Order includes:

• high-res image file formatted for print

• high-res image file formatted for web/projection

• A PDF of the Artist's statements & scripture reference for the visual

• A visio divina Bible Study Guide for you to use this image in a group study session that incorporates the ancient Benedictine spiritual practice of "divine seeing."

Credit info:

When printing and sharing online, please always include the following credits:
Artist's name | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org

From the artist:

To give insight into my world when creating this piece, I was recovering from an unexpected postpartum surgery. I read the text, and then weeks of internal wrestling ensued. I felt angry, defiant, and it was all personal. Like a rebellious teenager, I poked holes in the text with hopes it would crumble; but why? 

When we found out we’d be collaborating with Danielle Shroyer, one of my colleagues suggested her book, Original Blessing, as a resource for my text study. I’m grateful for her work, because it helped me see why this text felt so burdensome. In my early faith formation, this narrative was taught as the origin story explaining human nature, sin, suffering, and death. It was the text I thought of when I had menstrual cramps. I would mutter, “Thanks, Eve” under my breath, blaming her; but I realize I was also blaming myself for my own pain. It was the text that justified distrust in myself. 

It turns out, I am not alone. Shroyer writes, “We make demands upon the text that it simply isn’t willing to meet. And in terms of sheer volume, on a scale of pure expectation, there is perhaps no more loaded passage of scripture than Genesis 3.” So much of my faith was built on this text as though it was foundational in the first place, and consequently, much of my understanding of my faith, myself, and even the gospel itself was colored by this narrative.

While engaging with this text, the pain I was feeling in my body from childbirth complications felt like punishment. I raged against this text because I felt it raging against me. 

Beware of the ways deeply-rooted, harmful theology bubbles up in your life. In this case, for me it surfaced as thoughts of shame, self-blame, self-distrust, self-deprecation, and self-hatred. Ask yourself, “Who will I listen to?” I was giving power to a hermeneutic that wasn’t even in line with who God has revealed God’s self to be, and the image of God that I bear.

I decided to create this piece in monochromatic cool tones, contrasting with the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (in orange) and God’s wisdom (in gold) surrounding them. In hindsight, I realize I was visualizing my emotional journey with the text. The cool tones represent the heaviness and confusion I felt with this familiar story, and the high contrast mimics the way this text has made me feel separate and isolated from God. The woman’s expression holds the weight and the pain caused by the ways this text has been used to subjugate women and to prop up destructive doctrines and a distorted gospel.  

—Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman

 Shroyer, Danielle. Original Blessing: Putting Sin in Its Rightful Place. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016).