Genesis 3 and the Origin of the Term "Fall"

The Exile of Adam and Eve

By John Sanidopoulos

In the book The Story of Original Sin by John Toews (2013), we read:

'The interpretation of Genesis 3 as a "fall" reflects a much later Christian understanding which has been read back into the text; the term “the fall” was first used with certainty to describe the sin of Adam by the Greek church father Methodius of Olympus, late third or early fourth century (d. 311), as a reaction to Origen’s teaching of a pre-natal fall in the transcendent world. In other words, a "fall" theology about the interpretation of Genesis 3 begins to develope about six to eight centuries after the probable writing of the original Genesis 3 story in a totally different setting and for a totally different purpose (many more centuries later if Genesis 3 is dated to the tenth century BCE). Why is it profoundly significant that this much later Christian and Greek “fall” construal is not stated or even suggested in the text? Because that means the story of salvation history, which is a fairly normative interpretive framework for a Christian reading the whole Bible does not begin with “the fall.” Rather, it begins with broken relationships and exile, which is a very Jewish way of reading the text. And lest we forget, it was Jewish people who wrote this text originally for Jewish people, probably for Jewish people living in exile trying to understand the profound tragedy of the destruction of their country, the Temple, many of their fellow countrymen, and their exile in Babylon. The re-definition of the story of Genesis 3 as a "fall" represented a much later Hellenistic-Gentile re-interpretation of the text.

On Reading the Story of Adam and Eve

By Fr. John Breck

Someone asked the other day how we should read Genesis 2-3, the story of Adam and Eve. Behind his question lay troubled concern over the apparent conflict between science and Scripture. “If we take the biblical account seriously,” he concluded, “then we have to reject evolutionary theory altogether and align ourselves with those ‘creationists’ who believe the Genesis account is to be taken literally, as an actual biological description of the way human life came to be.”

There are two closely intertwined issues here: the meaning of the Genesis account, and God’s role in the process of creation. To address either one, it is necessary first of all to untangle and separate them. Here we will try to speak to the first question; then in a future column we will turn briefly to the debate over evolution and creationism.

Augustine of Hippo on the Devil in Paradise

By St. Augustine of Hippo

(On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees, Bk. 2, Ch. 20)

Coming now to the serpent, it represents the devil, who certainly wasn't simple. That he was said, you see, to be wiser than all beasts is a figurative way of stating his slyness. It does not, however, say that the serpent was in paradise, but that the serpent was among the beasts which God had made. Paradise, after all, as I said above, stands for the blessed life of bliss in which there was no longer a serpent, because it was already the devil; and he had fallen from his blessed state, because "he did not stand in the truth" (Jn. 8:44). Nor is there anything strange about the way he could talk to the woman, though she was in Paradise and he was not; she was not in Paradise, you see, in a local sense, but rather as regards her blissful feeling of blessedness. Or even if there is such a place called Paradise, where Adam and the woman were actually living in the body, are we to understand the devil also making his approach there in the body? Not at all, but he made it as a spirit, as the Apostle says: "According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the children of unbelief" (Eph. 2:2).

Christ, the Liberator of Adam and Eve

Christ liberating Adam and Eve from Hades

"As the evil one procured our twofold death by means of his single spiritual death, so the good Lord healed this twofold death of ours through His single bodily death, and through the one resurrection of His body gave us a twofold resurrection.

By means of His bodily death He destroyed him who had the power over our souls and bodies in death, and rescued us from his tyranny over them both.

The evil one clothed himself in the serpent to deceive man, but the Word of God put on man's nature to trick the trickster."

- St. Gregory Palamas, "Homily for Holy and Great Saturday"

The Garment of Adam and the Garment of Joseph

By John Sanidopoulos

Genesis begins with the account of the creation of the first-formed Adam and Eve, and records their disobedience to God by eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When the Lord confronted them regarding their disobedience, and gave them an opportunity for repentance, they refused to put the blame on themselves, incurring a curse from God and banishment from the Garden of Eden. As they were being banished, we read in Genesis 3:21: "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." No longer were Adam and Eve "clothed" in the uncreated light of God and thus protected from the elements, but their disobedience made them realize their purity was gone and they were left naked and exposed to the elements. God, however, in His goodness, provided for them with lowly earthly garments made of animal skin. Just as someone who enjoys special favor from the king is clothed in royal and expensive garments, but after some sort of disobedience or betrayal is stripped of such garments and made to look like a slave, so also were Adam and Eve. Their clothing, from now on, was to be a constant reminder of their disobedience and the loss of their purity.

The Inheritance of the Ancestral Sin

By Archimandrite Maximos Panagiotou,

Holy Monastery of Panagia Paramythia in Rhodes

We did not inherit the guilt of the original ancestral sin, but its consequences. With this, due to our remoteness from God, the entire human race is fallen and is in corruption with the tendency towards evil. This can be given a parallel example: if our natural environment due to our current irrational use of it is irreversibly damaged, the next generations of people will have no responsibility for the evil they were born in, but they will inherit the corruption of nature.

Synaxarion for the Sunday of Cheesefare

By Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos

SUNDAY of CHEESEFARE

On the same day, we commemorate the banishment of Adam, the First-formed man, from the Paradise of delight.

Verses

Let the world lament bitterly with our first ancestors,
For it fell together with those who fell by a sweet repast.


Synaxarion

Our Holy Fathers appointed this commemoration before the Holy Fast, as if to show in actual fact how beneficial the medicine of fasting is to human nature, and also how great is the shame of gluttony and disobedience. Passing over all the individual sins committed in the world on account of him, as being without number, the Fathers set forth how much evil Adam, the first-formed man, suffered from not fasting even for a brief time, and how much evil he thereby brought upon our race, clearly pointing out also that the virtue of fasting was the first commandment that God gave to mankind. Not keeping this commandment, but yielding to his belly, or rather, through Eve, to the deceitful serpent, Adam not only did not become God, but also incurred death and transmitted corruption to the whole human race.

How the Passion of Christ Reversed the Fall of Adam

By John Sanidopoulos

- Jesus voluntarily and successfully fasted forty days in the wilderness and overcame the temptations of the devil, because Adam voluntarily yet unsuccessfully kept the God-commanded fast to abstain from the Tree of Knowledge after being tempted by the devil.

- Jesus rebuked Peter as inspired by the devil for trying to dissuade Him from going to Jerusalem to be crucified, because Adam gave in to the suggestion of Eve who was inspired by the devil to eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

- Jesus submitted His will to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, because in the Garden of Eden Adam disobeyed the will of the Father.

- Jesus was crucified on the wood of a tree, because the fall of Adam took place through a forbidden tree.

The Lost World of Adam and Eve: An Interview with John Walton

The following interview provides some helpful hints in how to read Genesis 1 and 2 within the broader context of the language and culture in which it was written, which will also help bring us to a deeper theological understanding of the text.

Old Testament scholar John Walton affirms a historical Adam—but says there are far more important dimensions to Genesis.

Interview by Kevin P. Emmert

MARCH 19, 2015

Christianity Today

St. John of Damascus on How Paradise in Genesis Should Be Understood

By St. John of Damascus

Now when God was about to fashion man out of the visible and invisible creation in His own image and likeness to reign as king and ruler over all the earth and all that it contains, He first made for him, so to speak, a kingdom in which he should live a life of happiness and prosperity. And this is the divine paradise , planted in Eden by the hands of God, a very storehouse of joy and gladness of heart (for "Eden" means luxuriousness). Its site is higher in the East than all the earth: it is temperate and the air that surrounds it is the rarest and purest: evergreen plants are its pride, sweet fragrances abound, it is flooded with light, and in sensuous freshness and beauty it transcends imagination: in truth the place is divine, a meet home for him who was created in God's image: no creature lacking reason made its dwelling there but man alone, the work of God's own hands.

Basil the Great on the Vanity of Reading Genesis as Science

In the passage below from Basil the Great's Hexaemeron (Homily 9), we see that Genesis avoids presenting vain scientific theories in order to focus on that which edifies and perfects the soul. To read Genesis either as a literal historical scientific account, or even infusing allegory into the text, is a vain attempt at reading this text outside of the divine intention behind its inspiration. In fact, the entire Bible is a theological book that primarily aims at the perfecting of our souls.

Basil the Great and the Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis

The text below gives a good summary of not only Saint Basil's view on allegory when it comes to interpreting Genesis 1, but also how when Basil refers to allegory he is referring to the way heretics and those who have a low view of Scripture interpreted it. Alternatively, when Basil says it should be examined literally, he is not referring to a literal historical approach, which is part of the modern debate, but to an approach that examines the text for what it says according to its literal words. The allegorical approach, which is speculative, avoids the basic message that is trying to be conveyed by Genesis 1, which is primarily spiritual as well relational, as far as what God's relationship is with His creation, as well as conveying a new revelation for the people of Israel in opposition to the surrounding pagan cultures.

By Christopher A. Hall

The clearest example we possess in English translation of Basil's exegesis and homiletical style is his Hexaemeron, a series of nine sermons he delivered on the six days of creation. He preached them at both evening and morning services during the Lenten season, but the exact date of the sermons is difficult to determine.

Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil's close friend, deeply admired Basil's Hexaemeron for its clear portrayal of the wonder of creation and its Creator. "Whenever I handle his Hexaemeron and take its words on my lips, I am brought into the presence of my Creator, and understand the works of creation, and admire the Creator more than before, using my teacher as my only means of site."

St. Seraphim of Sarov on Adam in Paradise

Below is an excerpt from St. Seraphim of Sarov's conversation with Nicholas Motovilov that explains the purpose of the Christian life as being the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. To make his point, St. Seraphim gives a brief overview of the history of Holy Scripture to show that this purpose for mankind existed from the beginning, with Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. By explaining that man was initially created just like all animals is significant, because what distinguishes mankind from the animals is that mankind has been given the gift of the grace of God to keep us immortal and make us gods. This is the essential key to the theological interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis, and all of Holy Scripture in general, as well as the sacramental and ascetic life of the Church.