His uncle would beg to differ on that point www.politico.com/magazine/sto...

It does mention the “house of David”. Doesn’t mean David himself was a historical individual, but at the very least there was a historical “Davidic dynasty” that traced their lineage to him at most 100 years after his supposed lifetime. Do we have any analogous evidence for the Kayanids?

So, a stele referencing them about a hundred years after their reign? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan...

Unless there are earlier sources referencing them those from the Sasanian era, a closer analogy might be Moses and the patriarchs, who are also considered mythical

Interesting. What evidence is there for the historicity of the Kayanids?

Do you think that knowledge of the Achaemenids only became lost/conflated with the mythical Kayanids in later Sasanian times? Or were these Roman authors simply using their own historical knowledge to fill in the blanks in the reports they were relating?

People who still support Israel can be divided into two categories: Those who would have supported the Nazis in World War II; and those who would have opposed them solely because they were on the other side, not because they have any moral objection to their actions

I don’t care if I lose followers for saying this, but there is absolutely nothing redeemable about Israel or the UAE, and there is no hope for humanity until both genocidal imperialist states are dismantled brick by brick

…criticism (s/o @joelbaden.bsky.social) and linguistic dating (cf. @azforeman.bsky.social @olawikander.bsky.social @bnuyaminim.bsky.social), popular among but not exclusive to American and Israeli scholars, are far from exact sciences, but at least they are somewhat grounded in empirical evidence