First, perhaps your look into the Old Testament used the same lens as your choice of Albrect Durer's 'Adam and Eve' as illustration.

Look carefully at both faces: they are the mirror image of each other: you know, equal...right down to their foreheads to noses to mouths.

There are four creatures which represent the four humours: earth, water, air and fire. That has not just Greek alchemical allusions but also Gnostic ones.

"Melancholic: elk, black bile - Earth - Fall - Passive

Phlegmatic: ox, phlegm - Water - Winter - Broody

Sanguine: rabbit, blood - Air - Spring - Optimistic

Choleric: cat, yellow bile - Fire - Summer - Energy

The parrot: "The call of the parrot was believed to sound like “Eva-Ave” —Eve and Ave Maria ("Hail Mary"—the name of a prayer in honor of the Virgin Mary). "

One of the trees Durer used also carries symbolic meaning: the Ash tree, the tree of everlasting life.

Of interest would be to look into Nordic myths: Odin hangs upside down, in order to gain wisdom, on Yggdrasil, an Ash tree.

Take a closer look at the snake, a hero to the Gnostic Christians BTW...notice anything on its head?

In other words, Kimberley, The Bible is just as much allegory as is the etching.

And if you are really interested in history...as well as in all things Biblical, for a good read check out "The Pagan Christ" by the late Canadian Tom Harpur, an Anglican Priest. It was a non-fiction scholarly best seller in Canada (2004) at the same time that "The Purpose Driven Life" (2002) was in the United States.

In 'The Purpose Driven Life', Warren attests that God has a plan for you and primarily uses the Bible as a scholarly basis.

In 'Pagan Christ', Harpur points out the vast historical connections that almost all religions share, a connection which makes us as human as most scriptures.

Faith should involve looking into both.