SM Stirling surpasses Poul Anderson in realistic alternative history fiction and in descriptions of food. Thus, we vicariously enjoy many exotic meals - including a large silver dish of roasted sauroids on boiled rice and dates. Dates?
The sauroids:
are quasireptiles;
live in salt marsh;
eat rushes and grubs;
have white, salty flesh;
taste very like chicken.
Raj rips and eats a six-inch drumstick. We feel and taste this fictional future.
(Chicken is a versatile food source because it contravenes no taboos and vegetarians, although not Vegans, can eat the eggs.)
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And, of course, for Christians, all foods are kosher, as Christ and the Apostles repeatedly declared. I might not like pork chops, but that is simply a matter of taste, not religious belief.
Sean
Sean,
My friend/acquaintance, the theologian James Crossley, argues that Jesus was Law-observant and that the early church abolished the dietary laws along with circumcision.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm sorry, but I disagree with people like Prof. Crossley. Most who have Crossley's basic POV seem to deny the supernatural origins of Christianity, to deny the divinity, etc., of Christ. They seem to still adhere to the weak and unconvincing Q/Two Source theory of the Gospels, to still insist on a late, post AD 70 dating for the Synoptics.
I used to believe or accept the Q theory and a late dating of the Synoptics. But works like David L. Dungan's A HISTORY OF THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM and William Farmer's THE GOSPEL OF JESUS has convinced me Q and a late dating of the Gospels is simply not borne out when the arguments offered for such ideas are critically examined. I am convinced the Neo-Griesbachian hypothesis is the truest explanation.
And we even have physical evidence supporting the earlier dating, for instance, of Matthew. The Oxford Fragments of Matthew are texts from that Gospel found in Egypt with legal documents dated to the twelfth year of Nero's reign (AD 65-66). Assuming it took about ten years for that gospel to reach Egypt from when Matthew was originally composed (possibly in Antioch in Syria), that pushes the dating of Matthew back to c. AD 55.
And the advocates of a late dating for the Synoptics never seem to take account of internal evidence such as Luke ending the Acts of the Apostles with St. Paul's first Roman captivity, circa AD 61. WHY would Luke end his two part work at such an odd point if he wrote only after AD 70? It that had been the case, wouldn't Luke have given some account of Paul's hoped for journey to Spain, the Jewish Revolt, the persecution of the Christians in Rome, the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, the fall of Jerusalem, etc.?
I agree Our Lord was a Jew and observed the Law, but that does not mean He could not have said and done things that angered and alarmed the Sanhedrin. Such as His declarations that kosher observance was no longer necessary and healing people thru His miracles. The last straw being the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The arguments for Q and a late dating for the Synoptics strike me as esp. weak when I recall how NO evidence (manuscripts, fragments, or even quotes) has ever been found. I find a theory depending so much on a HYPOTHETICAL document very weak!
Prof. Crossley seem to differ from most on his side of this debate by being at least willing to consider possible an earlier dating for the Synoptics.
Sean
Sean,
James also argues for a very early Mark and, I think, has broken the consensus about Mark being written 30 years after the events it describes. He accepts the priority of Mark.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Good! That's at least a step in what I hold is the more likely direction. And one very ancient tradition about Mark's Gospel is that it was based on St. Peter's narratives, testimony, and preaching about Christ to the Christians in Rome.
Albeit, I still lean to this order of composition for the Synoptics: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Sean
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