//John’s Gospel, the one Gospel claiming an eyewitness account, provides this curious detail. When the soldiers at the cross lifted a drink to the lips of Jesus, they did so on a hyssop reed.

What makes the claim even more curious is that virtually no critical scholar believes this is historical. A hyssop reed is too spindly; it simply can’t hold the weight of a wet sponge.

Is this really eyewitness testimony? Could this be another miracle, that the reed held the weight of the sponge? Did the soldiers perhaps wrap a hyssop reed around a spear, and lift the sponge to Jesus’ lips on the tip of the spear? (You’ve probably heard that explanation.) Or is this merely a literary device of John’s, meant to draw attention to the sacrifice of Jesus?

No first-century Jew would miss the meaning of the hyssop reed. It is what the Israelites were instructed to use on the very first Passover, while they were in Egypt, to paint the blood of a lamb on their doorposts. By this sign, the “killing angel” (who had been dispatched by God to kill all the firstborn in Egypt) would know not to disturb the inhabitants of Israeli homes. Or, perhaps, the angel would be fooled by the blood into thinking the evil deed had already been done in that home.

Jesus, John seems to be reminding us by inserting the hyssop reed, is our Paschal lamb; the one who gave up his blood so that we may live.

//Ever wonder what a seraph looks like? Isaiah 14:29 gives this description:

[F]rom the root of that snake will spring up a viper, its fruit will be a darting, venomous serpent.

So it appears serpentine and fiery, matching this description of the seraph in Numbers 21:6:

And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Scary stuff! But if a seraph is serpentine, what’s this about it having feet? Today’s verse says it has six wings: Two to cover its eyes, two to cover its feet, and two to fly.

Well, here’s a possibility, according to some scholars. A few days back in the discussion of Ruth and Boaz, I mentioned that “feet” in the Bible is often a euphemism for genitals, and in a conversation about that post, I promised another example. So, in today’s verse, two of the Seraphim’s wings cover its “feet.” But I have to admit, the fiery image has lost most of its ferocity now, as it flies around covering its eyes and genitals.

★★★★★

Very good book, though it wasn’t quite what I expected. Its subtitle of The Reconciliation of Christianity and Biological Evolution led me to think that Glass intended to work his way through Genesis’s creation story and explain how each verse relates to what we understand about our evolutionary history. Not so at all; nearly the entire book is an explanation of what we know about evolution and how we know it to be true. You might say its intent is to give us permission as Christians to accept scientific findings. There really should be no doubt in our minds; says Glass:

“There is certainly a great deal more to learn about how evolution works and about how it has shaped the living world throughout history, but any doubts about whether biological evolution and speciation actually occur have long been dispelled.”

God, Glass suggests, exists outside of time. Each and every moment of time in human history and indeed all the history of our physical universe—past, present, and future—occurs simultaneously from the perspective of God. So, we do ourselves no favor by trying to understand the timeline of creation from God’s perspective. We know the universe is about 13.7 billion years old, the earth itself nearly 5 billion years old, and that life began three and a half billion years ago from a common ancestor and gradually diversified into the world we share today. Humans are a relatively late emergence on the earth, but this should not disturb us at all. From God’s outside-of-time perspective, the creation simply was and is (in a sense) instantaneous.

Free to embrace the truth of our origins, Glass leads us on a short journey of what really happened over the last four billion years, drawing from the fossil record and genetics, and from the many clues we have around us in the fields of medicine, horticulture, biogeography, and more. He addresses the objections that Creationists have to the scarcity of the fossil record, first pointing out that we can’t be too demanding of the record since only about one bone in a billion becomes fossilized, and then discussing the many transitory fossil examples we do have. As it turned out, I enjoyed the real focus of the book much more than the topic I anticipated. Glass writes plainly, explaining the facts in simple terms, so that a non-biologist can understand. His awe for God’s creation shines, even as he points out that Creationism and Intelligent Design are flawed attempts to hold to a literal reading of Genesis.

Inspiring and current, highly recommended.

//How do you picture God? Do you imagine him to be a heartless conqueror, reveling in the destruction of his enemies? Did God share in Miriam’s song, and glory in her praise, for the way he drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea?

This is hardly the way we imagine our God of love today, right? Stories like this one hardly warm our hearts, for we cannot help but sympathize with our enemies. It’s what we’ve been taught to do. And so, too, did the Jews evolve in their feelings about God.

The midrash (Babylonian Talmud Megilla 10b) says that when Miriam began to sing God’s praises, the angels in heaven took up the song, but God did not join in the celebration. Searching, the angels found God weeping. When they asked why, God responded, “My creatures are drowning in the sea and you want me to sing praises?”

//That was Judas. Ever notice how much the story of Jesus’ betrayal matches that of King David? Jesus appears to be the second David, and Judas the second Ahithophel (the enemy of David). Here is how the parallel lays out in the Gospel of Mark:

Matthew and Luke copy this story from Mark into their own gospels, but at this point they deviate. What do you suppose happened to Judas? Mark and John are silent on the issue, and Luke tells us that Judas died by falling, but Matthew goes a different direction. He apparently recognizes Mark’s literary references. In the story of King David, Ahithophel hangs himself. So, in Matthew’s rendition, Judas does the same. See today’s verse.

//Did Jesus really walk on water? One of the four gospels, the one claiming eye-witness testimony, is ambiguous on the topic. Today’s verse can be read one of two ways: Either they took him into the boat, and immediately found themselves at land, or as they began to receive Jesus into the boat, they hit land.

Context helps, so let’s back up two verses to this one:

When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. –John 6:19

Sounds clear, doesn’t it? The problem is, the Greek word used for “on the water” is precisely the same word used in verse 21:1, where it is more precisely translated “by the sea”:

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. –John 21:1

So was Jesus on the water or on the seashore? Translators of this story understandably chose to reinforce the oral legend described in other gospels, but this isn’t necessarily what John wrote. We may never know for sure what John meant to say.