The contrast in the Book of Genesis and Paradise Lost‘s interpretation of God reflecting on mankind’s stolen knowledge to the counsel of angels is impactful because it highlights the significance of losing ignorant bliss that is a result from the fall.
Both the Bible and John Milton’s Paradise Lost highlight the original sin of Adam and Eve. The fall of mankind is demonstrated in both the fictional book and the Bible as the book draws a lot of similarities from the Biblical text. An interesting scene that is covered in both of the texts is when God makes the decision to exile Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. In the Biblical text it is a fairly short stanza explaining God’s words to the angels. It reads: “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” (Genesis 2:22). It’s very interesting how in the first line, God uses the phrase that mankind has ‘become as one of us’ which highlights the power of knowledge. It seems the only thing that comes between man and God is the tree of life which would grant them immortality. This passage shows the power of knowing both good and evil and how it is too much of a threat for them to possess.
This scene is explored more in Milton’s Paradise Lost, yet has clear distinctions from the Bible’s stanza. In more description, it similarly says, “O sons, like one of us man is become to know both good and evil, since his taste of that defended fruit…” But it then God continues to say, “but let him boast his knowledge of good lost, and evil got, happier, had it sufficed him to known good by itself, and evil not at all” (Milton 249). Milton makes the point that by gaining the knowledge of good and evil, mankind has lost their innocence and ignorant bliss that God graciously gave them. Yet by using the word “boast” it suggests that humanity’s arrogance is foolish since they are unreceptive of the happiness they lost. In this translation of the scene, it seems that God is pitiful for mankind since they lost this gift. While in the Bible, it focuses on their selfish gain of knowledge without mentioning the sacrifice of ignorant bliss. Milton continues: “He sorrows now, repents, and prays contrite, my motions in him; linger than they move, his heart I know, how variable and vain self-left” (Milton 249). Again, this is an extension from the scene that we didn’t see in the original Bible, yet it adds a lot. The sorrow of Adam and Eve highlights how their newfound knowledge has made them self-aware of their sins and the effects that have been created. The added line of God saying he knows the heart of the sinners also re-establishes the notion that God is above them, even with their knowledge, and it will stay that way. Although both the Bible and Paradise Lost explore the same scene, Paradise Lost explores the effect of the loss of ignorance more impact fully, and expanding on what is actually underlying in the Biblical text.