09 Apr Martin Luther would remake this painting to convey a more accurate “educated” version

A painting of two people in a room with art  Description automatically generatedI think Luther would have called for a redo. Adam, Eve, and the serpent differ significantly between Luther’s writings and Michelangelo’s artwork. Luther’s take is more spiritual and moral aspects of the characters and their theological significance, casting Adam and Eve as casualties of fallen humanity and the serpent as the character of temptation and evil. He makes Eve out to be a deceiver to Adam by slightly changing Gods words, by adding “ perchance”. This one word added makes God’s Word unofficial. This, to me, is the biggest turning point in the reading. What if she had used the words correctly? Maybe Adam would have heeded them instead of the known result?

 In contrast, Michelangelo’s artwork emphasizes the physical and emotional aspects, portraying Adam and Eve’s psychological states and interactions with dramatic intensity. I can see emotion in the painting that I cannot derive from the readings at all.  While Luther’s version of the Garden and the world is only on theological implications such as sin and redemption, He says “ that she rushed to the tree, plucked the fruit, and ate it.”  This image is not captured at all in the painting. In fact, she is taking from the serpent himself, while Adam is taking from the tree. Did she not hand Adam the apple?

Michelangelo’s depiction of the Garden of Eden as a beautiful place, the difference between innocence and then the vision of suffering. Both Luther and Michelangelo present the serpent as a cunning figure of temptation. Michelangelo goes so far as to make the serpent have a beautiful woman’s face and body! But Luther highlights its role in tempting Adam and Eve away from God’s command, while Michelangelo symbolizes the allure of forbidden knowledge. Luther’s writings emphasize the corrupting influence of sin and disobedience on human nature, whereas Michelangelo’s artwork captures the positive and negative sides of human emotions and experiences, portraying Adam and Eve’s response to knowledge with empathy and understanding.

Overall, Luther’s purely emotionless perspective and Michelangelo’s artistic portrayal offer complementary thoughts into the biblical narrative of the Fall of Man, highlighting theological, moral, and emotional dimensions of the story. It just seems too black and white in the reading to me. But, because Michealangelo was “ humbly self-taught” and “ never became literary”, Luther would have to update this painting to match closer to his way of telling the story.