The Fall
Genesis 3 is a chapter of chilling questions.
The first question: “Did God really say?”
It’s the way we let ourselves off the hook when faced with something we know in our gut to be wrong. “Did Mom really say?” “Did the teacher really say?” “Does the law really say?” It’s so easy to plant doubt in the human mind. The consequences are often terrible.When the serpent, and there is much discussion about whether or not this was an actual serpent or a symbolic one, but for the purposes of the story, a serpent, when the serpent asked Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”, she responded by adding more to the restriction, explaining that not only must they not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, but they cannot touch it. Perhaps, it had been related to her that way in order to keep her away from the tree. Or perhaps she had done a very natural human thing and made the restriction more than it really was so that it seemed unreasonable.
Now that doubt was firmly planted, the serpent challenged God’s restriction by using the truth and just slightly twisting it.
The serpent convinced her that she wouldn’t die, but instead her eyes would be opened and she would be like God. True and not true. True, she wouldn’t die right away, but not true that she wouldn’t become mortal and die eventually. Conveniently, the latter part was not mentioned. True that her eyes would be opened and she would know good and evil, but not true that she would be like God. Knowing good and evil was not the only thing involved in becoming like God.
So, Eve ate and gave some fruit to Adam to eat. Immediately, everything was different. They saw things in a new way. They realized they were naked and began to seek leaves to cover themselves.
The second question I always imagined was bellowed out: “Where are you?”
Before the question, they heard God walking in the garden and they hid from Him.
Didn’t He know where they were? Of course, He knew exactly where they were. However, the question was not asked for God’s sake, but for Adam and Eve. How often do we encounter this question in our lives? That intuitive something inside us that knows whether we’re on the right track or not asks: “Where are you?”
The third question: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
Before God asked these questions, Adam had attempted to explain why they were hiding.
The man blamed God for giving him the woman and blamed the woman for giving him the fruit. At first, he did not take responsibility for his part in the disobedience.
The fourth question: “What is this you have done?”
Yikes! This was addressed to Eve and what she did had a bigger impact than she could have known. Something so small became something so big. That’s a life lesson and it happens again and again in the stories in the Bible.
Eve made the famous excuse, essentially the devil made me do it. However, I’ve always thought that her response was honest. She said that the serpent deceived her and she ate. Completely true.
Time for punishments.
First, the serpent was cursed to crawl on its belly and eat dust. This gives the idea that perhaps the creature had a different form at first and was turned into the shape we know today. Further, there would be hostility between humans and serpents. And even deeper, there is what many believe to be the first reference to a plan of rescue from this new mortal, sin-laden state: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel,” (Genesis 3:21, NIV Translation).
“This verse is often considered to be the first prophecy in the Bible. Speaking to the serpent (Satan), God makes it clear that this isn’t the last time they will oppose one another. Satan will “strike the heel” of the woman’s offspring—usually interpreted to refer to the death of Jesus—but the ultimate victory, the same offspring will crush the “serpent” with a fatal blow,” (The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Bible, p. 39).
I thought that Mel Gibson did a good job demonstrating this symbolism in the movie The Last Temptation of Christ.
Note that God punished Adam and Eve, but did not curse them. He punished Eve by greatly increasing childbirth pain and setting in motion a tradition of male dominance. He punished Adam by cursing the ground so that it would require difficult, hard labor to grow things. He ended with a reminder that Adam and Eve were dust and would return to dust.
Like a loving parent, once punishments were doled out, God made clothing to relieve them from their shame. It’s easy to read it too quickly and miss the striking point: “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them,” (Genesis 3:21, NIV Translation).
To make garments of skin, the lives of one or more animals must have been sacrificed. Clothing Adam and Eve meant killing, meant spilling blood. There was a sacrifice to be made to cover their shame.
There couldn’t be a more blatant symbol of the sacrifice to cover the sins of humanity.
It is worth noting that the Hebrew word for “clothed” or “covered” that is used here in Genesis 3:21 is similar to the Hebrew word for “forgiven.”
Then, God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden so that they wouldn’t also eat from the Tree of Life and live forever, which given their soiled state, would likely be a torment for them and not a blessing.
Which leads to a question that I have for God…
Why was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden in the first place? If they could be so easily banished, why were they even there?
Of course, God knew exactly what was going to happen, so it was intentionally allowed to happen for a purpose we do not know, although I suspect we see it in glimmers sometimes.
The attempt to explain why a good God would permit evil is called theodicy. It comes from the Greek language: “theos” = God and “dike” = justice. It is a dangerous thing because any attempt to justify the ways of God is flawed by the limits of our human understanding. We tend to box God into man-like terms.
How much of Genesis 3, if any, actually physically happened as described? We don’t know. Some wonder if pomegranate seeds were eaten instead of an apple. Apparently, the original Hebrew does not clearly specify apple or any other fruit. Again, we don’t know.
There’s every possibility, like any great mythological story, that the events of Genesis 3 didn’t happen as tangibly described. However, it is very likely that there was a disobedience and a fall from grace and that humans evolved from a state of innocence to one of knowledge that left humans in a lifelong battle between good and evil. It is likely because the thematic essence of the story appears again and again in human mythological stories from various parts of the world.
Here are some sources of information about the story of The Fall:
New World Encyclopedia: Human Fall
Fall of Man. Encyclopædia Britannica.
The Myth of Adapa from Mesopotamia.
Immortality, the Elixir of Life and the Food of the Gods. Ancient Origins.