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Book of Genesis: The Fall of Man ...

Tuesday, Aug 20, 2013. After the two creation stories in the book of Genesis, the first book of the bible, the background story about how mankind became what it is is not finished. Today, we come to the following events, which are as important as the mere creation account. We come to what is known as “the fall of man”:

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil …

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say,

‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Gen 3, 1-7) The story which is given us here in Genesis 3 is a story about life, about wishes and desires, about what sounds attractive to do or to try. The woman saw the fruit of the tree - it was pleasing to the eye. Also, she desired wisdom. Both does not seem bad to us. Why should we not do something which is full of beauty and which brings wisdom? The wishes do not seem to be that bad! Missing Trust …**

The story is more realistic than we might think when we first read it. In the framework of the “Garden Eden”, we are confronted with ourselves, with our typical attitudes day by day in our “real life”.

The story is a story about our relationship to God. Here, he gave clear commands to Adam and his wife. They were allowed to eat all fruits except for those special ones in the middle of the Garden. It was a clear command. If they would trust God, they would follow.

The whole thing here is about trust. It is about what or who is trustworthy and why. The background is that God IS trustworthy. He is the Lord, the creator, the one who knows humans better than they know themselves. But the humans do not completely trust him - they think that they can judge it better, and do what he told them not to do. Though: they knew that there would be severe consequences. But they did not know these, because they had no chance to experience death before. So they took it lightly.

Here, an important figure in the story is the serpant. It is said to be the most crafty animal. It is not the type of serpant we know yet, since it will be transformed into it in the next part of the story. But here, it is the one who is testing the man and the woman by its words of deception. Later in the bible, this being will be identified with one of the angels, who separated himself from God, the Lord. The whole story of missing trust had already begun in the heavenly realm before it came to mankind. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts