| dc.description.abstract | Book of Adam, Gospel of Eve reimagines the story of the Garden of Eden. It is told in part from the perspective of Adam, who knows nothing of the world outside the walls of the garden, and in part from the perspective of Eve, who lived in the city of Eden for two decades prior to her confinement in the garden.
The ‘author’ witnessed the deaths of Adam and Eve in the final days of the garden and remains alive today. Both stories are written in the third person, and the author, Ye, excerpts additional archaic sources to complete and enrich both books that make up this text.
To Adam and Eve, as well as the author, the god of Eden was a man until he contracted a beneficial contagion that gave him immortal life. The god, Etana, is complicated—capable of giving others the gift of eternal life through baptism, but equally willing to kill indiscriminately. Etana and all who are baptized become sanguivorous, and the centrality of blood in the world of the baptized gives the text its core motif and explains many of the miracles in the holy texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Lucifer, the grandson of Etana, baptizes Eve and then Adam before he tempts both of them with the one forbidden substance in the garden. The seven Seraphim assist Etana and oversee the garden, while the Dominion, a lesser rank of angels, maintains the garden’s perfection.
Though Ye’s Book of Adam, Gospel of Eve is aware of its context in a broader world, it focuses on and gives life to a story that is both familiar and sparse.
This thesis includes the first twenty-two pages of Gospel of Eve and the first forty-three pages of Book of Adam. Each is expected to be between thirty-five and forty- five thousand words in length when completed. | |
