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Robert Frost
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No best answer has yet been selected by sirknowalot. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.in the King James version, glass is mentioned, which I agree is kind of strange
http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=glass&qs_version=31
sorry, wrong version!
http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=glass&qs_version=9
just realised where the confusion might lie, sorry for hoggint the thread but its one of my favourite bits
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
Its from St Pauls letter to the Corinthians. I understand that he doesn't mean looking through a pane of glass but to a shadowy image in a mirror. Many mirrors at that time were made from hightly polished metal and the image was indistinct, especially as they got older and maybe a little battered
You're exactly correct, woofgang... glass, as a decorative and usefull substance has been used for thousands of years. Glass beads over 5,000 years old have been found. But the quality of glass necessary for use in windows was unknown until, as I referenced, fairly late Roman times. Mirrors, as you relate were used for a large part of ancient history as well, but again, of fairly low quality.
By the way, all the references to a "sea of glass" especially in the Book of Revelation (actually Revelation) is an attempt by John, while on the island of Patmos, to describe, in human terms, the vision of God seated in the midst of the 12 on a throne surrounded by what John could only describe as a sea of glass...