Curse of Ham that, in 1st millennium Babylonia, looking at another person's genitals was indeed regarded as a serious matter. Other ancient commentators suggested that Ham was guilty of more than what the Bible says. The "Targum Onqelos" has Ham gossiping about his father's drunken disgrace "in the street" (a reading which has a basis in the original Hebrew), so that being held up to public mockery was what had angered Noah; as the "Cave of Treasures" (4th century) puts it, "Ham laughed at his father's shame and did not cover it, but laughed about it and mocked." Ancient commentaries have also debated
The Gospel According to the Son mixed. Jack Miles, writing for "Commonweal", found the book "a quiet, sweet, almost wan little book, a kindly offering from a New York Jew to his wife's Bible Belt family." He noted that there was "something undeniably impressive about the restraint" of the style that Mailer undertook in composing the novel. He concluded that the novel was neither one of Mailer's best works, nor would it stand out amongst the bibliography of books inspired by the life of Christ, but that it had received unfairly harsh reviews from other critics. Critics such as Reynolds Price, writing for "The New York