Stephen Greenblatt Adam And Eve Analysis

Stephen Greenblatt examines the renaissance art that gives depth to the protagonists in the origin story Adam and Eve. The major visual artists of the renaissance depict Adam and Eve as being complex beings with physical bodies and attributes of genuine humans. As they should, Adam and Eve, having been the bellwether of an entire species, figuratively. They partake in what they are not to, an irresistible part of the human experience, curiosity, in the face of great consequence none the less. They are the exemplar of human inquiry, a fictional commentary on every human, supposedly spawned from their very loins. The lecture was on a topic that I have almost no familiarity with, renaissance art, the book of Genesis, and theology of the Christian religion. However, this lecture happened to be the most provocative examination of religion that I have ever witnessed. Greenblatt starts by addressing the biblical literalism that the story of Adam and Eve is often viewed with. Augustine of Hippo being the first to challenge, and mostly warn about, the literal interpretation of genesis wrote that he rejected the story on theological grounds and that the the literal meaning was purely authoritative. Once Greenblatt begins to pour into the visual renaissance art depicting Adam and Eve it is revealed that many artists of the …show more content…
A lack of higher cortical function that leaves us suffering from anxiety, depression, and moral contemplation. A lack of Lactantius’ interpretation of religion, so to speak. The forbidden fruit being this knowledge and the cortical ability to understand such an idea of good and evil. And god as the embodiment of mother nature and evolution itself. After all, god produced man and his environment. The environment which applied the pressure of natural selection that lead a particular group of mammals to develop a mental faculty that can comprehend good and evil, and