The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve

Starred review from July 10, 2017
In this fascinating exploration, Greenblatt (The Swerve), a Harvard humanities professor and Pulitzer-winning author, probes the “beauty, power, and influence” that the Adam and Eve story has held through millennia. Utilizing recent archaeological discoveries, Greenblatt compares the Genesis account, first written as a “counternarrative to the Babylonian creation story” by Hebrews returning to Jerusalem from exile, to both the ancient Gilgamesh legend and long-forgotten alternative narratives recently discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, such as “The Life of Adam and Eve.” Greenblatt undertakes an in-depth analysis of key historical figures whose obsession wielded enormous impact on religion and culture: Augustine’s insistence on the story’s literal truth led to the concept of original sin; Albrecht Dürer’s engraving The Fall of Man captured “the sheer unconstrained beauty of... our first parents”; John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost realized them as “flesh-and-blood people.” Greenblatt then explores how the European discovery of New World natives, Voltaire’s insistence on the story’s allegorical nature, and, finally, Darwin’s evolutionary theory led to today’s widespread acceptance of the story as myth. In a beautiful closing chapter, Greenblatt studies Ugandan chimpanzees for “traces of the Bible story... the actual origins of our species.” This is an erudite yet accessible page-turner.

May 15, 2017
The Pulitzer and National Book Award winner considers the enduring appeal and manifold interpretations of the biblical account of the first humans' expulsion from paradise."How does something made-up become so compellingly real?" asks Greenblatt (Humanities/Harvard Univ.; The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, 2011, etc.), positioning himself as a secular-minded admirer of a story that religious thinkers for millennia have struggled to fit within a coherent theological framework. The author notes that this tale of humanity's origins was uncomfortably reminiscent for many early Christians of the pagan creation myths they scorned as absurd: the talking snake, the arbitrary deity, all those animals named in one day, etc. Some, like the Alexandrian scholar Origen Adamantius, tried to frame the story as an allegory about the evolution of the soul, but the interpretation that triumphed was that of St. Augustine, who insisted that the story of Adam and Eve was literally true. From that assertion flowed the concept of original sin, the denigration of sex, and the powerful strain of misogyny (it was all Eve's fault) that characterized the Catholic Church for centuries. During the Renaissance--Greenblatt's focus as a scholar and the subject of this book's best pages--artists like Albrecht Durer and writers such as John Milton sought to give the rebellious couple of Genesis a palpable human reality in images and literature, most thrillingly in Milton's great epic Paradise Lost. When Greenblatt moves on to the challenges to belief in the literal truth of the Bible posed by Enlightenment philosophers and 19th-century scientists (culminating with Darwin's The Origin of Species), his narrative speeds up and loses focus. The author seems to be making an argument for the enduring power of stories while decrying fundamentalism, but his point isn't clear, and a final chapter positing a chimpanzee pair in Uganda as a present-day Adam and Eve is simply odd. Many fine passages charged with Greenblatt's passion and talent for storytelling can't disguise the fact that he's not quite sure what story he's trying to tell here.

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Starred review from August 1, 2017
Alive in the painting of van Eyck, the etching of Durer, and the poetry of Milton, Adam and Eve fascinate Greenblatt, who marvels at how much this primal pair have shaped Western culture. Probing the history of the biblical account of human origins, readers learn how sharply it differs from the Mesopotamian creation myth that Hebrew exiles encountered during their time in Babylon. Unlike the Mesopotamian myth, which depicts Gilgamesh and Enkidu's triumph over adversity, Genesis chronicles the universal human fall consequent to Adam and Eve's partaking of forbidden fruit. Readers see how the shadows of the fallen Adam and Eve persisted in Judeo-Christian theologyas well as Western philosophy, art, politics, and sexual ethics. But Greenblatt persuasively argues that Adam and Eve would look different if Origen had persuaded the early church to accept his allegorical understanding of the pair. Instead, Augustine impressed on the Christian mind a sternly literal understanding of Adam and Eve, leaving later believers unprepared for Darwin's scientific explanation of human beginnings. Though not a believer himself, Greenblatt worries that the imaginative and narrative aridity of Darwin's explanation of the first hominids has made it a problematic substitute for the scriptural account of Adam and Eve. An impressively wide-ranging inquiry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2017

Greenblatt (John Cogan Univ. Professor of the Humanities, Harvard Univ.; The Swerve) explores one of humanity's most extraordinary stories: the biblical account of Adam and Eve. Beginning with its written origins during the Hebrews' exile in Babylon surrounded by competing Mesopotamian creation myths, and continuing through Darwinian evolution, Greenblatt thoughtfully meanders through various understandings of this narrative over time. Two of the most prominent figures in the book are Augustine, who set Western Christendom on a course away from an allegorical interpretation toward a more strictly literal one, and poet John Milton, whose Paradise Lost was, in many ways, the culmination of Augustine's vision. Ironically, the more real Adam and Eve appeared, the more problematic a literal interpretation became for many readers. In the end, Greenblatt hopes to rescue the story from the misogynistic and sexually oppressive consequences of an Augustinian interpretation and restore its creative and imaginative power as enduring literature. While readers with a special interest in one of the many subfields touched upon may wish for more, Greenblatt has shaped an enjoyable and well-paced narrative that effectively draws from many disciplines. VERDICT Recommended for readers attentive to deep truths embedded in a good story. [See Prepub Alert, 3/13/17.]--Brian Sullivan, Alfred Univ. Lib., NY

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2017

If anyone can reanimate the story of Adam and Eve, it's Pulitzer Prize winner Greenblatt, who vivified Renaissance Italy in The Swerve and had us strutting the Elizabethan stage in Will in the World. Here he investigates the deep root of the story, its appearance in written form, and its use by Augustine to ground Christian teaching, in the end clarifying what's made the story so meaningful throughout Western civilization and what's been lost by dwelling on it. With a six-city tour.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.