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The Adam and Eve stories are a foundational myth in the Jewish and Christian worlds, and the way they were recounted reveals a great deal about those doing the retelling. How did the Armenians retell these stories? What values do these retellings express about men and women, their life in the world, sin and redemption? Presented here are twelve hundred years of Armenian telling of the Genesis 1–3 stories in an unparalleled collection of all significant narratives of Adam and Eve in Armenian literature—prose and poetry, homilies and commentaries, calendary and mathematical texts—from its inception in the fifth century to the seventeenth century. This seminal resource contributes to the lively current discussion of how biblical and apocryphal traditions were retold, embroidered, and transformed into the lenses through which the Bible itself was read.

Examine a rich history of spiritual interpretations from antiquity to the present

Since the sixteenth century CE, the field of biblical studies has focused on the literal meaning of texts. This collection seeks to rectify this oversight by integrating the study of esoteric readings into academic discourse. Case studies focusing on the first three chapters of Genesis cover different periods and methods from early Christian discourse through zoharic, kabbalistic and alchemical literature to modern and post-postmodern approaches.

Features:

• Discussions, comparisons, and analyses of esoteric appropriations of Genesis 1–3
• Essays on creation myths, gender, fate and free will, the concepts of knowledge, wisdom, and gnosis
• Repsonses to papers that provide a range of view points