[Vision2020] Saint Brigid, beer and cats

[Ralph Nielsen]

Hi all,

Here I come with a stodgy Bible lesson for you.

I think the reason there is no beer and there are no cats in the  
Bible is because the ancient Hebrew writers had so demonized the  
Egyptians that they refused to mention their favorite brew and one of  
their favorite animals.

This is not to imply that the Egyptians didn't make wine, nor that  
the Hebrews didn't like cats. But neither beer nor cats seemed to  
have found favor with the priests who wrote the Hebrew Bible. This is  
just my personal opinion, so I won't argue about it. Check out  
<http://www.touregypt.net/magazine/mag04012001/magf2.htm>

Cats are mentioned once in the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books.  
Speaking of the idols of the Babylonians, the writer says, in  
Aramaic, "Bats, swallows and birds alight on their bodies and heads;  
and so do cats" (Letter of Jeremiah 6:22).

As to why neither appears in the New Testament, I suspect that the  
expectation of the imminent Second Coming of Christ was so fully in  
the minds many of the early Christians that they had no time to think  
of either beer or cats They didn't even have time to think about sex  
(1 Corinthians 7:29-31).

Ralph