Antiquitopia

As noted in an earlier post , I am reading Jose Saramago's Gospel according to Jesus Christ, and, in a portion when Jesus is with Simon and Andrew telling them to cast their nets again when they had not yet caught fish. Upon having their nets surprisingly full of fish (and, in this version, Jesus is equally surprised, although has some troubling feelings that God--who is not portrayed in a particularly favorable light in the novel--is behind it), Saramago writes about the food laws, but from the perspective of the fish: ...the net may have caught fish, but the law, as elsewhere, is quite unambiguous, Behold what you may eat of the various aquatic species, you may eat anything in the waters, seas, and rivers that has fins and scales, but that which has neither fins nor scales, whether they be creatures that breed or that live in the water, you will shun and abhor them for all time, you will refrain from eating the flesh of everything in the water that has neither fins nor scales, a...

I'm currently reading Nobel Prize winner for literature Jose Saramago's novel, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ , a fascinating retelling of the gospel story that delves in and out of dilemmas of morality, etc. A couple major issues are: was the "angel" who appeared to Mary from God or Satan? A second major dilemma is why didn't Joseph warn the rest of the village when he discovered Herod's plans to massacre all the infants in Bethlehem? In the book, the angel (from God? from Satan?) comes and tells Mary that Joseph's inaction in this respect is unforgivable and, in fact, for the rest of his life he will be haunted by nightmares (from God? from Satan?) about this deadly fault of omission. In fact, at points, the novel puts Joseph and God in the same boat: why didn't GOD warn the rest of the people? Both God and Joseph are haunted by their mistake that costed so many innocent lives. In this context, a short reverie on God and Satan's be...