Themes
The main theological issue in these texts is that of the consequences of the Fall of Man, of which sickness and death are mentioned. Other themes include the exaltation of Adam in the Garden, the fall of Satan, the anointing with the oil of the Tree of Life, and a combination of majesty and anthropomorphism in the figure of God, involving numerous merkabahs and other details that show a relationship with 2 Enoch. While the idea of resurrection of the dead is present, there is no idea of Messianism, a fact that lends strong support to the theory of a Jewish origin. The Life of Adam and Eve is also important in the study of the early Seth traditions.
Interesting parallels can be found with some New Testament passages, such as the mention of the Tree of Life in Revelation 22:2. The more striking resemblances are with ideas in the Pauline epistles: Eve as the source of sin (2 Corinthians 11:3), Satan disguising himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), the location of the paradise in the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2). No direct relationship can be determined between the New Testament and the Life of Adam and Eve, but the similarities suggest that Paul and the author of 2 Enoch were near contemporaries of the original author of this work and moved in the same circle of ideas.
Read more about this topic: Life Of Adam And Eve
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)