GENESIS 19 : 30-38 records that Lot’s daughters, their thinking so corrupted by the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah, believed that it was incumbent upon them to produce children by their father. Lot was a party to this only under the heavy influence of alcohol (vv. 33, 35). The Pardoner alludes to this passage to demonstrate that wine and drunkenness…
Dreams
GENESIS 37-50 reveals Joseph, empowered by God to do so, could accurately interpret dreams, first of Pharaoh’s butler and baker and then those of Pharaoh himself. The Pharaoh had dreamed first of seven “fine looking and fat cows” eaten up by seven “ugly and gaunt cows” and then of seven withered and blighted ears of […]
Bad Advice
After being deceived by the serpent, encouraged to sin by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life, and giving into that sin, Eve introduces her sin to her husband Adam and he sins in the same way, as Moses records in GENESIS 3 : 6. As a result, they are both expelled from the Garden of Eden. In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Chanticleer regrets taking his wife’s advice…
Sin’s Consequences
Sir Gawain notes that it is “no marvel if one be made a fool and brought to sorrow by women’s wiles, for so was Adam beguiled by one, and Solomon by many, and Samson all too soon, for Delilah dealt him his doom; and David thereafter was wedded with Bathsheba, which brought him much sorrow…” […]
Creation
The minstrels of King Hrothgar’s court sing of “He who could tell of men’s beginning from olden time, spoke of how the Almighty wrought the world. . .” alluding to GENESIS 1 : 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and JOHN 1 : 1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”