Lamb The Gospel According to Biff Christs Childho - By Christopher Moore Page 0,18

I don't think the Law applies to you. I mean, you're the Messiah, God is supposed to tell you what he wants, isn't he?"

"I ask, but I receive no answer."

"Look, you're doing fine. Maybe that woman didn't live again because she was stubborn. Old people are that way. You have to throw water on my grandfather to get him up from his nap. Try a young dead person next time."

"What if I am not really the Messiah?"

"You mean you're not sure? The angel didn't give it away? You think that God might be playing a joke on you? I don't think so. I don't know the Torah as well as you, Joshua, but I don't remember God having a sense of humor."

Finally, a grin. "He gave me you as a best friend, didn't he?"

"Help me find a stick."

"Do you think I'll make a good stonemason?"

"Just don't be better at it than I am. That's all I ask."

"You stink."

"What have I been saying?"

"You really think Maggie likes me?"

"Are you going to be like this every morning? Because if you are, you can walk to work alone."

The gates of Sepphoris were like a funnel of humanity. Farmers poured out into their fields and groves, craftsmen and builders crowded in, while merchants hawked their wares and beggars moaned at the roadside. Joshua and I stopped outside the gates to marvel and were nearly run down by a man leading a string of donkeys laden with baskets of stone.

It wasn't that we had never seen a city before. Jerusalem was fifty times larger than Sepphoris, and we had been there many times for feast days, but Jerusalem was a Jewish city - it was the Jewish city. Sepphoris was the Roman fortress city of Galilee, and as soon as we saw the statue of Venus at the gates we knew that this was something different.

I elbowed Joshua in the ribs. "Graven image." I had never seen the human form depicted before.

"Sinful," Joshua said.

"She's naked."

"Don't look."

"She's completely naked."

"It is forbidden. We should go away from here, find your father." He caught me by my sleeve and dragged me through the gates into the city.

"How can they allow that?" I asked. "You'd think that our people would tear it down."

"They did, a band of Zealots. Joseph told me. The Romans caught them and crucified them by this road."

"You never told me that."

"Joseph told me not to speak of it."

"You could see her breasts."

"Don't think about it."

"How can I not think about it? I've never seen a breast without a baby attached to it. They're more - more friendly in pairs like that."

"Which way to where we are supposed to work?"

"My father said to come to the western corner of the city and we would see where the work was being done."

"Then come along." He was still dragging me, his head down, stomping along like an angry mule.

"Do you think Maggie's breasts will look like that?"

My father had been commissioned to build a house for a wealthy Greek on the western side of the city. When Joshua and I arrived my father was already there, directing the slaves who were hoisting a cut stone into place on the wall. I suppose I expected something different. I suppose I was surprised that anyone, even a slave, would do as my father instructed. The slaves were Nubians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, criminals, debtors, spoils of war, accidents of birth; they were wiry, filthy men, many wearing nothing more than sandals and a loincloth. In another life they might have commanded an army or lived in a palace, but now they sweated in the morning chill, moving stones heavy enough to break a donkey.

"Are these your slaves?" Joshua asked my father.

"Am I a rich man, Joshua? No, these slaves belong to the Romans. The Greek who is building this house has hired them for the construction."

"Why do they do as you ask? There are so many of them. You are only one man."

My father hung his head. "I hope that you never see what the lead tips of a Roman whip do to a man's body. All of these men have, and even seeing it has broken their spirit as men. I pray for them every night."

"I hate the Romans," I said.

"Do you, little one, do you?" A man's voice from behind.

"Hail, Centurion," my father said, his eyes going wide.

Joshua and I turned to see Justus Gallicus, the centurion from the funeral at Japhia, standing among the slaves. "Alphaeus, it seems you