I don't see why the biblical references, each of which worth parsing individually, have to add up to some explicitly religious theme or message. They each have their own reasons for being in the song, but I see no connecting pattern. Divine imagery is just a smart, easy way for Krug to add emotional weight and epic feel to the mythical narrative he is shaping (as if that guitar wasn't enough.)
Though it yet remains turbid in my mind, I feel pretty sure that this song is, somewhere below all those layers of wailing prettiness, using gender to highlight the essential tragedy of humankind. Notice first that both the narrator and the addressed are male. Notice also that every mention of Theresa, the unattainable, unidentifiable maiden at the center of this cryptic ballad, is prompted by some catastrophe (heartbreak, mass drowning, partial dismemberment/perpetual immolation.) And the Mason's wife swims "for" her daughter, not "to" her, implying that the struggling mother fails to make it to the girl it in time. Given the chivalry of those times when towns had steeples, Masons, and no plans or tools to mollify a flood, the five hundred wood floats would have been given chiefly to women and their children. Every woman in this tale (excluding your sister, who, to you, isn't effectively a woman at all, because, well, she's your sister, although the syntax of the lines does almost seem to blame her for your lack of brothers...) has someone suffering for her sake. This isn't a sexist imprecation of the female, though. Women are doing the suffering too. And, because the purity and beauty of woman renders life itself both possible and worthwhile, people will die for her willingly, and still love her even after. So, though Eve will make him Fall, Adam gladly yanks out his rib. Man must endure incompleteness, death, heartche, lust, loneliness, just to keep his other half around. He never quite seems to get the girl, though. In fact, he's been burning for her for millennia. Love hurts, ya know?
I don't see why the biblical references, each of which worth parsing individually, have to add up to some explicitly religious theme or message. They each have their own reasons for being in the song, but I see no connecting pattern. Divine imagery is just a smart, easy way for Krug to add emotional weight and epic feel to the mythical narrative he is shaping (as if that guitar wasn't enough.)
Though it yet remains turbid in my mind, I feel pretty sure that this song is, somewhere below all those layers of wailing prettiness, using gender to highlight the essential tragedy of humankind. Notice first that both the narrator and the addressed are male. Notice also that every mention of Theresa, the unattainable, unidentifiable maiden at the center of this cryptic ballad, is prompted by some catastrophe (heartbreak, mass drowning, partial dismemberment/perpetual immolation.) And the Mason's wife swims "for" her daughter, not "to" her, implying that the struggling mother fails to make it to the girl it in time. Given the chivalry of those times when towns had steeples, Masons, and no plans or tools to mollify a flood, the five hundred wood floats would have been given chiefly to women and their children. Every woman in this tale (excluding your sister, who, to you, isn't effectively a woman at all, because, well, she's your sister, although the syntax of the lines does almost seem to blame her for your lack of brothers...) has someone suffering for her sake. This isn't a sexist imprecation of the female, though. Women are doing the suffering too. And, because the purity and beauty of woman renders life itself both possible and worthwhile, people will die for her willingly, and still love her even after. So, though Eve will make him Fall, Adam gladly yanks out his rib. Man must endure incompleteness, death, heartche, lust, loneliness, just to keep his other half around. He never quite seems to get the girl, though. In fact, he's been burning for her for millennia. Love hurts, ya know?