The Walking Dead Season 5 Set Detail That Means More Than You Think

The Walking Dead has not always been known for its subtlety, but occasionally the long-running AMC drama does sprinkle in some solid Easter eggs to hint at what horrors will befall our heroes next or to reflect on what's already happening in the story. As the series nears its final run, perhaps now is the perfect time to look back at some of the most interesting morsels from the show's past, including its clever inclusion of certain passages from scripture.

It's hard to imagine a television series about the zombie apocalypse turning to the Bible for any kind of inspiration, but that's exactly what happened when Father Gabriel Stokes (Seth Gilliam) was introduced early on in the show's fifth season. At the time, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) was having a major crisis of faith — not just faith in heavenly beings, but in the goodness of humanity as a whole — so he had a devil of a time taking Gabriel at his word that he wasn't dangerous to Rick's friends and children. If you look closely enough at one of Father Gabriel's earliest moments in the show, though, the writing was literally on the wall.

After Gabriel guided Rick and company to his church in season 5's "Strangers," Rick took a small crew inside to check out the building before letting the rest come in, and that's when audiences got the first glimpse at a passage that was accidentally quite relevant to what was going on in the world outside. Inscribed above the altar was the traditional communion prayer from John 6:54 ("He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life"), which took on an all-new meaning in the age of the undead. Later, when Gabriel shared his wine with the group, he made a gentle joke about how he'd had so few communion takers of late. 

Additionally, there were five more Bible verses listed on the hymn boards which, if you look up the corresponding passages, also all reflected upon the biter revolution: Romans 6:4 ("Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life"); Ezekiel 37:7 ("So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone"); Matthew 27:52 ("And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose"); Revelations 9:6 ("And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them"); and Luke 24:5 ("And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?").

Gabriel might not have had much experience fighting the undead when the group first met him, but he'd obviously spent a great deal of time determining what his favorite book had to say about them!