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The Apocryphal Adam and Eve in Medieval Europe

Vernacular Translations and Adaptations of the Vita Adae et Evae

Brian Murdoch author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:2nd Apr '09

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The Apocryphal Adam and Eve in Medieval Europe cover

What happened to Adam and Eve after their expulsion from paradise? Where the biblical narrative fell silent apocryphal writings took up this intriguing question, notably including the Early Christian Latin text, the Life of Adam and Eve. This account describes the (failed) attempt of the couple to return to paradise by fasting whilst immersed in a river, and explores how they coped with new experiences such as childbirth and death. Brian Murdoch guides the reader through the many variant versions of the Life, demonstrating how it was also adapted into most western and some eastern European languages in the Middle Ages and beyond, constantly developing and changing along the way. The study considers this development of the apocryphal texts whilst presenting a fascinating insight into the flourishing medieval tradition of Adam and Eve. A tradition that the Reformation would largely curtail, stories from the Life were celebrated in European prose, verse and drama in many different languages from Irish to Russian.

Vita Adae et Evae and its offspring find their guide and historian in Professor Murdoch. He is an engaging one, but also thorough and hard-working. For decades to come, seekers of information on texts, sources, or variants will come to him. ... his work is something of a tour de force:ambitious, detailed, accurate. * Andrew Breeze, Medium Aevum 2010 *
...[a] masterful study...gratitude and admiration are due to Professor Murdoch and his accomplishment, a veritable catalogue raisonné of the Life of Adam and Eve in its numerous translations and adaptations. * Johannes Magliano-Tromp The Journal of Theological Studies Vol 62 Part 2 Oct 2011 *
Such a publication might even inspire non-specialists to start their own explorations into Adam and Eve's neglected past and the world of medieval storytelling or theology * Times Literary Supplement *
The Adam legends are material worth studying for several reasons, not least because they were once so present that they must have been part of the consciousness of everyone in the continent, but for precisely this reason the task of forming a picture of the whole tradition from the transmitted fragments is a jigsaw puzzle which challenges philological method at its best. In this carefully written volume, Brian Murdoch allows the layman to approach these questions with a breadth of perspective which would previously have been much harder work. * Graeme Dunphy, Literature & Theology *

ISBN: 9780199564149

Dimensions: 241mm x 163mm x 23mm

Weight: 633g

308 pages