Last week our son, Elijah (7) was given a drawing assignment: copy Sandro Botticelli’s Madonna of the Pomegranate (c. 1487). Operative word here: ‘copy’. Elijah, however, understood ‘interpret’. And so the heavenly shafts of light illumining Mary’s head were transmogrified into something rather less spiritual.
![Sandro Botticelli’s Madonna of the Pomegranate](https://assets.biola.edu/4396738754672012438/embedded_image/5a2794d58eca316b0b85e8f3/botticelli.madonna-pomegranate.1487.Madonna1_half.jpg)
![Elijah's drawing of lightning near Mary's head](https://assets.biola.edu/4396738754672012438/embedded_image/5a2794d68eca316b0b85e8f5/Elijah.Zeus-Madonna.Madonna-1_half.jpg)
What could be causing this? Who? None other than All-Angry Zeus, wearing his favorite thunderbolt nightgown.
![](https://assets.biola.edu/4396738754672012438/embedded_image/5a2794d78eca316b0b85e8f7/Elijah.Zeus-Madonna.Zeus-1_half.jpg)
Joseph himself bolts to the rescue!
![Elijah's drawing of Joseph running to the rescue](https://assets.biola.edu/4396738754672012438/embedded_image/5a2794d88eca316b0b85e8f9/Elijah.Zeus-Madonna.Joseph-1_half.jpg)
What will happen to Madonna and Child? Zooming out to find an answer, we see cranial-clouded Zeus centrally in control.
![Elijah's drawing of Zeus in a cloud throwing lightning bolts](https://assets.biola.edu/4396738754672012438/embedded_image/5a2794d88eca316b0b85e8fb/Elijah.Zeus-Madonna.full-2_half.jpg)
Mary’s hands flail. Salvation hangs by a thread. But Baby Jesus, some crying he makes. And all Olympus doth at his presence quake.
![Elijah's drawing of baby Jesus](https://assets.biola.edu/4396738754672012438/embedded_image/5a2794d98eca316b0b85e8fd/Elijah.Zeus-Madonna.Jesus-1_half.jpg)
(Looks like this Christmas I’ve got my work cut out for me: disentangling the biblical-Homeric syncretism of my son’s theology!)