C.Kunin: The concept of original sin post-dates Judaism....Adam and Eve ... were punished with mortality.[ ] In regards to Humbert's guilt or innocence, I personally lean toward innocence partly because there has been no trial, and except in Wonderland, the trial usually precedes the verdict. But what I think is the most important question raised has so far not been addressed by the List, to wit, is Humbert a reliable narrator, which those who condemn him must accept at least to some degree...

Jansy Mello: Thanks to C.Kunin and A.Stadlen for clarifications about the concept of original sin qua Judaism and Christianity. C.Kunin emphasized "mortality," one of the main issues related to sin, heaven/hell and paradise arising in VN's novels.

Eating the forbidden fruit from the "tree of knowledge (of good and evil)" has many religious interpretations. In ADA Nabokov observes that it was not a "true apple tree" and he refers to it as "the apple of terrible knowledge." *

I haven't examined all the entries in B.Boyd's Ada Online yet but, up to now, I was unable to link the story from Genesis, the literary blending of the Biblical Eden/Paradise with the Greek Utopian Arcadia, where Death is already present (he often quotes the Latin "Et in Arcadia Ego."**).

The different afterlife punishments VN devised for Humbert Humbert differ from the one he imagined for Herman (Despair). John Shade's references to Flemish hells and delights, or his projected walks on cypress lanes engaged in dialogues with Socrates and Proust ( related to Socrates' idea about life after death, I think) for me are just erudite references, with no hidden philosophical elaboration (John Shade's lines are retaken in ADA, and examined mostaly as "literature")

Carolyn, you considered the discussion about Humbert's "innocence" from the legal point of view. In my opinion, it limits the theme ( I enjoyed your link of it to Carroll's trials). If HH is a reliable narrator cannot be a decisive factor either, but it's brings up an important question (why do readers in general never question HH's veracity concerning his Lolita confessions?). I imagine there are specialists about the distinction of employing the tactics of unreliable narration, of delusional narrations or posthumous narrators: all this is for me an unexplored territory. I look forward to learning more about that!

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*
78.05: Shattal apple tree: A1: “= invented Eden = Tigris & Euphrates.” Shatt al Arab or Shatt al ‘Arab is the name of the river formed by the union of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in southeastern Iraq. Genesis 2.10-14 records the Tigris and Euphrates as two of the four rivers of Eden: “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads. . . . And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates” (Hiddekel is the ancient name for the Tigris). MOTIF: apple; Eden; Shattal.

95.18-24: the Tree of Knowledge . . . no apple trees . . . not a true apple tree: Cf. 16.21: “the apple of terrible knowledge.” MOTIF: apple.

95.18-20: the Tree of Knowledge—this specimen was imported last summer wrapped up in brocade from the Eden National Park where Dr. Krolik’s son is a ranger and breeder:

95.19-20: Eden National Park: Invented, but in view of the Arcadian and well as Edenic overtones of Ardis, perhaps plays also on the real Acadia National Park in Maine. Cf. 94.01 and n.; SM 24: “my earliest impressions . . . . led the way to a veritable Eden of visual and tactile sensations”; Lolita 59-60: “she had painted lips and was holding in her hollowed hands a beautiful, banal, Eden-red apple.” MOTIF: Eden.
:** - It's interesting to check his exchange about this subject as found in his correspondence with Edmund Wilson. The additional "Dementia" (in PF) doesn't appear in them, but I haven't checked this today.