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 has close affinities to the "Conflict" as noted by August Dillmann. Some modern scholars, such as James Barr, Moshe Greenberg, and Michael Fishbane, see the story of Adam and Eve as a representation of a rise to moral agency, at least as much as, if not more than the story of a fall from grace. Carol Meyers and Bruce Naidoff view the tale as an explanation of agricultural conditions in the highlands of Canaan. It was also recognized in ancient Judaism, that there are two distinct accounts for the creation of man. The first account says "male and female [God]