Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

FALL, THE

The fall from innocence and paradise of the primeval couple, Adam and Eve, through their temptation and disobedience (Gen. 3). Although the Genesis narrative does not refer to the couple’s wrongdoing as a fall, some NT writings characterize humanity’s choice to sin as a “fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Tim. 3:6) and a “fall under condemnation” (Jas. 5:12). Later Christian interpreters like Augustine, Dante, and John Milton develop the Genesis account of Adam and Eve’s disobedience into a doctrine of the Fall in great detail.

The story of Adam and Eve is embedded in the second Creation account (Gen. 2:4b–4:1). Likely written ca. 950 b.c.e. as part of the Yahwistic history of Israel, this account is the older of the two Creation stories. In this story, God creates a male human being and a female “helper” and sets them in a lush and paradisiacal garden where all of their needs are met. God instructs the man not to eat “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” lest he die. The serpent, a fellow creature described as subtle and crafty, convinces the woman that the fruit of that tree is good and she will not die. When the two eat the fruit, they recognize immediately the consequences of their actions. God punishes them for their misdeeds and expels them from the garden (3:8-24). In its mythic elements the story also offers explanations for why serpents crawl on the ground (v. 14), why enmity exists between humans and serpents (v. 15), the paradox of sexual pleasure and the pain of childbearing (v. 16), and the continual conflict between humans and nature (vv. 17-19).

The Genesis account owes its rich literary symbolism to a number of other ancient Near Eastern myths. In the Babylonian Adapa myth, the wise man Adapa, having taken the advice of the jealous god Ea, rejects Anu’s offer of the bread and water of life and thus loses immortality for himself and mankind. In the Sumerian Gilgamesh Epic, the hero fails to win immortality when a serpent steals from him the plant of eternal youth.

In the NT writings of Paul, the Fall takes on a universal dimension, introducing sin and mortality into the lives of all humanity. Paul acknowledges that “as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, so death spread to all because all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). In Paradise Lost, Milton depicts Sin and Death, Satan’s children, as building a bridge to this world so that they may now move more easily between their kingdom and the new world which Satan has just conquered in the Fall.

In contrast to other Near Eastern myths where humans are the victims of jealous gods, Genesis depicts the man and woman as responsible creatures acting according to their own wills. Their disobedience is often depicted then as rebellion against God’s commands. Although there is no doctrine of original sin in the Genesis story, Augustine used it to promulgate an interpretation which held that the first couple’s sin was transmitted to every successive generation and thus all humans were infected with sin. While Augustine held the couple acted freely according to their will, he stated clearly that their evil act introduced corruption into God’s good creation. Irenaeus used the story to demonstrate that God is a loving Father who helps his children recognize their mistakes and learn from them. Many of the Greek church fathers (e.g., Theodore of Mopsuestia) emphasize the universality of human sin.

While many commentators, from Tertullian to Milton, placed the blame for the Fall on the woman, recent feminist criticism has rejected those claims and argues that the woman acted far more rationally than the man, actually conversing with the serpent, posing questions, and making a thoughtful decision. The man, on the other hand, acted merely from appetite in taking the fruit from the woman, without question, and eating it.

Bibliography. P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. OBT 2 (Philadelphia, 1978).

Henry L. Carrigan, Jr.

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

FALL, THE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)