Exploring Holy Books: A Scientific Perspective

[CaptainQuasar]

I'm aware that Augustine wrote actively against the Donatists and eventually asked Rome to cut off their funds. I don't know that he went further than that. Do you have a source?

“Why, therefore, should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?”

“Is it not a part of the care of the shepherd, when any sheep have left the flock, even though not violently forced away, but led astray by tender words and coaxing blandishments, to bring them back to the fold of his master when he has found them, by the fear or even the pain of the whip, if they show symptoms of resistance;”

⁓ http://books.google.com/books?id=8HkXAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA642"​

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(emphasis mine) Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo at the point when Roman Catholicism was the official state religion of the Empire, at a time when Church officials had temporal power as well as spiritual. I'll leave it up to the reader whether he would have had any part in handing out the fear and pain of the whip. And whether it was his authoring of doctrine like this that led the actions of the later Church.

mheslep, I'll further ask: are you making your judgments based upon descriptions of the Donatists written by Catholics or Donatists? I have been unaware of any writings by the other party or even a neutral party.

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[mheslep]

“Why, therefore, should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?”

“Is it not a part of the care of the shepherd, when any sheep have left the flock, even though not violently forced away, but led astray by tender words and coaxing blandishments, to bring them back to the fold of his master when he has found them, by the fear or even the pain of the whip, if they show symptoms of resistance;”

⁓ http://books.google.com/books?id=8HkXAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA642"​

​

Thanks, google books is a treasure.

(emphasis mine) Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo at the point when Roman Catholicism was the official state religion of the Empire, at a time when Church officials had temporal power as well as spiritual. I'll leave it up to the reader whether he would have had any part in handing out the fear and pain of the whip. And whether it was his authoring of doctrine like this that led the actions of the later Church.

mheslep, I'll further ask: are you making your judgments based upon descriptions of the Donatists written by Catholics or Donatists? I have been unaware of any writings by the other party or even a neutral party.

I'm referencing http://books.google.com/books?id=bJ...aCiQGCtM2nBg&sig=2BtB6ueX4vVM2urDpdg2yh6tcLk".
For example: http://books.google.com/books?id=bJ...ig=v7oqTyGl746gG-9nggFvPCzpz2I#PRA1-PA108,M1"

The Donatists had claimed, against the Catholics that, as the church was a unique source of holiness: ..., and like a vine, it had to be drastically pruned. It could only survive as pure, if unworthy bishops were excluded ..." <- apparently based on Donatist pamphlets

There's also this http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch25.htm" :

He favored uprooting the Donatist heresy with arguments and opposed hunting for heretics with spies and agent-provocateurs

CQ: I take your point regards possible bias from the large reach of the Roman backed Catholic Church.

Another eye opener that I came across in Brown's book - Mommsen's 'The Provinces of the Roman Empire' on Christianity:

if it arose in Syria, it was in and through Africa that it became the religion of the world

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Thanks, google books is a treasure.

So it is, so it is indeed.

The Donatists had claimed, against the Catholics that, as the church was a unique source of holiness: ..., and like a vine, it had to be drastically pruned. It could only survive as pure, if unworthy bishops were excluded ..." <- apparently based on Donatist pamphlets

You should talk to my friend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorius" . The Roman Church was very much into pruning the vine too, sometimes for lofty reasons, sometimes for petty reasons.

My guess is that the Donatists / non-Donatists division in North Africa was originally your usual internal political division you'd find in any group. There was probably nefariousness and capitulation to pagan Romans on both sides. The Donatist probably didn't expect to find the entire Roman Empire backing their political foes all of a sudden. Oops.

And the victors wrote the history, literally all the history, for the next thousand-plus years…

Interesting side note that I only learned recently: in Roman times the Sahara was much smaller and the North African coast was much more verdant than it is today. I always wondered how it was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire when it's all desert, especially after the Punic Wars when they salted the fields of Carthage.

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[mgb_phys]

I always wondered how it was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire when it's all desert,

It's also on the coast - even with good roman roads it's easier to move cargo 1000 miles by sea than 50 miles by road.

 

[mheslep]

Interesting side note that I only learned recently: in Roman times the Sahara was much smaller and the North African coast was much more verdant than it is today. I always wondered how it was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire when it's all desert, especially after the Punic Wars when they salted the fields of Carthage

Yes that explains a lot. I've always wondered, after "<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Bona,+Algeria&ie=UTF8&ll=35.85344,7.338867&spn=11.850782,20.566406&t=h&z=6&om=0>"[/URL], how Carthage managed to rise as a world power out of that little bit of green. BTW, sure would be nice if google maps had an ancient worlds version. Hippo was supposedly located in modern day Algeria; its an irritation to try an mentally transpose some old ancient map onto google satellite views.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

It's also on the coast - even with good roman roads it's easier to move cargo 1000 miles by sea than 50 miles by road.

Well, yeah, but if all of that had been desert back then it would have been the coasts of Gaul, Iberia, and the Euxine Sea that were the breadbaskets of the Empire.

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[mheslep]

You should talk to my friendhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorius" . The Roman Church was very much into pruning the vine too, sometimes for lofty reasons, sometimes for petty reasons.

My favorite history on the shenanigans of the medieval Catholic church is W. Manchester's 'A World Lit only by Fire'
, perhaps you've read it. Nothing quite like it for bringing the period to life by interesting detail:

Some men, in their search for absolution, suffered almost unendurable ordeals. The notorious Count Fulk the Black of Anjou, who crimes were legendary, finally realized that his immortal soul was in peril and, while miserable in the throes of conscience, begged for divine mercy. Count Fulk had sinned for twenty years. Among other things he had murdered his wife, though this charge had been dropped on the strength of his unsupported word that he had found her rutting behind a barn with a goatherd...Shackled, he was condemned to a triple Jerusalem pilgrimage: across most of France and Savoy, over the Alps, through the Papal States, Carinthia, Hungary, Bosnia, mountainous Serbia, Bulgaria, Constantinople, and the length of mountainous Anatolia, then down through modern Syria and Jordan to the holy city. In irons, his feet bleeding, he made this round trip three times - 15,300 miles - and the last time he was dragged through the streets on a hurdle while two well-muscled men lashed his naked back with bullwhips.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

My favorite history on the shenanigans of the medieval Catholic church is W. Manchester's 'A World Lit only by Fire'
, perhaps you've read it.

I haven't read it, it looks interesting. Have you ever read the medieval morality play http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19481"? It's actually well written, albeit with cartoonish symbolism and church-mandated themes, but it's very humanizing in that it portrays to you from one angle how medieval peasants must have lived and thought.

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[mheslep]

I haven't read it, it looks interesting. Have you ever read the medieval morality play http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19481"? It's actually well written, albeit with cartoonish symbolism and church-mandated themes, but it's very humanizing in that it portrays to you from one angle how medieval peasants must have lived and thought.

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Thanks. I started skimming into Everyman. I bit thick w/ all of the medieval english, 'thus endeth' an so on.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Thanks. I started skimming into Everyman. I bit thick w/ all of the medieval english, 'thus endeth' an so on.

Oops. Yes, it is. Sorry, I forgot about that.

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[Greg Bernhardt]

Well honestly I need to take a major break. I've read about 100 pages of the Koran and my mind needs a rest. I picked up a nice fiction book for the meantime lol

 

[Moridin]

Might I suggest reading the Klingon version of Tao Te Ching? Or perhaps Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard?

Is it just me, or do many religious texts seem like the result of someone who just got stoned and started writing gibberish?

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591025362/?tag=pfamazon01-20 by Hector Avalos

In this radical critique of his own academic specialty, biblical scholar Hector Avalos calls for an end to biblical studies as we know them. He outlines two main arguments for this surprising conclusion. First, academic biblical scholarship has clearly succeeded in showing that the ancient civilization that produced the Bible held beliefs about the origin, nature, and purpose of the world and humanity that are fundamentally opposed to the views of modern society. The Bible is thus largely irrelevant to the needs and concerns of contemporary human beings. Second, Avalos criticizes his colleagues for applying a variety of flawed and specious techniques aimed at maintaining the illusion that the Bible is still relevant in today's world. In effect, he accuses his profession of being more concerned about its self-preservation than about giving an honest account of its own findings to the general public and faith communities.

Dividing his study into two parts, Avalos first examines the principal subdisciplines of biblical studies (textual criticism, archaeology, historical criticism, literary criticism, biblical theology, and translations) in order to show how these fields are still influenced by religiously motivated agendas despite claims to independence from religious premises. In the second part, he focuses on the infrastructure that supports academic biblical studies to maintain the value of the profession and the Bible. This infrastructure includes academia (public and private universities and colleges), churches, the media-publishing complex, and professional organizations such as the Society of Biblical Literature. In a controversial conclusion, Avalos argues that our world is best served by leaving the Bible as a relic of an ancient civilization instead of the "living" document most religionist scholars believe it should be. He urges his colleagues to concentrate on educating the broader society to recognize the irrelevance and even violent effects of the Bible in modern life.

 

[_Mayday_]

Well honestly I need to take a major break. I've read about 100 pages of the Koran and my mind needs a rest. I picked up a nice fiction book for the meantime lol

If you are also reading the Torah you can start writing your own scroll. I have always wondered how many people have mispelled something on the last word, as it is very important that you write it perfectly.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Is it just me, or do many religious texts seem like the result of someone who just got stoned and started writing gibberish?

I'm an atheist but I really do not think they're anything like that. You have to take on the perspective that for a devout person of that particular religion who grew up with it, the premises and mindset and cosmological viewpoint / mythology of the religion permeate their mindset and their every thought. You can't attempt to see the writing from your own viewpoint and cosmological beliefs (not if you're really trying to understand what it's saying, at least.) I think studying a religious text in isolation from the religion itself is going to make it seem especially wacky and far-fetched.

In particular, even besides the lack of context to the pious reader's mindset, many of these texts are written in utterly ancient languages. The Tao Te Ching is almost unintelligible to a modern Chinese reader, much less if you try to read it in Klingon. For another example, the portions of the Zend Avesta we have are only very distantly related to modern Farsi. Or Ancient Hebrew in the Old Testament / Talmud, which lacks vowels¹ and particles and things; even modern-Hebrew-speaking scholars fiercely debate exactly what a particular word or phrase or sentence means and applying these different meanings can lead to a radically different meaning for a passage - particularly interesting when that passage is cited as the foundation for some extra-scriptural doctrine.

To give a specific example - in the Christian New Testament there are four different words that are commonly translated as “Hell”: the Hebrew Sheol and Gehenna and the Hellenic Greek (or Middle Greek, or whatever it's called that was the Roman-era version of Greek) Tarterus and Hades. Now if you know what “Hades” was in Greek mythology (the New Testament appears to have originally been written in Greek) - not a place where bad people go, but where everyone may end up, including heroes like Achilles or Herakles/Hercules - that kind of puts an interesting twist on Biblical passages that have the word “Hell” in them and extra-scriptural doctrines that incorporate Hell. But many translations do not give the slightest hint of what word they're translating as “Hell”. I'm always greatly amused by Evangelical Christians who say something about Hell that's obviously a completely interpreted doctrine and then insist that their sect or they personally read the Bible strictly literally.

An interesting side note to the above is that the word “Hell” actually appears to come from Norse Mythology - “Hel” or “Hela”, Loki's daughter and Queen of Helheim, one of several Hades-like underworlds in Norse Mythology (although I think in this case usually only people who did not die in battle would end up in Helheim.)

(I've tossed out lots of facts above but I believe they're all conventional scholarship and can be easily Googled if sources are desired. In particular, the presence of Hercules in Hades is straight out of The Odyssey.)

¹It's not that there weren't any vowels in spoken Ancient Hebrew, it's that they were not present in the written form of it which sometimes adds some ambiguity to figuring out which modern word, or which syntactic form of one, a written word is equivalent to.

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[CaptainQuasar]

One other thing about reading the Tao Te Ching. Even modern written Chinese can be difficult to interpret because it's made of pictographs - one symbol means an entire word rather than a single sound like in English or a single syllable like in Sumerian. I only read and speak a little Mandarin, but if you show a sentence to someone who's fluent they'll often say something like, “Well depending on the context that combination of characters could mean this or it could mean this or it could mean this.”

It's possible for a Chinese comedian or humorist to tell a literate audience a joke that is a double entendre - says one thing literally but has a 2^nd meaning because of a pun or a verbal homonym - that actually contains a 3^rd joke based on the multiple meanings of the written characters for the sentence. I personally cannot imagine being able to think quickly or abstractly enough to even understand a joke like that, imagine what it must be like to actually successfully deliver one. Imagine saying something like that and conveying sarcasm at the same time, my head would explode.

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[TVP45]

So it is, so it is indeed.



You should talk to my friend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorius" . Interesting side note that I only learned recently: in Roman times the Sahara was much smaller and the North African coast was much more verdant than it is today. I always wondered how it was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire when it's all desert, especially after the Punic Wars when they salted the fields of Carthage.

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Look into the history of barcan sand dunes. They're quite interesting and about as invasive as Kudzu.

 

[VashtiMaiden]

However I have recently decided that in order to better understand human history and current world affairs it would be very benefical to read the major holy books. My GF is currently reading the Bible and I am about 100 pages into the Qur'an. I also picked up the Upanishads and would like to get a Torah. Now, finishing all these will likely take me a couple years (with the Qur'an I can only handle reading maybe 15 pages at a time!). Does anyone else read holy books for "fun"?

you mean reading the Holy Book for fun? I am reading my Bible, but not for fun. I want to learn more about God, and to streghten my faith, that's why.

I don't adhere to any religion

Well, I'm a Baptist, but that is not a religion. It is an organization, i mean a group of Bible believers, Christians. I believe that Religion is not really important..

nor have I been conviced there is a God.

It is written in the Bible. "The fool hath said into his heart, 'There is no God'."

 

[Moridin]

It is also written that you should stone to death your family and loved ones if you discover that they are not theists, so you might want to give it a second thought.

"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." (Deuteronomy 13:6-10)

"When I was a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1 Corinthians. 13, 11-12)

 

[mheslep]

I(Deuteronomy 13:6-10)

"When I was a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1 Corinthians. 13, 11-12)

Another victory of the new testament over the old. I'm curious: what was your meaning in including the Corinthians quote?

 

[TVP45]

I think it might hinge on how you hold the scriptures, whether as literally true or as an oral history full of metaphors and allegories. Carl Sagan, for example, was an absolutely delightful speaker and writer, but when he started on the "...billions and billions...", even he seemed to know it was wild conjecture intended to fire one's imagination.

 

[mgb_phys]

It is also written that you should stone to death your family and loved ones if you discover that they are not theists, so you might want to give it a second thought.

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, because there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are your Christian or Buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, Me too! Are your Episcopalian or Baptist? He said, "Baptist!" I said, "Wow! Me too! Are your Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord? He said, Baptist Church of God!" I said, "That's great, me too! Are your Original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, you heretic scum!" and then I pushed him off.

 

[Snazzy]

My bad, I should have been more specific. Just to add to the details, Joseph is not mentioned in the Qur'an.

Yes he is. He's under the name Yusuf or Yosef. Also, according to Islam, it was Ishmael that was to be sacrificed instead of Isaac.

 

[moamen811]

i liked your discussion a lot and I'm arabic and muslim and me too tried to read the bible (i've 1 in my home)...
i just wanted to say that we believe in all messengers of God
and we believe the jesus was not killed but another 1 was killed and jesus was raised to God and he will come back at the end of the world..
and for Mari(am) we believe she was virgin when she gave birth to jesus ...
and a p.s. during this discussion i noticd that some people made jokes on god and this hurt anyone who belives in god...

 

[Cryptonic]

I would like to recommend the Enuma Elish, an ancient Babylonian creation myth (possibly originates from ancient Sumer?). It's very interesting to read the book of Genesis immediately after reading the Enuma Elish. It's instantly apparent that Genesis borrows heavily from much earlier texts. I see a strong parallel between "Marduk" of the Enuma Elish (who slays the "great dragon", the cosmic goddess Tiamat) and "God" of the Old Testament (also at war with a "dragon", Satan or Lucifer). It was Marduk who made the earth, and made "man" out of clay etc. Humankind was created to do all the manual labour so the gods could sit back and relax - in other words, as slaves. This is enjoyable stuff! Ancient science-fiction!

 

[mgb_phys]

This is enjoyable stuff! Ancient science-fiction!

Great, now we will have the Sumarian fundamentalists all over us!

 

[aneesh.mulye]

I also picked up the Upanishads and would like to get a Torah. Now, finishing all these will likely take me a couple years (with the Qur'an I can only handle reading maybe 15 pages at a time!). Does anyone else read holy books for "fun"?

Put them away for now. This is, IMO, totally the wrong way to go about it. They are not narrative texts the way the Bible is.

If you want to read the abstract philosophical musings of scholars in an oral tradition using archaic metaphors in a special subset of a liturgical language with no actual context whatsoever, feel free to go right ahead. ;)

If, on the other hand, it is more of a human insight you want, I suggest you start with the Ramayana. It's a narrative epic in nature (check up the Wiki on it), readable and gripping, and provides much more "subjective" insight.

Once you're done with that, you can then go on to the Mahabharat. It's a mammoth compendium, which I'm reading right now, and I love it, because of its scope and richness.

Finally, after both of these are finished (the Mahabharat should occupy a good half-year or so, if not more), then you can begin your study of the more "theological" or "philosophical" parts. You will have the necessary context then.

More importantly, though, these two on their own are generally enough.

For the Ramayana, the Gita Press version/translation into English is probably the best. You should be able to have it shipped to wherever you are. For the second, I have no idea, because I'm reading it in Hindi. Try finding one by the BORI, I've heard it's the best we have.

 

[JerryClower]

Wait til' you read about God's bet with the devil about Job, and the horrors that God visited on Job to win the bet and prove his point. There is not a lot of love and kumbaya in the old testament.

God loves you. But he will do things to test you.

 

[JerryClower]

The Bible even goes into what the priests were to wear, relly elaborate stuff, colorful, purple, with pomegranites embroidered on the hems, God was quite the fashion designer.

Where did you find those verses at?

 

[atyy]

Where did you find those verses at?

Exodus 28:31-34
You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. It shall have an opening for the head in the middle of it, with a woven binding around the opening, like the opening in a coat of mail, so that it may not be torn. On its lower hem you shall make pomegranates of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, all around the lower hem, with bells of gold between them all around - a golden bell and a pomegranate alternating all around the lower hem of the robe.

 

[hamster143]

Exodus 28:31-34
You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. It shall have an opening for the head in the middle of it, with a woven binding around the opening, like the opening in a coat of mail, so that it may not be torn. On its lower hem you shall make pomegranates of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, all around the lower hem, with bells of gold between them all around - a golden bell and a pomegranate alternating all around the lower hem of the robe.

Of course, that only applies to Jewish rabbis (IIRC there's an entry that specifies that rabbis in Judaism must be descendants of Aaron, the great-grandson of Levi). And many other commandments also only apply to faithful Jews.

 

[hamster143]

From the Buddhist side - one should read the Dhammapada and the Tripitaka (Sanskrit)/Tiptaka (Pali), or Three Baskets.

Unfortunately, Tipitaka alone is larger than all other major religions' sacred texts, combined (see here), and even larger than the http://img15.nnm.ru/3/3/1/e/c/2c6f477db664fc523c69fb1f569.jpg , and much of it is simply unavailable in English, except maybe in some ancient translations that you can only find in big libraries. You'd have to stick to Dhammapada. Also, if you're interested in Zen, check out http://www.shastaabbey.org/1dogen/Shobogenzo.pdf .

 

[hamster143]

Yes! And the Finnish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala" . Actually, I haven't read the Kalevala. If we were all going to read something together I'd definitely vote for that. It's more of a narrative than the Koran is.

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"The Finnish epic Kalevala devotes more lines to the origin of beer and brewing than it does to the origin of mankind."

Shows what people considered relevant those days.

 

[atyy]

 

[EnumaElish]

Anyone reading (or having read) the bible: which version did/have you read?

When I decided to read it about 3 years ago -- still going -- I went to Amazon and bought the North American Standard Bible. It has been a rewarding read. Meanwhile I've looked at other versions that I chanced upon, like the Gideon; their language seems nearly impenetrable. Some passages make no sense at all, even though I think I should know the story/moral it's trying to communicate (from reading the NASB, or by way of what I'll call the popular religious culture).

 

[marcus]

"The Finnish epic Kalevala devotes more lines to the origin of beer and brewing than it does to the origin of mankind."

Shows what people considered relevant those days.

Here is an 1888 translation into English of Rune 20 of the Kalevala.
The poetical discussion of beer begins about one quarter of the way down the page. It is long and intense.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/kvrune20.htm

You can see from this brief sample that considerable attention is given to the problem of the beer not getting fizzy.

You put the good stuff together but how do you start it fermenting? Several attempts, involving maidens and magic animals, are made and finally there is success and the beer gets fizzy.
==quote==
"Time had traveled little distance,
Ere the hops in trees were humming,
Barley in the fields was singing,
And from Kalew's well the water,
This the language of the trio:
'Let us join our triple forces,
Join to each the other's powers;
Sad alone to live and struggle,
Little use in working singly,
Better we should toil together.'

"Osmotar, the beer-preparer,
Brewer of the drink refreshing,
Takes the golden grains of barley,
Taking six of barley-kernels,
Taking seven tips of hop-fruit,
Filling seven cups with water,
On the fire she sets the caldron,
Boils the barley, hops, and water,
Lets them steep, and seethe, and bubble
Brewing thus the beer delicious,
In the hottest days of summer,
On the foggy promontory,
On the island forest-covered;
Poured it into birch-wood barrels,
Into hogsheads made of oak-wood.

"Thus did Osmotar of Kalew
Brew together hops and barley,
Could not generate the ferment.
Thinking long and long debating,
Thus she spake in troubled accents:
'What will bring the effervescence,
Who will add the needed factor,
That the beer may foam and sparkle,
May ferment and be delightful?'

Kalevatar, magic maiden,
Grace and beauty in her fingers,
Swiftly moving, lightly stepping,
In her trimly-buckled sandals,
Steps upon the birch-wood bottom,
Turns one way, and then another,
In the centre of the caldron;
Finds within a splinter lying
From the bottom lifts the fragment,
Turns it in her fingers, musing:
'What may come of this I know not,
In the hands of magic maidens,
In the virgin hands of Kapo,
Snowy virgin of the Northland!'

"Kalevatar took the splinter
To the magic virgin, Kapo,
Who by unknown force and insight.
Rubbed her hands and knees together,
And produced a snow-white squirrel;
Thus instructed she her creature,
Gave the squirrel these directions:
'Snow-white squirrel, mountain-jewel,
Flower of the field and forest,
Haste thee whither I would send thee,
Into Metsola's wide limits,
Into Tapio's seat of wisdom;...
==endquote==

Just to let you know, the squirrel does bring back the magic pine cone from the distant tree, but it doesn't work. There are other magic animals and birds that fetch other magic things. Until finally they get it right. Getting fermentation started seems to have been a major issue.

To me, the excellent thing is to have the barley, water, and hops all speaking with voices and saying how they want to get together and combine forces and join into beer.