How The Pilgrim's Progress drew on Genesis
A documented line of influence: John Bunyan demonstrably engaged Moses’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Genesis
Moses · c. 550 BCE
BibleThe influenced
The Pilgrim's Progress
John Bunyan · 1678
EnlightenmentRelevance
4/10
On The Pilgrim's Progress’s page
- Read the margins of The Pilgrim's Progress and you find Genesis everywhere — the apple of Eden, the "look not behind thee" of Sodom that becomes Christian's first command
- Even the famous opening, "I dreamed a dream," leans on Joseph's dream sequence; knowing the source stories lets you catch Bunyan's allegory landing each beat
On Genesis’s page
- Bunyan's allegory is stitched from Scripture, and Genesis supplies some of its most vivid threads — the forbidden apple of Eden held out to a pilgrim, the dream-vision frame that echoes Joseph's dreams
- Christian's flight from the City of Destruction is the Genesis 19 escape from Sodom rewritten — "look not behind thee" — with Bunyan citing the chapter in his own margins