Religious Texts Project

Mrs. Wiley’s English IV & Accelerated English IV

Directions: Choose one of the following project options, and complete it by ______. All options, with the exception of option M, must include a written portion of 250 words.

Option M should be on a filled, standard sized poster board and must reflect obvious effort.

  1. Refer to the text of Genesis, Chapters 1-3, and compare and contrast the worlds of Adam and Eve both before and after they ate the forbidden fruit.
  2. The Garden of Eden was, in a sense, a Utopian society. Before eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve did not feel shame and desire. They also were not forced to work for their food or to suffer in childbirth. What might it be like to live in that kind of world? Would it be better or worse than the one that you live in today?
  3. In Genesis, God tells Adam that, because of their sins, he and Eve are doomed to die. He says, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” How does Adam’s creation from dust foreshadow his ultimate fate? In what way will he return to dust? Does he “come full circle”?
  4. For centuries, scholars have speculated over the meaning of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Reread the text, and decide what you think the tree symbolizes, and exactly what happened as a result of Adam and Eve’s eating its fruit.
  5. In an incredibly memorable and powerful line from “Dante’s Inferno,” Dante describes his terror in the lowest depths of Hell by saying, “I neither died nor kept alive.” What do you think he means in this verse? Why would this fate be especially terrifying?
  6. Some people view Milton’s Satan as a heroic figure. How do you feel about this heroic depiction of Satan?
  7. In lines 210-220, Milton offers a solemn assurance that despite all Satan’s power and grandeur, the devil is still subject to God’s purposes. How do these lines contribute to a level of dramatic irony to Satan’s ringing assertion of freedom in his final speech (lines 242-270)?
  8. One of the most famous lines from Milton’s Paradise Lost is found in Satan’s last speech and reads, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” In your experience, is this an accurate description of what the mind can do?
  9. Dante and Milton paint very different, yet similar, pictures of Hell and Satan. Compose an essay comparing their two images of Satan and his infernal domain.
  10. Whose representation of Hell do you believe is probably more accurate, Dante’s or Milton’s? Defend your answer.
  11. Are Dante and Milton both wrong in their depictions of Satan and Hell? If so, what do you imagine Hell to be like? Defend your answer.
  12. During Elizabethan times, people seemed to be obsessed with the ideas of Satan and Hell. What do you think they were so afraid of? Why are most modern people not as afraid of these images as those who lived in previous time periods? What has caused us to become so desensitized?
  13. Create a poster board- sized illustration of either Dante’s or Milton’s Hell.