How long did Adam dwell in paradise?

• The Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn.

• The Joca Monachorum.

How did medieval exegetesread Genesis 3?

• Peter Comestor, Historia Scholastica (c. 1167)• Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

How did medieval exegetesread Genesis 3?

• Peter Comestor, Historia Scholastica (c. 1167)• Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

• What really happened …

What does Genesis 3 really tell us?

• James Kugel, The Bible As It Was.

• The four hermeneutical assumptions of reading sacred texts:

– All parts of the Bible are of divine origin.– The Bible contains no contradictions or mistakes.– The Bible is written for our instruction.– The Bible is a cryptic text, a “great code”.

Second-Temple Judaism interpretations of Genesis 3.

• The Book of Wisdom.• The Book of Jubilees.• IV Ezra.• The Life of Adam and Eve.• The Book of Enoch.• The Letters of Paul.

• The Letter and the Spirit.

• The Apocryphon of John.

Christian and Gnostic readings.

Augustine’s reading of the text.

• De Genesi ad litteram• De Genesi contra

Manicheos

The revival of the Augustinian “literal sense”.

• The Glossa ordinaria.

• Hugh of Saint Victor.

• The School of Chartres: Bernardus Silvestris’ Cosmographia

The modern split: moral/doctrinal reading vs. literary/historical reading.

• Baruch de Spinosa.

• The Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture.

The Bible still the Word of God?Some reading suggestions.

• Hendrikus Berkhof.• Karl Barth.• Henri de Lubac.