Original FAIL

Saints:
Date: 6/14/2010
The Original Fail - Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

 An "apple" one day, took the garden away.

Adam and Eve lived among the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowldege of Good and Evil. One tree had the power to provide them unending life, while the other one could kill them. They ate from the second, lost the first, and passed their woundedness down to us. It would take a New Adam, with a New Eve at His side, to undo their Fall, the "Original Fail."

In His cross, Jesus combines these two trees from Eden into one, for His cross is the tree which presents us with both the worst evil and perfect goodness, and to eat of this tree's Fruit gives us eternal life.

And as a final thought, the image above brings to mind something we have to look forward to: To have a perfect body is nice, but a glorifed body is even better.

[Image : "The Fall of Man," by Cornelis van Haarlem, 1592, the Netherlands.]

I still wonder, how do they get those fig leaves to stick.

Not to be a feminazi or anything (I am full, red-blooded male, and, therefore, a pig ;) )but I noticed that the juxtaposition of the words above Adam and Eve (not Steve) seem to indicate that it was Eve that did the Epic Fail.

I know that, of course, it may be an unintentional sort of thing, but critics *would* jump at that... blathering about how the patriarchal, misogynistic attitudes of Christendom put all the blame on womankind and perpetuate continued shame, repression, and oppression of wymyn...

LOL to all of that. As a Catholic I know it was Adam's Epic Fail all along... he should have kept her under his thumb, watched her like a hawk, mistrusted her and protected her from the serpent's advances like a good jealous hubby usually does. ;)

As a result of Original Sin, you have read the above sarcastic remarks... ;)

"O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, that gained for us so great a Redeemer!"

What I love the most about this picture is the monkey hugging the cat . . . what's up with that?

The Garden of Eve .... weird things happened there sometimes...

....and of course by "Eve" I meant "Eden" .... the whole monkey-cat thing has thrown me.

I recall that monkeys and cats symbolized lust in art.

Other symbolic animals of note here:
-The wise owl in the Tree of Knowledge.
-The cunning fox admiring the serpent.
-The sheep in the background, faithfully close to God's spirit.
-The dog gazing at the viewer, asking "Will you be loyal?"

Given that they both wondered around in innocence, how come Adam has a better tan than Eve?

As to the disparity in tan:
I think the artist may have been showing that (spiritual) life has drained out of Eve after eating of the fruit. Either that, or he just thought a woman was more beautiful with milky-white skin.

Who's that other couple in the background?

That's Adam and Eve in the background, too, being told by the Spirit of God not to eat of that tree over there. (Look up the original image to see it in greater detail.)

Eve has lighter skin there too, at a time definitely before eating the fruit in the foreground, indicating that the artist simply thought that milky-white skin was more beautiful for a woman.

what about the monkey hugging the cat. im i the only one who thinks thats so wrong. it should be the dog and the cat.

I didnt know Eve was an Albino.