The Fall

In Genesis 3 a serpent, craftier than any other animal, questions the woman about God’s command. It tells her that she will not die if she eats from the forbidden tree: her eyes will be opened and she will be like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:1–5). The woman takes the fruit and eats, and gives some to her husband, who eats too. Their eyes are opened, they know that they are naked, and they sew fig leaves together to cover themselves (Genesis 3:6–7).

When they hear God in the garden they hide. Questioned, the man blames the woman and the woman blames the serpent (Genesis 3:8–13). God then speaks to each in turn. The serpent is cursed, and there will be hostility between its offspring and the woman’s: “He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:14–15). The woman will bear children in pain (Genesis 3:16). The ground is cursed because of the man, who will eat from it by hard labour until he returns to the dust from which he was taken (Genesis 3:17–19). The man names his wife Eve, God clothes them both in skins, and they are sent out of Eden. Cherubim and a flaming sword guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:20–24).

The chapter does not use the word “sin”, which first appears in the story of Cain (Genesis 4:7). It is Paul who states the meaning that became central for Christians. Sin came into the world through one man, he writes, and death through sin; and as one man’s disobedience made many sinners, the obedience of one, Jesus Christ, will make many righteous (Romans 5:12–19). “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Revelation calls the devil “the old serpent” (Revelation 12:9) and ends with the tree of life restored and the curse gone (Revelation 22:1–3). Irenaeus, about AD 180, read the words to the serpent as the first announcement of one born of a woman who would tread on its head (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.21.1).

The churches describe what passed from Adam to his descendants in different terms. The Council of Trent teaches that his sin is handed on to all “by propagation, not by imitation” and is in each person as his own (Council of Trent Session 5, canons 2–3). The Lutheran Augsburg Confession says that since Adam’s fall all who are born in the natural way are born with sin (Augsburg Confession article 2). The Orthodox Confession of Dositheus also speaks of hereditary sin, and explains that the burden everyone bears and its fruits are toil, sickness, pain in childbirth and death, not personal acts of sin (Confession of Dositheus decree 6).