Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

I knew.
    “What have you done to cause this?” She held out a sheet of the flatbread, and there, in crispy brown relief on the golden crust, was the image of my friend Joshua’s face. She snatched up another sheet of bread, and there, again, was my friend Josh. Graven images—big sin. Josh was smiling. Mother frowned on smiling. “Well? Do I need to go to Joshua’s house and ask his poor, insane mother?”
    “I did this. I put Joshua’s face on the bread.” I just hoped that she didn’t ask me how I had done it.
    “Your father will punish you when he comes home this evening. Now go, get out of here.”
    I could hear my little brother’s giggling as I slunk out the door, but once outside, things worsened. Women were coming away from their baking stones, and each held a sheet of unleavened bread, and each was muttering some variation of “Hey, there’s a kid on my bread.”
    I ran to Joshua’s house and stormed in without knocking. Joshua and his brothers were at the table eating. Mary was nursing Joshua’s newest little sister, Miriam.
    “You are in big trouble,” I whispered in Josh’s ear with enough force to blow out an eardrum.
    Joshua held up the flatbread he was eating and grinned, just like the face on his bread. “It’s a miracle.”
    “Tastes good too,” said James, crunching a corner off of his brother’s head.
    “It’s all over town, Joshua. Not just your house. Everyone’s bread has your face on it.”
    “He is truly the Son of God,” Mary said with a beatific smile.
    “Oh, jeez, Mother,” James said.
    “Yeah, jeez Mom,” said Judah.
    “His mug is all over the Passover feast. We have to do something.” They didn’t seem to get the gravity of the situation. I was already in trouble, and my mother didn’t even suspect anything supernatural. “We have to cut your hair.”
    “What?”
    “We cannot cut his hair,” Mary said. She had always let Joshua wear his hair long, like an Essene, saying that he was a Nazarite like Samson. It was just another reason why many of the townspeople thought her mad. The rest of us wore our hair cut short, like the Greeks who had ruled our country since the time of Alexander, and the Romans after them.
    “If we cut his hair he looks like the rest of us. We can say it’s someone else on the bread.”
    “Moses,” Mary said. “Young Moses.”
    “Yes!”
    “I’ll get a knife.”
    “James, Judah, come with me,” I said. “We have to tell the town that the face of Moses has come to visit us for the Passover feast.”
    Mary pulled Miriam from her breast, bent, and kissed me on the forehead. “You are a good friend, Biff.”
    I almost melted in my sandals, but I caught Joshua frowning at me. “It’s not the truth,” he said.
    “It will keep the Pharisees from judging you.”
    “I’m not afraid of them,” said the nine-year-old. “I didn’t do this to the bread.”
    “Then why take the blame and the punishment for it?”
    “I don’t know, seems like I should, doesn’t it?”
    “Sit still so your mother can cut your hair.” I dashed out the door, Judah and James on my heels, the three of us bleating like spring lambs.
    “Behold! Moses has put his face on the bread for Passover! Behold!”
    Miracles. She kissed me. Holy Moses on a matzo! She kissed me.

    The miracle of the serpent? It was an omen, in a way, although I can only say that because of what happened between Joshua and the Pharisees later on. At the time, Joshua thought it was the fulfillment of a prophecy, or that’s how we tried to sell it to his mother and father.
    It was late summer and we were playing in a wheat field outside of town when Joshua found the nest of vipers.
    “A nest of vipers,” Joshua shouted. The wheat was so tall I couldn’t see where he was calling from.
    “A pox on your family,” I replied.
    “No, there’s a nest of vipers over here. Really.”
    “Oh, I thought you were taunting me. Sorry, a pox off of your family.”
    “Come, see.”
    I crashed through the wheat to find Joshua standing by a pile of stones a farmer had used to mark the boundary of his field. I screamed and backpedaled so quickly that I lost my balance and fell. A knot of snakes writhed at Joshua’s feet, skating over his sandals and wrapping themselves around his ankles. “Joshua, get away from there.”
    “They won’t hurt me. It says so in Isaiah.”
    “Just in case they haven’t read the Prophets…”
    Joshua stepped aside, sending the snakes