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 in the Book of Genesis or the Torah itself. Writings dealing with these subjects are extant literature in Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian, and Arabic, extending back to ancient Jewish thought. The concepts are not part of Rabbinic Judaism, but they did influence Christian theology, and this marks a radical split between the two religions. Some of the oldest Jewish portions of apocrypha are called "Primary Adam Literature" where some works became Christianized. Examples of Christianized works are "Life of Adam and Eve", "Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan" and an original Syriac work entitled "Cave of Treasures" which