The Message Bible translates John 1:14 this way, “the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood." Phillip Yancey describes that "neighborhood” like this: A succession of great empires tramped through the territory of Israel as if wiping their feet on the vaunted promised land. After the Assyrians and Babylonians came the Persians, who were in turn defeated by Alexander the Great. He was eventually followed by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Jews' worst villain u