Paradise Lost temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men". In his introduction to the Penguin edition of "Paradise Lost", the Milton scholar John Leonard notes, "John Milton was nearly sixty when he published Paradise Lost in 1667. The biographer John Aubrey (1626–97) tells us that the poem was begun in about 1658 and finished in about 1663. However, parts were almost certainly written earlier, and its roots lie in Milton's earliest youth." Leonard speculates that the
Adam and Eve (LDS Church) to gain eternal life. None of these privileges would have been ours had Adam and Eve remained in the garden." Latter-day Saint scripture reports that Adam and Eve later rejoiced that they had chosen to partake of the fruit, and the Book of Mormon teaches that the fall was necessary for humankind to exist and for them to develop and eventually experience joy, which is the ultimate purpose of existence: "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." Furthermore, the LDS version of the fall of Adam and Eve emphasizes the fall was a