September 15, 2017 Legends of the Fall The Day After By Stephen Greenblatt Over the centuries, there have been innumerable interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve. This week on the Daily, Stephen Greenblatt, the author of The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, retells some of these legends in modern idiom, and invents a few of his own. William Blake, The Expulsion from Eden (detail), 1808. The first humans were perfectly beautiful and very wise, but they lacked one of the five senses on which fallen humanity most depends: sight. In their original state, Adam and Eve were completely blind (Clem. Hom 3:42, in Evans 95). They had no need to see, since they were in a world designed to meet their every need. If they wanted something to eat or drink, it was always within grasp. And when God brought the animals to Adam for him to name, Adam simply reached out and touched each of them, knowing from the touch what name to assign. Perhaps their happy blindness—happy, of course, because they did not know that they could not see—helps to explain their transgression, since it might have been difficult for them to distinguish the forbidden fruit from all others, particularly if the enemy were bent on deceiving them. In any case, their condition helps to explain their complete absence of shame, for it was only after their fall that God removed the coating that had blinded their eyes. As soon as they could see, in the wake of their disobedience, they hastened to cover themselves: “And the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves and made themselves loincloths.” Read More
September 14, 2017 Legends of the Fall Sex in the Garden By Stephen Greenblatt Over the centuries, there have been innumerable interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve. This week on the Daily, Stephen Greenblatt, the author of The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, retells some of these legends in modern idiom, and invents a few of his own. William Blake, Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve (detail), 1808. The serpent, the subtlest of all the beasts of the field, had observed with interest the humans’ sexual intercourse in Paradise. He saw that Adam calmly willed his penis to stiffen and then gently inserted it into Eve’s vulva. The act caught his attention in part because he thought that Eve was extraordinarily beautiful and in part because he had already noted a certain resemblance between Adam’s penis and his own body, which he could also harden or soften at will. One day, he approached Eve—Adam was away surveying a different part of the garden—and proposed that he stiffen his body and enter her, as Adam did. Lacking any knowledge of good or evil, Eve gladly consented. The snake made himself hard and penetrated the woman, moving his head this way and that to see what might be of interest. But it was dark inside and, after a while, concluding that Eve was more beautiful without than within, he withdrew. Eve, however, had experienced something intensely pleasurable, and she determined that when Adam returned she would teach him how to imitate what the snake had done. (Williams 57–58; Slavonic Enoch) Read More
September 13, 2017 Legends of the Fall The Tree of Knowledge, Good, and Evil By Stephen Greenblatt Over the centuries, there have been innumerable interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve. This week on the Daily, Stephen Greenblatt, the author of The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, retells some of these legends in modern idiom, and invents a few of his own. William Blake, Raphael Warns Adam and Eve (detail), 1808. The newly created humans were not only physically beautiful but also supremely wise. They understood, without being told explicitly, that the tree whose fruit God had forbidden them to eat was in itself neither particularly beneficial nor particularly harmful. There are no magical trees, except in fairy tales, and God did not place poisonous fruits in the Garden that He himself had planted. No, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from which Adam and Eve were commanded to abstain, was indistinguishable from the other trees in Paradise in all respects save one. That one respect was the prohibition itself, as a sign of human obedience. If God had chosen some other object in the Garden on which to establish this sign, then the fruit would have been perfectly fine to eat. Why then was it called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Not to refer to any inherent quality in the fruit but only to refer to the result of transgression: the knowledge of the good that would have followed from obedience and the knowledge of the evil that resulted from the failure to obey. (Augustine) * There were many trees in the garden, each lovely to look at and good for food, but two trees at its midst were particularly notable: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, good, and evil. God told the human that he could eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, but He commanded him not to eat of the tree of knowledge, good, and evil: “For on the day you eat from it, you are doomed to die.” The human listened and grasped that something very important was being told to him, but it was only after the divine words had faded away that he realized he had no idea what the words “doomed to die” meant. He told himself to ask God for a proper explanation the next time he saw Him. Read More
September 12, 2017 Legends of the Fall Eating the Fruit By Stephen Greenblatt Over the centuries, there have been innumerable interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve. This week on the Daily, Stephen Greenblatt, the author of The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, retells some of these legends in modern idiom, and invents a few of his own. William Blake, The Temptation and Fall of Eve (detail), 1808. It was the day of creation, and Adam and Eve were only beginning to find their way around the garden when Eve came across the tree whose fruit they had been commanded not to eat. They were both hungry; the fruit looked appetizing; they ate. It was the first time that they had eaten anything. (William Pynchon, 1664) * When Adam related to Eve what God had commanded him—“But from the tree of knowledge, good, and evil, you shall not eat, for on the day you eat from it, you are doomed to die”—Adam had an idea. He reasoned that by intensifying the terms of the commandment, he could protect Eve, and thereby protect himself, from even the possibility of transgressing. Why should they have needed protection? Because if the tree were that dangerous, then any contact with it must be risky; and because if one held a piece of fruit in one’s hands, then it was always possible to put it in one’s mouth. “Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,” he therefore reported the interdict to have ordained, “lest ye die.” “Neither shall ye touch it”—as anxious parents tell their children not to go near the stove—was, it seemed to him, a brilliant stroke. It would, in effect, create a buffer between the tree and any human who might be drawn toward it. But it turned out to be a disastrous strategy. For the first thing the serpent—the most cunning of all the beasts of the field—did when he found himself alone with Eve was not to offer her a piece of the fruit but simply to wrap himself tightly around the tree. Eve was astonished and horrified to see him do so, but he smiled and pointed out that he was still very much alive. And Eve, for the first time, felt she had been lied to. Read More