Kew Gardens, Queens

In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve. They lived in the Garden of Eden where all their needs were met and thrived in the purity and goodness of God. One day, unfortunately, Eve was deceived by the serpent and she ate the fruit of knowledge between good and evil. Her purity was stripped from her at that moment and was thrown into the world of sin. Whether you categorize yourself as a religious person or not, the story of Eve and the forbidden fruit is a familiar story. The story is so…

The Bible, in contrast, begins its consideration of suffering not with innocence but with guilt. It reminds us that we live in a fallen world, a sinful world that “groaneth and travaileth in pain” (Rom 8:22) under God’s curse and judgment. God had promised death to both Adam and Eve on the day that they disobeyed Him and ate the forbidden fruit. However, ‘death’ in a final sense was postponed when Adam was allowed to live on earth for 900 years. Hence, for as long as we live in this sin-cursed…

In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, based on the novel written by L. Frank Baum, the scarecrow claimed he did not have any brains, but throughout the story, we can identify that as a false statement. As Dorothy and the scarecrow were skipping along the yellow brick road, they came into a woods that contained apple trees, in which then Dorothy realizes how hungry she was from her journey. As soon as Dorothy attempted to pick an apple from the tree, the tree got very upset and started to throw apples…

Throughout Anthem, Equality works on his box of glass, and discovers light. Light symbolizes truth and runs throughout the novel. For example, “We blew out the candle, darkness swallowed us. There was nothing left around us…in that moment nothing existed save our two hands over a wire glowing in a dark abyss.” (59-60) In this moment, the candlelight represented the little truth that Equality was on the verge of discovering, and when he blew it out darkness, or in contrast, lies, surrounded him.…

Reverse Metamorphosis “ When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning, he found that he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug” (Kafka 11). The Metamorphosis is an absurdist fiction published in 1915, written by Franz Kafka. This intriguing, ironic story was told from the point of view of a character whose true identity transitioned throughout the novella. Although Gregor’s exterior appearance was of a bug, internally he continuously depicted many human qualities. This…

Michelangelo’s The Fall and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden illustrates the biblical story of the Temptation and Fall of Adam and Eve found in the Book of Genesis. The Tree of Life stands in the center of the painting, dividing it into two contrasting scenes; the left representing the Temptation of Adam and Eve, and the right depicting their expulsion from Eden (Fig. 1). The passage begins with God warning Adam and Eve that they will die if they eat the fruit from the tree, as indulging in the…

Milton’s Religious Paradise John Milton’s Paradise Lost is written in a contextual way that it more directly reflects the religious struggles of seventeenth century England. The theme of John Milton’s Paradise Lost is thus religious, and has 2 major components: disobedience and justification of God to Man. Milton expresses these arguments in a series of 12 books. Beginning with the creation of Man, and ending with the exiling from Eden. Being superior to all creatures and creation, God’s…

Hamilton, in responding Enns’ claim that Pauline Adamic understanding is foreign to the Old Testament, points out that Enns does not take account of the narrative nature of Genesis account in Torah. He argues that the narrative in Genesis shows the consequence of Adam’s sin in a narrative style, and the story of Cain and Abel and the flood should be understood as “the outworking of Adam’s sin” to show the readers that Adam’s sin brought the irreversible consequence of sin into the world. Enns’…

Satanism Satanism as a religious topic refers to the collaboration of philosophical and ideological beliefs on the character of Satan. Satanism officially lingered in the public offing in 1966, with the emergence of Church of Satanism. However, prior to the Church of Satanism, history shows that Satanism existed earlier. Earlier, according to historical facts, a group known as Sphite Cultus Satanas established itself in the State of Ohio in 1948. Sloane Arthur Herbert founded the Sphite Cultus…

Genesis is established as being the beginning of everything and being all good but there is also the portrayal and interpretation of evil in the creation. In the genesis of evil, Dr. Altizer explains that the origin of evil is “unknown and as orthodox as the origin of god” (Altizer 80). The journal explains how Genesis contains several indirect interpretations of the portrayal of evil in genesis. One of the first interpretations of evil is seen when Adam and Eve sinned in Eden and turned away…