Scholars have proposed that Bosch used the outer panels to establish a Biblical setting for the inner elements of the work,[10] and the exterior image is generally interpreted as set in an earlier time than those in the interior. As with Bosch's Haywain triptych, the inner centerpiece is flanked by heavenly and hellish imagery. The scenes depicted in the triptych are thought to follow a chronological order, flowing from left-to-right they represent respectively, Eden, the garden of earthly delights, and Hell.[19] God appears as the creator of humanity in the left hand wing, while the consequences of his will are implied in the right. However, in contrast to Bosch's two other "true" triptychs, The Last Judgment (around 1500) and The Haywain (after 1510), God is absent from the central panel. Instead, this panel shows humanity acting with free will and engaging in various sexual activities. The right hand panel is believed to show God wreaking vengeance for these sins in a Last Judgment hellscape.[20]
Art historian Charles de Tolnay believed that, through the seductive gaze of Adam, the left panel already shows God's waning influence upon the newly created earth. This view is reinforced by the rendering of God in the outer panels as a tiny figure in comparison to the immensity of the earth.[19] According to Belting, the three inner panels seek to broadly convey the Old Testament notion that, before the Fall, there was no defined boundary between good and evil; humanity in its innocence was unaware of consequence.[21]
The left panel (220 × 97.5 cm, 87 × 38.4 in) (sometimes known as the Joining of Adam and Eve)[22] depicts a scene from the paradise of the Garden of Eden commonly interpreted as the moment when God presents Eve to Adam. The painting shows Adam waking from a deep sleep to find God holding Eve by her wrist and giving the sign of his blessing to their union. God is younger-looking than on the outer panels, blue-eyed and with golden curls. His youthful appearance may be a device by the artist to illustrate the concept of Christ as the incarnation of the Word of God.[23] God's right hand is raised in blessing, while he holds Eve's wrist with his left, according to the work's most controversial interpreter, Wilhelm Fränger:
As though enjoying the pulsation of the living blood and as though too he were setting a seal on the eternal and immutable communion between this human blood and his own. This physical contact between the Creator and Eve is repeated even more noticeably in the way Adam's toes touch the Lord's foot. Here is the stressing of a rapport: Adam seems indeed to be stretching to his full length in order to make contact with the Creator. And the billowing out of the cloak around the Creator's heart, from where the garment falls in marked folds and contours to Adam's feet, also seems to indicate that here a current of divine power flows down, so that this group of three actually forms a closed circuit, a complex of magical energy.[24]
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