John MacDonald Internet Infidels/Secular Web Religious Studies Essays

John MacDonald | October 2, 2024

Masaccio’s fresco (1424-28), in the Brancacci Chapel, Florence, emphasizes the nakedness and shame of the original sinners. Photo: Bridgeman Images (wiki)

4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. (Genesis 3:4-7, NRSVUE)

Paul’s Conversion on the Way to Damascus, a 1601 portrait by Caravaggio (wiki)

¹⁷So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” ¹⁸And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. (Acts 9:17-18 NRSVUE)

“I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen…. I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:15-18, NRSV)

“The Lord God, have called you in righteousness, and I will hold of your hand and strengthen you: and I have given you as the covenant to a race, as a light to the nations/gentiles: to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out from bonds those who are bound and them that sit in darkness, and from the prison house those that sit in darkness” (LXX Isaiah 42:6-7, NET)

MY ESSAYS