Explorations in Religious Identity (RE 300 WR)

The two readings that come to mind when I think of ones that made me think in new ways are “Yes to Sita, No to Ram: The Continuing Hold of Sita on Popular Imagination in India,” and Many Ramayanas. I love this idea of differing interpretations throughout different groups of people, and it rings true in the research that I have been doing about Paradise Lost as well. In the poem about Adam and Eve and the fall of humanity, the 16th-century interpretation portrayed in the poem tells of how God specifically made women less intellectual and physically strong compared to men in order for one to have dominance over the other. In other readings I have done about the creation story, feminist theologians see the fall of Adam and Eve as evidence of Adam's inferiority since Eve was tricked by a being of immense power, while Adam was tricked by his peer. These are two vastly different interpretations that come from different groups, and this idea is very prevalent in both of the readings that I have mentioned.