiming to be a psychic vampire who time traveled and wrote this song for The Lost Boys movie is NOT going to be one of them😂"
Then someone asks: "What band is this Eviscerator ? I found a band that was formed in 2012 . Furthermore tthe song is not in the metal archives I searched through lyrics was not found." He says: "Allegedly they were in England in the 1980's, but the woman stated 2 of them had New York accents. If all of her account is true and accurate, they were NOT a professional big name band. I did find several bands with the title "Eviscerator" (in different variations) but all of them were from the 2000's. The only "pro" band with that title I could find was a Hungarian band from the mid 2000's. I asked Satanic lady if she remembered any of the other bands that played alongside "Eviscerator" and she only remembered 3: "Band-Shee" (an all female band....get it?) Gargoyle, and Werewolf Tears."
"I have a very very small update for everyone, but it's still an update nonetheless. The mystery succubus looking woman who said this song was by Eviscerator and sang along to it (even when I "accidentally" muted my phone to see if she was just repeating what she was hearing.....she was not) has been identified by my journalist friend! We are going to try and get in contact with her and see if there is anything else she can remember about "Eviscerator" that could help. I'm not going to get my hopes up, but her familiarity with this songs lyrics and the fact she sang almost in perfect synch with the beat makes me feel she really did know this song from somewhere in her past. That or she is a very good actress? Lol
I found only 1 solid, confirmed band with that name but they were from mid 2000's Hungary. But several peoples now and then tell me they remember hearing that name in the 80's as various things; crappy garage band, NWOHBM compilation album/work, some sort of event space or name, most recently someone claimed he thought it was the stage name of a singer but didn't know who or what band. I'm trying to get in touch with the woman who originally mentioned that name."
He posted this comment that lead nowhere: "2 very small updates for everyone:
1) The Viking/Pagan/Goth/Black Metal themed bar just around the corner from me is having a New Years event tomorrow night. They actually agree to give me a "booth" where i can have a "guess this song" set up. And, it will be right next to where the bands play...I'm going to be between the "stage" and the food truck lol
2) The one radio station i submitted this song to will play it on their "X hour" on 1/8/24. It is not a hugely popular segment, maybe a few hundred listeners, but it's better than nothing.
Here's to the New Year and hope this song and numerous others get solved!"
"So the station played this song Sunday night/Monday morning. They played it 4 times between 2:07am - 3:12am. They received 9 calls about it and about a dozen emails (I seriously didn't know they had an email!?!?!?). Unfortunately the majority of contacts were people either asking for them to replay it or people thinking it was Manowar. There were a few Iron Maidens and one or 2 Ozzy Osborne's. Only 2 people stated they heard this song before. Unfortunately they heard it from "some kilt wearing guy at blank bar plays it, I think it's him self promoting". Yes that's me they referenced and no it is not me singing lol"
He suggest matrixx as a possibility: "There's a band called matrixx that has been giving me interest. They were only around for two years due to financial struggles in their stage. If you look up attaxe and fiinal notice they share two members of matrixx. Their drummer and guitarist sound very similar to the band from this song. It's pretty crazy too because they have a song called defy the king. They also had a label to produce their songs which is called Suma Recording Studios. This may be the reason why the audio sounds too good for a small band. I hope that this is the band! Too many good clues that I found"
He debunks the Steven Lindfield lead: "One of the names thrown about here and there on posts about this song is a Steven Linfield ("Lindi") who bounced between Chicago and NYC in the 1980's. His alleged involvement varries between being the DJ who allegedly played it on a NYC station, to being a Chicago stations record manageclerk etc etc. I got in contact with him yesterday. He denies having ANYTHING to do with the airing of this song and does not know how or why his name came up. While he did work at 2 stations (NYC, then Chicago during the summer) he was an overnight watchman (security). However, he does recall this song being played on "some amateur hour crapshoot" in '86 in NYC a bunch of times. At that point in '86 he claims people were referencing it as "The King Song" or "The song of the King" (drawn out to match the singers "The Faaaalllll, the fall of the kiiiiiing") and it was already 2 or 3 years old at that time. He did explain that at least at the Chicago station there was an amateur drop-off slot that the dj's would pick through and play random "no namers" labeling them as "space filler". Because they would be played, literally just to fill space, they were NOT mandated to keep any records of them. Sometimes the dj's would just make up names to some of these. One of his main duties was to check the drop-off to make sure there were no bad things thrown in there instead of cassettes. Another dead end, but at least we rulled out one theory......silver lining??😂 LINDFIELD, not Linfield. Darn autocorrect on this phone."
He is convinced it's a professional band's demo: Thats why a lot people I have introduced to this song think it's a professional band, or at the extreme least an amateur band playing with top level equipment/sponsor? 1983 guy stated they sound like they have equipment his garage band "couldn't even afford to dream about looking at yet alone use". It's also one of the reasons my 2 oldest sisters insist this is a professional band (sister #1 says Manowar, #2 says Manowar or Sarissa) because there are no goofs or mistakes or errors. My sisters gave an example of a garage band from their Kutztown university days, "Freefall Abyss" that self released a demo and in one song you can hear a telephone ringing in the background and in another you can hear a fan or ac unit going.
He contacted a girl named Della: "This song was actually played on an old Philly/NJ station on the segment "Della names your tune" in 2009. I was able to get in contact with "Della" (real name withheld by her request) who at first stated "I played thousands of unnamed songs bud, I probably played this one 100 times, sorry i wont be much help" . Then a few days later replied "I do recall this one, it was sent in from a local listener who had it labeled as Dungeon Master or maybe Dragon Master on a CD with a bunch of old early Manowar, JudaPriest, Iron Maiden, Megadead, Metallica and AngelWitch songs. He or she claimed their father had this song on a tape from his college days. Nobody knew what or who it was back in '09 or '10 and as far as I know nobody figured it out when I left the program in '15." The only name she gave, and I don't know if this was even a real name or the drummers "stage name" was Leopald Lestat.........I do have 2 people looking into it (from a metal dating site of all places). Disclaimer: I know some of those bands are misspelled, I purposefully left it that way because that's how she sent it to me."
"I went down that road, you nailed it right on the head. There is no way to track down who that listener was. The only hint she had, in the form of the note attached to the CD was the person said they were from Radnor PA. I couldn't tell you because the other songs kind of bounce around in terms of year: there's a Judas Priest and an Angel Witch song both from 1980 but then there's a song from Megadeath (I believe Megadeath came out in '85?) and a Metallica song from '86? For some reason my one comment didn't show up? Della gave a pretty big hint, she said the mailing address on the CD was from Radnor PA, but the phone number included was a landline for a Chicago address. Her and the station managers assumed it was a "shadow number" and didn't bother keeping record of it. A lot of her requests had local addresses with out of state phone numbers, cellular and landline."
He suggests Dungeon Masters: "I have a potential lead, "Dungeon Masters" from Pittsburgh PA? Long story short: everyone at work talks about a "hot nerdy chick" who works at the one antique book store in town and she is a music genius and knows EVERY song people play. So i decided to test it. I played this song and she stated "I think thats Dungeon Masters, they were from my hometown of Pittsburgh PA back in the early to late 80's. Thats either Dungeon Masters or someone doing an incredible job imitating them?". Given that Cleveland is only a 2-3 hr drive from Pittsburgh (from what Steelers players say) i think this could be a possible lead and explain the Cleveland recording? Again, this is only a POSSIBLE lead, but i think it has potential?
Currently my one "source" is looking into it. He is not always accurate (as evidenced when we were looking into Conquest) but its better than nothing."
And someone adds this: "Della said the same Dungeon Masters so better look into it"
But he says this: "Close, "Della" stated the listener who sent in the CD had this song labeled as "Dungeon Master?", not a band name. But I am looking into it as best as I can. I found a Pittsburgh band "Dungeon" but they're NOT metal they're an Omnia/Faun like band (neo-folk I think is the term?) formed in 2018. I sent word out to the people I know and my "team". Now it is a waiting game."

I'm trying to search for Ancient Greek musics of hymns, poetry and plays; I can't find for they aren't researched much, I want to know if there are websites or books that I can find notations with lyrics for this job. I'd be very happy if anyone helps it, I am doing this for future Classics researchment.

While the title might sound ridiculous, this idea has some interesting things pointing towards it as a possibility.
https://chipstero7.wordpress.com/
Quote: (1% of 100%):

CERN, or the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is an international organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. CERN’s primary mission is to explore the fundamental nature of the universe by investigating the basic building blocks of matter and the forces that govern their interactions. This research often involves studying subatomic particles like protons, neutrons, electrons, and various other particles that make up matter. One of the most prominent achievements of CERN is the construction and operation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. The LHC is a circular accelerator situated underground, spanning the border between Switzerland and France. It’s used to accelerate particles to extremely high energies and then collide them at incredibly high speeds. These collisions create conditions similar to those just moments after the Big Bang, allowing scientists to study the behaviour of matter in its most fundamental states. CERN was essentially created in order to recreate the conditions of the early universe after the Big Bang as a possible means of testing the Big Bang theory which has dominated physics since the middle of the last century. CERN’s experimental ‘test’ of the Big Bang theory has focused on the search for the elusive Higgs Boson (the “God Particle”) because the Big Bang theorists believe that the universe could not have been created without it. However, anyone who examines the Big Bang theory honestly and in sufficient depth can see that it does not hold water and contains holes in its logic so large that a galactic supercluster could be driven through them. It’s just like CAGW theory, but on a cosmic scale instead of merely a terrestrial one. No experimental ‘tests’ for this are needed and so it’s a wonder how this half-baked nonsense has become the holy cow of science. The experimental ‘tests’ provided by CERN are superfluous and the creation of their particle accelerator was not needed for the stated scientific purpose.
Investigative mythologist William Henry, who is a producer for the popular American TV show Ancient Aliens and author of over 18 books in alternative science, says: “If we take his [Leon Lederman’s] words literally, it suggests that the search for the “God Particle” and the creation of these amazing particle accelerators, such as the one at CERN, is actually a recreation of the Tower of Babel. Well, the Tower of Babel seems to have been humanity’s first attempt to blast open holes in Heaven, to open stargates and worm-holes”. Not many have made the connection, but the Shiva statue at CERN can be connected to the Tower of Babel. This is because Shiva is assumed by some to be the same person as Nimrod, and Nimrod was responsible for building the original Tower of Babel. According to Chris Relitz in his book ‘Antichrist Osiris: The History of the Luciferian Conspiracy’, Shiva and Nimrod are one and the same character. Quote: “By the time the character of Nimrod reached India, it seems he was known as Shiva. The legends of both are too similar to ignore. Both were associated with fire, destruction, wore bull’s horns, had profound phalluses and wore leopard skins. Both had a trident as a weapon, as the devil today is seen with a pitchfork”. This is also corroborated by Erica Nugent in her book ‘Clash of the Kingdoms’, where she says: “Nimrod became Shiva”. Could it be CERN’s goal to recreate the Tower of Babel, which might explain why they have a statue of Shiva (or Nimrod) as their mascot? Author of the book ‘Revising Reality’, Anthony Patch seems to think so, where he says: “Strangely, CERN constitutes a new Tower of Babel in several respects. The goal of CERN seeks to defy God, deify humankind, establish human supremacy, and create a stairway to Heaven”. Patch says that CERN is attempting to access the Saturn Polar Configuration and re-establish a worm-hole or link (he calls it a “plasma conduit”). Another name for this “plasma conduit” would be the Tower of Babel.
Similar to Patch, according to Nick Hinton, author of the book ‘The Saturn Time Cube Simulation’ and ‘The Aquarian Singularity’, CERN is attempting to access the worm-hole that existed during the Saturn Polar Configuration, as he explains in his Twitter article here (if that’s inaccessible to you) his Reddit article here. This worm-hole has been dubbed by some the “Saturn Stargate”. As Hinton says: “The Saturn Stargate is a theoretical celestial alignment (based on the Electric Universe theory) that supposedly causes a portal to open in the sky”. In the TechBubble article ‘How CERN plan to use the Large Hadron Collider to open portals to other dimensions’, researcher Adam Milton-Barker speculates (similar to Hinton) that CERN’s goal is to access the Saturn Polar Configuration, saying: “There are some very interesting theories connected to CERN. One theory is that there is a connection between CERN and Saturn. You may have heard of Jacob’s Ladder which is described in the Book of Genesis. One of CERN’s goals is to recreate Jacob’s Ladder and re-open a portal that is said to have existed between Earth, Venus, Mars, and Saturn, when the planets were in alignment many [thousands of] years ago”. As mentioned above, Talbott associates this alignment with the Tower of Babel. Various researchers have suggested that CERN are attempting to recreate the Tower of Babel, and some have speculated that the Tower of Babel was actually a worm-hole. The Saturn Polar Configuration (which Talbott associates with the Tower of Babel) was also represented by Atlas (see ‘Discourses on an Alien Sky#13’). In Greek mythology, Atlas bared the weight of the heavens on his shoulders. Curiously, CERN refers to the Large Hadron Collider as the “ATLAS EXPERIMENT” which connects them to the Tower of Babel, and may hint at their real objective.

[Deleted immediately and reposted after realizing copying and pasting had led to formatting issues - sorry!]
Hear me out.
If you search 'gay' on this subreddit there's a litany of posts from the past decade with guys describing how when they're on streaks they start feeling a little attracted towards other men, and many other men chiming in to say that it's normal and it's just your body trying to get you to get back to the porn, or some other cope.
See this post for a typical example: https://www.reddit.com/NoFap/comments/qruzsg/homosexual_thoughts/
So here's the thing. I'm a gay man - or comfortable identifying as a gay man. Honestly, I'm a little bisexual. If I haven't gotten off in awhile I do feel a little attracted to women. And I'd be comfortable sleeping with a female friend whether or not the attraction is there, just because I think sex is a fun way to connect with friends (gay culture is a wild ride, gentlemen). But I don't expect that to ever come up. Women rarely pursue and I'm not interested in them enough to do that on my own when men are so much easier and I'm more into them in the first place. So, I usually just call myself a gay man.
In the same sense - there's a lot (and I mean probably most) of straight men who are similarly inclined. We know a couple of things from infamous sexuality research in the twentieth century:
(1) In single sex boarding schools and universities, phenomenally high rates of men reported that they had had homosexual experiences by the time they graduated. We're talking more than half. This included mutual masturbation, oral, sometimes even all the way.
(2) The famous book Tearoom Trade was an investigation into cruising culture in the 70s, where a sociologist tracked down men he saw hooking up in public bathrooms, locker rooms, etc. and gathered demographic info from them after knocking on their front door posing as a health department worker doing a community survey. It turns out that vast majority of the men doing this sort of hooking up were typically masculine straight identifying guys who had wives and children - mechanics, construction workers, lawyers, office workers, and so on.
(3) Not the twentieth century, but we know that many cultures, like ancient Greece, had societally normalized homosexuality between men - as in, most men could be assumed to have or have had a casual sexual relationship with some other guy (usually older or younger) in addition to their otherwise monogamous marriage.
Cruising culture mostly fades away with the advent of digital pornography - or moves onto apps like Grindr. So does most of this sexual experimentation between high school and college age men. We still have remnants of it in our cultural mythology, like jokes about circle jerks or how everyone in the Navy is gay while they're at sea for months at a time.
It doesn't actually happen all that often anymore, though. Today, men don't need to get sexually pent up and frustrated, they just grab their phones and lock their bedroom door for a few minutes. Like when was the last time you heard of a straight guy participating in a bona fide circle jerk with a bunch of other guys?
In the few single sex environments where men don't have access to porn that remain - I'm thinking prison, here - there is still a large theme about straight men becoming 'prison gay' and picking up same sex lovers for the duration of their sentence, and then going back to being straight once they get out.
There's a large variety of bisexual behavior among men that used to occur but no longer does because those feelings of attraction causing that only occur in most men once your libido and sexual frustration reaches a certain point.
I don't think if this happens to you that you're a hypocrite if you don't start calling yourself a bisexual man and coming out to your friends and family. But I do think there's no need for insecurity or justifications about how actually you're still 100% straight. We live in a sexually liberated age - take advantage of it if you feel the inclination, grindr doesn't require a profile picture. If you have friends who do nofap, they're probably feeling the same things as you, so explore that if you want. And if you're open to doing anything with other men, sex is much easier to obtain, and a lot of the skills and bedroom confidence and charisma you pick up there translate to being with women. Just be safe and STD conscious.
Tl;Dr there used to be a lot more bisexual shenanigans happening between men. Men today aren't any less bisexual. Pornography has just altered the sociosexual dynamics so that it doesn't come up.

I jumped right into the very first Assassins Creed way back on release day on my PS3. I played all the sequels (yes, also the Ezio collection) one by one after they got released and tbh the last 3 (4 with Mirage) games are my favourite games. I like the RPG style overall and Ubisoft really hit the nail with those settings since AC Origins. I love ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, medieval England / Vikings. Those games were the sh*t and I can´t stop playing them. Mirage to me is a masterpiece. The world is GORGEOUS. Nothing more to say here.
What is your favourite game out of these 3 and why?

"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

The main reason Jesus died on the cross was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory (e.g., Recapitulation, Moral Influence, etc.).
This understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. But, what exactly was Christ victorious from, and why? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to turn to the Old Testament, as that's what the apostles would often allude to in order to properly teach their audience the message they were trying to convey (Rom. 15:4).
The OT is full of conflict between the Father (YHVH) and false gods, between YHVH and cosmic forces of chaos. The Psalms speak of this conflict between YHVH and water monsters of the deeps (an ancient image for chaos) (Psa. 29:3-4; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9, etc).
The liberation of Israel from Egypt wasn’t just a conflict between Pharaoh and Moses. It was really between YHVH and the false gods of Egypt.
Regardless of whether you think the aforementioned descriptions are literal or metaphorical, the reality that the Old Testament describes is that humanity lived in a “cosmic war zone.”
The Christus Victor motif is about Christ reigning victorious over wicked principalities and Satan's kingdom, and is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came to drive out "the prince of this world” (John 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and to “put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who held the world in bondage and worked with his Church to plunder his "palace" (Luke 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy” the life YHVH intended for us (John 10:10). Jesus came and died on the cross to disarm “the principalities and powers” and make a “shew of them openly [i.e., public spectacle]” by “triumphing over them in [the cross]” (Col. 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaimed that Jesus in principle conquered all YHVH's enemies (Acts 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all YHVH’s opponents. (Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in Matthew 22:41-45; 26:64, Mark 12:35-37; 14:62, Luke 20:41-44; 22:69, Acts 5:31; 7:55-56, Romans 8:34, 1st Corinthians 15:22-25, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13, 1st Peter 3:22, and Revelation 3:21.) According to New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
Because of man's rebellion, the Messiah's coming involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Since YHVH is a God of love who gives genuine “say-so” to both angels and humans, YHVH rarely accomplishes His providential plans through coercion. YHVH relies on His infinite wisdom to achieve His goals. Nowhere is YHVH's wisdom put more on display than in the manner in which He outsmarted Satan and the powers of evil, using their own evil to bring about their defeat.
Most readers probably know the famous story from ancient Greece about the Trojan Horse. To recap the story, Troy and Greece had been locked in a ten-year-long vicious war when, according to Homer and Virgil, the Greeks came up with a brilliant idea. They built an enormous wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and offered it to the Trojans as a gift, claiming they were conceding defeat and going home. The delighted Trojans accepted the gift and proceeded to celebrate by drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. When night came and the Trojan warriors were too wasted to fight, the Greeks exited the horse, unlocked the city gates to quietly let all their compatriots in, and easily conquered the city, thus winning the war.
Historians debate whether any of this actually happened. But either way, as military strategies go, it’s brilliant.
Now, there are five clues in the New Testament that suggest YHVH was using something like this Trojan Horse strategy against the powers when he sent Jesus into the world:
1) The Bible tells us that YHVH's victory over the powers of darkness was achieved by the employment of YHVH’s wisdom, and was centered on that wisdom having become reality in Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:9-10, Col. 1:26). It also tells us that, for some reason, this Christ-centered wisdom was kept “secret and hidden” throughout the ages. It’s clear from this that YHVH's strategy was to outsmart and surprise the powers by sending Jesus.
2) While humans don’t generally know Jesus’ true identity during his ministry, demons do. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, but, interestingly enough, they have no idea what he’s doing (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7, Luke 8:21). Again, the wisdom of YHVH in sending Jesus was hidden from them.
3) We’re told that, while humans certainly share in the responsibility for the crucifixion, Satan and the powers were working behind the scenes to bring it about (John 13:27 cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-8). These forces of evil helped orchestrate the crucifixion.
4) We’re taught that if the “princes of this world [age]” had understood the secret wisdom of YHVH, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8 cf. vss 6-7). Apparently, Satan and the powers regretted orchestrating Christ’s crucifixion once they learned of the wisdom of YHVH that was behind it.
5) Finally, we can begin to understand why the powers came to regret crucifying “the Lord of glory” when we read that it was by means of the crucifixion that the “handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us [i.e., the charge of our legal indebtedness]” was “[taken] out of the way [i.e., canceled]” as the powers were disarmed. In this way Christ “triumph[ed] over” the powers by "his cross” and even “made a shew of them openly” (Col. 2:14-15). Through Christ’s death and resurrection YHVH's enemies were vanquished and placed under his Messiah's feet, and ultimately His own in the end (1 Cor. 15:23-28).
Putting these five clues together, we can discern YHVH's Trojan Horse strategy in sending Jesus.
The powers couldn’t discern why Jesus came because YHVH's wisdom was hidden from them. YHVH's wisdom was motivated by unfathomable love, and since Satan and the other powers were evil, they lacked the capacity to understand it. Their evil hearts prevented them from suspecting what YHVH was up to.
What the powers did understand was that Jesus was mortal. This meant he was killable. Lacking the capacity to understand that this was the means by which YHVH would ultimately bring about the defeat of death (and thus, pave the road for the resurrection itself), they never suspected that making Jesus vulnerable to their evil might actually be part of YHVH's infinitely wise plan.
And so they took the bait (or "ransom"; Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Utilizing Judas and other willing human agents, the powers played right into YHVH’s secret plan and orchestrated the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:22-23; 4:28). YHVH thus brilliantly used the self-inflicted incapacity of evil to understand love against itself. And, like light dispelling darkness, the unfathomably beautiful act of YHVH's love in sending the willing Messiah as a "ransom" to these blood-thirsty powers defeated them. The whole creation was in principle freed and reconciled to YHVH, while everything written against us humans was nailed to the cross, thus robbing the powers of the only legal claim they had on us. They were “spoiled [i.e., disempowered]” (Col. 2:14-15).
As happened to the Trojans in accepting the gift from the Greeks, in seizing on Christ’s vulnerability and orchestrating his crucifixion, the powers unwittingly cooperated with YHVH to unleash the one power in the world that dispels all evil and sets captives free. It’s the power of self-sacrificial love.

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

For the sake of keeping this already lengthy post as short as possible I'm not going to spend too much time on why exactly PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is inconsistent with Scripture, but I'll go ahead and point out the main reasons why I believe this is so, and let the reader look further into this subject by themselves, being that there are many resources out there which have devoted much more time than I ever could here in supporting this premise.

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"-1 Corinthians 5:7

The Passover is one of the two most prominent images in the New Testament given as a comparison to Christ's atonement and what it accomplished, (the other most common image being the Day of Atonement sacrifice).
In the Passover, the blood of the lamb on the door posts of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus was meant to mark out those who were YHVH's, not be a symbol of PSA, as the lamb itself was not being punished by God in place of the Hebrews, but rather the kingdom of Egypt (and thus, allegorically speaking, the kingdom of darkness which opposed YHVH) was what was being judged and punished, because those who were not "covered" by the blood of the lamb could be easily identified as not part of God's kingdom/covenant and liberated people.
Looking at the Day of Atonement sacrifice (which, again, Christ's death is repeatedly compared to throughout the New Testament), this ritual required a ram, a bull, and two goats (Lev. 16:3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering intended to please God (Lev. 16:3-4). The bull served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. In this case, the sin offering restored the priest to ritual purity, allowing him to occupy sacred space and be near YHVH’s presence. Two goats taken from "the congregation” were needed for the single sin offering for the people (Lev. 16:5). So why two goats?
The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, with one chosen as a sacrifice “for the Lord” (Lev. 16:8). The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed or designated “for the Lord.” On the contrary, this goat—the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness—was “for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8-10).
What—or who—is Azazel?
The Hebrew term azazel (עזאזל) occurs four times in Leviticus 16 but nowhere else in most people's canon of the Bible, (and I say "most people's canon," because some people do include 1 Enoch in their canon of Scripture, which of course goes into great detail about this "Azazel" figure). Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase, “the goat that goes away,” which is the same idea conveyed in the King James Version’s “scapegoat.” Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The “scapegoat” option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” parallels the phrase “for YHVH” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.
A strong case can be made for translating the term as the name Azazel. Ancient Jewish texts show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. The Mishnah (ca. AD 200; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over, ensuring it would not return with its death. This association of the wilderness with evil is also evident in the New Testament, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Matt. 4:1). Also, in Leviticus 17:1-7 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to "devils" (alternatively translated as “goat demons”). The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.
The second goat was not sent into the wilderness as a sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. The act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness, which was unholy ground, was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—to the demonic domain. With one goat sacrificed to bring purification and access to YHVH and one goat sent to carry the people’s sins to the demonic domain, this annual ritual reinforced the identity of the true God and His mercy and holiness.
When Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity’s sins, he was crucified outside the city, paralleling the sins of the people being cast to the wilderness via the goat to Azazel. Jesus died once for all sinners, negating the need for this ritual.
As previously stated, the goat which had all the sin put on it was sent alive off to the wilderness, while the blood of the goat which was blameless was used to purify the temple and the people. Penal substitution would necessitate the killing of the goat which had the sin put on it.
Mind you, this is the only sacrificial ritual of any kind in the Torah in which sins are placed on an animal. The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Most PSA proponents unwittingly point to this ritual as evidence of their view, despite it actually serving as evidence to the contrary, because most people don't read their Old Testament and don't familiarize themselves with the "boring parts" like Leviticus (when it's actually rather important to do so, since that book explains how exactly animal offerings were to be carried out and why they were done in the first place).
In the New Testament, Christ's blood was not only meant to mark out those who were his, but also expel the presence of sin and ritual uncleanness so as to make the presence of YHVH manifest in the believer's life. Notice how God's wrath isn't poured out on Christ in our stead on this view, but rather His wrath was poured out on those who weren't covered, and the presence of sin and evil were merely removed by that which is pure and blameless (Christ's blood) for the believer.
All this is the difference between expiation and propitiation.

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

When the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel,” they referred not to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” That is to say, the gospel was, properly speaking, the royal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel’s promised Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The New Testament writers were not writing in a cultural or linguistic vacuum and their language of euangelion (good news) and euangelizomai would have been understood by their audience in fairly specific ways. Namely, in the Greco-Roman world for which the New Testament authors wrote, euangelion/euangelizomai language typically had to do with either A) the announcement of the accession of a ruler, or B) the announcement of a victory in battle, and would probably have been understood along those lines.
Let’s take the announcements of a new ruler first. The classic example of such a language is the Priene Calendar Inscription, dating to circa 9 BC, which celebrates the rule (and birthday) of Caesar Augustus as follows:
"It was seeming to the Greeks in Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: Since Providence, which has ordered all things of our life and is very much interested in our life, has ordered things in sending Augustus, whom she filled with virtue for the benefit of men, sending him as a savior [soter] both for us and for those after us, him who would end war and order all things, and since Caesar by his appearance [epiphanein] surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings [euangelia], not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god [he genethlios tou theou] was for the world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] through him; and Asia resolved it in Smyrna."
The association of the term euangelion with the announcement of Augustus’ rule is clear enough and is typical of how this language is used elsewhere. To give another example, Josephus records that at the news of the accession of the new emperor Vespasian (69 AD) “every city kept festival for the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf.” (The Jewish War, IV.618). Finally, a papyrus dating to ca. 498 AD begins:
"Since I have become aware of the good news (euangeliou) about the proclamation as Caesar (of Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Augustus)…"
This usage occurs also in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures. For instance LXX Isaiah 52:7 reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news (euangelizomenou), who publishes peace, who brings good news (euangelizomenos) of salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'" Similarly, LXX Isaiah 40:9-10 reads:

"…Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos) to Sion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos); lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Ioudas, “See your God!” Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority (kyrieias)…."-NETS, Esaias 40:9-10

This consistent close connection between euangelion/euangelizomai language and announcements of rule strongly suggests that many of the initial hearers/readers of the early Christians’ evangelical language would likely have understood that language as the announcement of a new ruler (see, e.g., Acts 17:7), and, unless there is strong NT evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the NT writers probably intended their language to be so understood.
However, the other main way in which euangelion/euangelizomai language was used in the Greco-Roman world was with reference to battle reports, announcements of victory in war. A classic example of this sort of usage can be found in LXX 2 Samuel 18:19ff, where David receives word that his traitorous son, Absalom, has been defeated in battle. Euangelion/euangelizomai is used throughout the passage for the communications from the front.
As already shown throughout this post, the NT speaks of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a great victory over the powers that existed at that time and, most importantly, over death itself. Jesus’ conquest of the principalities and powers was the establishment of his rule and comprehensive authority over heaven and earth, that is, of his Lordship over all things (again, at that time).
This was the content of Paul's gospel message...

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

The following quotation is from The Gospel Coalition, and I believe it to be a decently accurate summary of the NPP (New Perspective on Paul), despite it being from a source which is in opposition to it:

The New Perspective on Paul, a major scholarly shift that began in the 1980s, argues that the Jewish context of the New Testament has been wrongly understood and that this misunderstand[ing] has led to errors in the traditional-Protestant understanding of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but rather on covenantal nomism, the belief that one enters the people of God by grace and stays in through obedience to the covenant. This means that Paul could not have been referring to works-righteousness by his phrase “works of the law”; instead, he was referring to Jewish boundary markers that made clear who was or was not within the people of God. For the New Perspective, this is the issue that Paul opposes in the NT. Thus, justification takes on two aspects for the New Perspective rather than one; initial justification is by faith (grace) and recognizes covenant status (ecclesiology), while final justification is partially by works, albeit works produced by the Spirit.

I believe what's called the "new perspective" is actually rather old, and that the Reformers' view of Paul is what is truly new, being that the Lutheran understanding of Paul is simply not Biblical.
The Reformation perspective understands Paul to be arguing against a legalistic Jewish culture that seeks to earn their salvation through works. However, supporters of the NPP argue that Paul has been misread. We contend he was actually combating Jews who were boasting because they were God's people, the "elect" or the "chosen ones." Their "works," so to speak, were done to show they were God's covenant people and not to earn their salvation.
The key questions involve Paul’s view(s) of the law and the meaning of the controversy in which Paul was engaged. Paul strongly argued that we are “justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law” (Gal. 2:16b). Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. Judaism was cast in the role of the medieval "church," and so Paul’s protests became very Lutheran, with traditional-Protestant theology reinforced in all its particulars (along with its limitations) as a result. In hermeneutical terms, then, the historical context of Paul’s debate will answer the questions we have about what exactly the apostle meant by the phrase "works of the law," along with other phrases often used as support by the Reformers for their doctrine of Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), like when Paul mentions "the righteousness of God."
Obviously an in-depth analysis of the Pauline corpus and its place in the context of first-century Judaism would take us far beyond the scope of this brief post. We can, however, quickly survey the topography of Paul’s thought in context, particularly as it has emerged through the efforts of recent scholarship, and note some salient points which may be used as the basis of a refurbished soteriology.
[Note: The more popular scholars associated with the NPP are E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright. Dunn was the first to coin the term "The New Perspective" in a 1983 Manson Memorial Lecture, The New Perspective on Paul and the Law.]
Varying authors since the early 1900's have brought up the charge that Paul was misread by those in the tradition of Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers. Yet, it wasn't until E.P. Sanders' 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that scholars began to pay much attention to the issue. In his book, Sanders argues that the Judaism of Paul's day has been wrongly criticized as a religion of "works-salvation" by those in the Protestant tradition.
A fundamental premise in the NPP is that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. Sander's puts it clearly:
"On the point at which many have found the decisive contrast between Paul and Judaism - grace and works - Paul is in agreement with Palestinian Judaism... Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works'...God saves by grace, but... within the framework established by grace he rewards good deeds and punishes transgression." (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 543)
N.T. Wright adds that, "we have misjudged early Judaism, especially Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism," (Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 32).
Sanders has coined a now well-known phrase to describe the character of first-century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” The meaning of “covenantal nomism” is that human obedience is not construed as the means of entering into God’s covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness, Judaism was never a religion of legalism.
If covenantal nomism was operating as the primary category under which Jews understood the Law, then when Jews spoke of obeying commandments, or when they required strict obedience of themselves and fellow Jews, it was because they were "keeping the covenant," rather than out of legalism.
More recently, N.T. Wright has made a significant contribution in his little book, What Saint Paul Really Said. Wright’s focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul’s gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord. The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel’s expectations. Romans 1:3-4, not 1:16-17, is the gospel, contrary to traditional thinking. Justification is not the center of Paul’s thought, but an outworking of it:
"[T]he doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved. It is, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ….Let us be quite clear. ‘The gospel’ is the announcement of Jesus’ lordship, which works with power to bring people into the family of Abraham, now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him. ‘Justification’ is the doctrine which insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family, on this basis and no other." (pp. 132, 133)
Wright brings us to this point by showing what “justification” would have meant in Paul’s Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul’s autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel’s land for peace. Wright writes:
"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of salvation... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel." (pp. 32, 33)
Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather “the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God’s people” after they had responded to the gospel message.
Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism “from within” even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.
At this point Wright carefully documents Paul’s use of the controversial phrase “God’s righteousness” and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is “justified” cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is “righteous” if his or her judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is “righteous” if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favor. For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous does not mean that he or she has tried the case properly or impartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works." (p. 98)
However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul’s theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God’s love.
Righteousness is not an impersonal, abstract standard, a measuring-stick or a balancing scale. That was, and still is, a Greek view. Righteousness, Biblically speaking, grows out of covenant relationship. We forgive because we have been forgiven (Matt. 18:21-35); “we love" because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10, Gal 5:14, Jam. 2:8). Paul even looked forward to a day when “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), and he acknowledged that his clear conscience did not necessarily ensure this verdict (1 Cor. 4:4), but he was confident nevertheless. Paul did in fact testify of his clear conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation [i.e., behavior] in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward” (2 Cor. 1:12). He was aware that he had not yet “attained” (Phil. 3:12-14), that he still struggled with the flesh, yet he was confident of the value of his performance (1 Cor. 9:27). These are hardly the convictions of someone who intends to rest entirely on the merits of an alien righteousness imputed to his or her account.
Wright went on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The “works of the law” are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather “sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision” (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:
"Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian, or attains to a relationship with God….The problem he addresses is: should his ex-pagan converts be circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On anyone’s reading, but especially within its first-century context, it has to do quite obviously with the question of how you define the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of Jewish race, or in some other way? Circumcision is not a ‘moral’ issue; it does not have to do with moral effort, or earning salvation by good deeds. Nor can we simply treat it as a religious ritual, then designate all religious ritual as crypto-Pelagian good works, and so smuggle Pelagius into Galatia as the arch-opponent after all. First-century thought, both Jewish and Christian, simply doesn’t work like that…. [T]he polemic against the Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we ‘translate’ it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or against the more subtle snare of ‘legalism’, as some have suggested. The passages about the law only work — and by ‘work’ I mean they will only make full sense in their contexts, which is what counts in the last analysis — when we take them as references to the Jewish law, the Torah, seen as the national charter of the Jewish race." (pp. 120-122)
The debate about justification, then, “wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.” (p. 119)
To summarize the theology of Paul in his epistles, the apostle mainly spent time arguing to those whom he were sending letters that salvation in Christ was available to all men without distinction. Jews and Gentiles alike may accept the free gift; it was not limited to any one group. Paul was vehement about this, especially in his letter to the Romans. As such, I will finish this post off by summarizing the letter itself, so as to provide Biblical support for the premises of the NPP and for what the scholars I referenced have thus far argued.
After his introduction in the epistle to an already believing and mostly Gentile audience (who would've already been familiar with the gospel proclaimed in verses 3-4), Paul makes a thematic statement in 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This statement is just one of many key statements littered throughout the book of Romans that give us proper understanding of the point Paul wished to make to the interlocutors of his day, namely, salvation is available to all, whether Jew or Gentile.
In 1:16 Paul sets out a basic theme of his message in the letter to the Romans. All who believed, whether they be Jew or Gentile, were saved by the power of the gospel. The universal nature of salvation was explicitly stated. The gospel saved all without distinction, whether Jew or Greek; salvation was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Immediately after this thematic declaration, Paul undertakes to show the universal nature of sin and guilt. In 1:18-32 Paul shows how the Gentile is guilty before God. Despite evidence of God and his attributes, which is readily available to all, they have failed to honor YHVH as God and have exchanged His glory for idolatrous worship and self-promotion. As a consequence, God handed them over in judgment (1:18-32). Paul moves to denunciation of those who would judge others while themselves being guilty of the very same offenses (2:1-5) and argues that all will be judged according to their deeds (2:6). This judgment applies to all, namely, Jew and Greek (2:9-10). This section serves as somewhat of a transition in Paul’s argument. He has highlighted the guilt of the Gentiles (1:18ff) and will shortly outline the guilt of the Jew (2:17-24). The universal statement of 2:1-11 sets the stage for Paul’s rebuke of Jewish presumption. It was not possession of the Law which delivered; it was faithful obedience. It is better to have no Law and yet to obey the essence of the Law (2:12-16) than to have the Law and not obey (2:17-3:4). Paul then defends the justice of God’s judgment (3:5-8), which leads to the conclusion that all (Jew and Gentile) are guilty before God (3:9).
Paul argues that it was a mistaken notion to think that salvation was the prerogative of the Jew only. This presumption is wrong for two reasons. First, it leads to the mistaken assumption that only Jews were eligible for this vindication (Paul deals with this misunderstanding in chapter 4 where he demonstrates that Abraham was justified by faith independently of the Law and is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike). Second, it leads to the equally mistaken conclusion that all who were Jews are guaranteed of vindication. Paul demonstrates how this perspective, which would call God’s integrity into question since Paul was assuming many Jews would not experience this vindication, was misguided. He did this by demonstrating that it was never the case that all physical descendants of Israel (Jacob) were likewise recipients of the promise. In the past (9:6-33) as in the present (at that time; 11:1-10), only a remnant was preserved and only a remnant would experience vindication. Paul also argued that the unbelief of national Israel (the non-remnant) had the purpose of extending the compass of salvation. The unbelief of one group made the universal scope of the gospel possible. This universalism was itself intended to bring about the vindication of the unbelieving group (11:11-16). As a result of faith, all (Jew and Gentile) could be branches of the olive tree (11:17-24). Since faith in Christ was necessary to remain grafted into the tree, no one could boast of his position. All, Jew and Gentile alike, were dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. As a result of God’s mysterious plan, He would bring about the vindication of His people (11:25-27). [Note: It is this author's belief that this vindication occurred around 66-70 AD, with the Parousia of Christ's Church; this author is Full-Preterist in their Eschatology.]

Just finished reading Nothing by Frank Close from the 'A Very Short Introduction' series by OUP. It is about physics as well as philosophy, and has left me with more questions than answers.
If anybody has read this book, please suggest more books dealing with physics-based philosophy. Adding that I have read A Brief History of Time and a Theory of Everything. Both books talk about historical aspects of how we've derived the knowledge that we know so far.

I've heard it said that in ancient Greece, tax was handled by the temples to the gods. Was the same true in ancient Egypt? If not, how was tax collected there?

As a person with a (mild) disability that causes me to ocassionally limp, I was obviously intrigued to see that Hephaestus was a Greek god with a similar issue.
I am aware there are many different explanations for Hephaestus being disabled, from him being disabled from birth to being injured as he was cast out of Mt Olympus, as well as one where he is injured when Zeus sexually assaults Hera, his mother.
Focusing on the Iliad, it’s clear Hephaestus limps/shuffles, even to the point of amusing the other gods - they laugh at him as he shuffles around the room serving wine. This does not stop Hephaestus from being incredibly useful - forging Achilles armour and even saving him in battle. When Hephaestus fights he is highly effective, so too when he speaks.
Hephaestus’ skill in the forge allows him to trap and bind multiple gods, including his Mother, the queen of the gods Hera. He makes all the gods famous equipment from Helios’ chariot to Zeus’ thunderbolts. He is arguably the most useful god on Mt Olympus (not that gods have to be useful). Yet despite all this he seems to be consistently mistreated, fostering in him a resigned bitterness to his appearance and position.
In a society dependant on farm labour you could understand (though obviously not condone) why stories and culture may have animosity to disabled people who cannot do manual work. Or perhaps see it as some divine punishment/curse on their family for past sins. Hephaestus though seems much more powerful, skilful and effective than many of the gods, despite having a limp.
Is this contradiction deliberate or is it a modern projection onto the story? Would the audience have understood this contradiction or was his disability “enough” to find his treatment normal? What can we infer about the attitudes towards disability in the Ancient Greek audience through the stories of Hephaestus?

I have repeatedly encountered the claim that chain-mail was used by vedic era (1500-900 bce ) indians. This has been made even by respectable historians like rs sharma and has been asserted by several people on this subreddit like u/maharajadhirajasawai
Most of the evidence for chain-mail in vedic times is derived from a passage of the rigveda referencing the armour known to them as "varman". The problem with this is that those historians such as mr sharma who first asserted use of chainmail relied on old translations of the vedas by late-colonial sources. Most sources from the victorian period use the term "mail" very incorrectly. By misinterpreting medieval sources, they created historically nonexistent abominations such as "tegulated mail", "double mail" and so on. Also it is worth noting that rs sharma was, though a prolific and learned historian, not a military specialist and could hsve unwarily accepted these translations.
Also, famously when writing about the biblical goliath's armour in relation to bronze scale armour found in excavations, old school historians referred to it as "mail". So in summary, those historians that translated this term used the term mail/maille in non-specific and improper ways, all their scholarship about it was flawed.
All the cultures associated with ancestors of indo aryans such as sintashta culture, yamnaya culture and their successors such as scythians, alans, sarmatians and other pontic steppe nomads were not known to use mail prior to roman contact but were avid users of scale armour. Many wall paintings and reliefs also suggest use of this armour in ancient india. Hence, i suspect that mail must have been unknown in vedic india and scale was used instead.
As per most mainstream historians, mail was only invented by the celtic la tene culture in 600-500 bce. As a result, unless it were to be invented independently in 2nd millenium bce india, there is no chance of it having been used. And if someone asserts that this was indeed the case, the obvious question follows:- why did it not spread outside india ? Historically mail armour was rapidly adopted after its invention by celts to romans, greek thureophoroi/thorakitai and germanic tribes. India at vedic times included regions like kamboja and gandhara close to persia from where mail, if it was indeed invented back then, could easily spread to elam, bablyonia or asyria. It would have been rapidly adopted as revolutionary technology. Yet several centuries after the composition of the hymns in question, the mainstay of middle eastern armour was still scale and/or cloth/leather protection. Mail superseded scale armour in central asia, nusantara and japan in medieval era , so if it was really there during vedic times it would have quickly diffused into other areas.
One interesting issue with this king purushottam's armour in the battle of hydaspes. Afaik most scholars, including modern ones, mention him as werimg chainmail in this pivotal battle. This creates three possibilites:-
1) Mail was indeed indigenous to india, which runs into the aforementioned issues.
2) Somehow, mail technology diffused all the way from celts to india. This is even more implausible and ridiculous than the previous one, considering the distance involved, but perhaps indians in achaemenid service campaigning in greece/macedonia could have acquired it ?
3) Anachronism:- The most likely one in my opinion. This information mainly comes from arrian, a roman writer relying upon greek sources. In his time, the majority of roman soldiers wore lorica hamata or mail. Perhaps he was anachronistically referring to porus' armor inspired by contemporary fashions ?
Also, it is worthwhile to note that he refers to greaves and helmets among the indian warriors in the same passage. While these are common equipment for graeco-roman warriors, in india for some reason torso armour was given first preference. I say this because many paintings, reliefs and so on such as at ajanta show soldiers in torso armour (scale or quilted jacket) , helmets and greaves are rare in indian art. I know of the former solely from nagarjunakonda and the latter not at all. By contrast, in the graeco- roman world even for ordinary soldiers, the first armour to enter a soldiers kit would be a helmet and atleast a right-leg-greave, along with small bucklers and pectoral slabs/triple disc cuirasses. This unusual reference to armour is also a point in the favour of the theory that arrian was writing based on his own society's preferences in protection.
Also as a sidenote, i wonder why there was such a radical difference in priorities in armour for india and the classical world. Is it due to noble codes of dharmic warfare which demeaned below the belt attacks as in the Mahabharata ? Or did greater prevalence of slings in mediterranean result in greater emphasis on protection of extremities ?

I've been reading that during the Islamic Golden Age there was much more tolerance for LGBTQ people especially in Al-Andalus and the Ottoman Empire. Ok let's be clear: it wasn't at all a liberal sexually liberated society but it seems that various degrees of homosexual acts, homoerotic literature and some let's say proto forms of transgenderism were more or less tolerated, especially among the elites. This sort of habits were very likely due to the great impact that ancient Greece had to the Islamic World. It probably faded due to the rise of new Conservative movements and even colonialism. I'm no way an expert on this and I'm aware that this topic must be much more complex and nuanced than the way I tried to present it but I'm just surprised (or maybe not?) that not a single Dawah bro has ever brought up this unconvenient topic considering that it was probably a time when Islam reached its peak.

Hey all, I went to ConTEAnental yesterday and it was money well spent.
Let's take about the location first. It was held at Russian Banya in Park Slope South. I entered where they scanned my ticket and they gave me a towel and a garbage bag since all the lockers were gone by the time I got there. There were the men's and women's locker rooms upstairs and then you walk down from the other side into the venue: the main space which has an open layout. There is a cold pool, a hot tub, two dry saunas, a steam room, a dance floor and a sitting area where there was a bartender serving vodka/mixers, Gatorade and water.
Now the party itself: active is an understatement. It felt like the Ancient spas of Greece made modern. I was surprised at how many guys were there. There had to be about 300 guys, maybe even more. Also the amount of beauty there was something I haven't experienced in a space like that before. Yes, 95% of the guys had fit bodies. By fit, I mean proportionate bodies not just ripped six packs. Even the non fit guys, there was something very sexy about everyone last night. Demographics: the guys were mostly White then a mix between Black, Latin and Asian.
It's all about confidence in these spaces because I'm the guy that always gets called "cute" and never "hot" or "sexy." Keep in mind that it is a Hell's Kitchen crowd, for the most part, and they usually seek out their own. However, I still had a good amount of action and the guys were friendly.
Oh yes, there was a DJ and a break where we had a performer which was cool. It is a nude event with everyone walking around with their towels wrapped around their waists. By 10pm most were loosened up and walking around fully nude with their towels thrown over their shoulders.
Overall it was such a fun event and I'll like to experience it more often but $110(incl. fees) is pretty steep.
OH! Please don't forget to bring your own flip-flops. I forgot mine and had to walk barefoot. After awhile all of the floors became mucky.
I highly recommend checking out this party.