The first three chapters of the Book of Genesis have always been very problematic to interpret. In particular, most of the time the story of Adam and Eve gets all mixed up and misinterpreted. I’ll try to sort things out a bit in this piece. In the first chapter of Genesis we are introduced to God, a transcendent Being who “speaks” the universe into existence. However, in Chapter Two God is shown as having an immanent relationship with his creation, especially with the first two human beings, Adam and Eve, walking in the Garden, etc.
The scholars tell us that the first three chapters of Genesis present two very different versions of the creation of the world and human beings. Scholars agree that Genesis is a composite of characteristics of style, vocabulary, and theology and thus reveal that the first two chapters comprise what scholars call “the priestly” account of the creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:4a). The second part of this story (2:4b-3:24) is comprised of what scholars call “the Yahwist” account of the creation story. The passages from here on through most of the Book of Genesis use the name of the Hebrew God, “Yahweh” (Jehovah), when referring to the creator, and thus these passages are called by scholars the “Yahwist” passages.
This Yahwist storyline covers the account of the creation of Adam and Eve in the garden, Eve’s encounter with the serpent, and the ensuing developments. It is important to note that the serpent is not presented as “evil”, but only as “crafty” and as questioning the way God runs things. When he argues that Adam and Eve will not die if they eat the forbidden fruit, as Adam says God has said they would, he insinuates that God is threatened by the humans and has lied to them. “As soon as you eat of the fruit your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”(3:5)
Now we come to the nub of the matter. Adam tells the serpent that God has said that if they eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of” the garden they will “Surely die.” The serpent replies that God had lied to them, that rather than die if they eat the fruit they will “become like God, knowing both good and evil.” Some scholars suggest that there is a play on words here such that when God said they would die if they ate the fruit the term “die” connotes “become mortal, subject to death.” The serpent offers a different interpretation, namely that they would “become mortal”, i.e. knowing the difference between good and evil. Importantly, in neither case would they “die”, i.e. cease to exist.
In the end, of course, the serpent misled them by switching to a different sense of the key term “die”. When they ate the fruit they did find themselves knowing what was the right thing to do and what was not. The implication is that when Adam and Eve became awake as moral beings by having chosen to do something that God had specified as wrong, they recognized themselves as “naked”, namely having become aware of their humanity as moral beings capable of knowing and doing right from wrong.
In the deepest sense, then, the so-called “Fall” of humanity involved a “fall up” to becoming moral beings capable knowing what the right thing to do was, namely follow God’s instructions, even though they had not done so in this case. Important theologians, from Augustine to Calvin and beyond, have consistently misread this story. They read it as a condemnation of human volition resulting in dire consequences, namely punishment and death. In fact, however, the story merely seeks to explain the human condition involving freedom of choice which always has its consequences.
The proof of the pudding with respect to this interpretation of “the Fall” lies in the fact that although at the end of the Garden story God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden, he clearly followed them out and has spent the rest of human history following them around seeking to redeem them. The “original sin” did not condemn humankind to death and punishment with “fire and brimstone”, but on the contrary, God has followed them around throughout their and our history, seeking to help them find ways to make lemonade out of our lemons. This is the story that Jewish families have centered their lives around down through the ages. This is what the New Testament story is all about.

In the 1990s Mari and I ran a Semester in Greece program for our college, The College of St. Rose in Albany NY. I thought you might be interested in how it looked and went. It was based in a small city on the extreme Western end of Crete named Sitia where we already had some good Greek friends. We ran the program for three consecutive Fall semesters. Because of the price differential between America and Greece, we were able to offer the entire semester, apart from travel, for the same cost as a semester on campus. We averaged 15 students a semester. Mari and I spent the summers just before the fall semesters living in this same city, so we got to know many people and our way around.
We rented a small villa on the edge of town with four students to an apartment. Each had its own living room, kitchen, and bath. The students shopped and cooked for themselves. The villa was within a half-hour’s walking distance from town. We were within walking distance to the beaches and stores, etc. The Culture local folks were kind and happy to have us as part of their community.
The core of the program was the course work, which included a double credit Greek Language and Culture course, involving a weekly Greek dinner fixed by the students, daily Greek lessons, and twice-weekly dance lessons. The language class met daily. The students chose three other courses from: Greek Art, novels by Nikos Kazantzakis a famous Cretan author, Philosophy of Education, and Ancient Greek Philosophy. I taught most of these latter courses, while Mari taught the Greek Art course.
Needless to say, the students especially enjoyed mixing with the local people in the cafes and stores, along with the daily trip to the beach. Night life was pretty serious, so we had to keep on them rather carefully. They did their own shopping and laundry, which was quite different from home – by hand, without machines. By and large we all devoted afternoons to study, with classes held in the mornings. All in all the students got along well with each other and the local people very well. The young women were especially attractive to the local young men, and vice versa. As “parents” Mari and I tried to strike a balance between supervision and freedom. It seemed to work out well.
In many ways the highpoints of the semester were the trips to historical sites. We did a week-long Minoan tour to the ruins on Crete and Santorini, another week-long Ancient Greek tour to Olympia and Delphi, and we spent the final week of the program in Athens touring museums and the Parthenon. We had a good friend who ran a large, successful tour-bus company and we travelled by bus mostly, but obviously sometimes travel by ship was also necessary. It was a great thrill and privilege to sail the Mediterranean. With daily lectures, of course.
Perhaps the highpoint was an unexpected opportunity to take a four -day
“quick trip” to Egypt, for a surprisingly low price. We went on a first-rate ship, with all meals included, to Alexandria and the next day to Cairo and the Pyramids, then back again to Crete. The students paid their own way and we had no mishaps. To be sure, Alexandria seemed like a place out of the movies, and it made Mari and I pretty nervous walking through the narrow streets of the bazars responsible for the safety of the students. A young man with a black eye patch, who called himself “Sammy Davis Jr.” offered to be our guide. It all worked out very well.
It was, of course, a fantastic thing to go inside the Great Pyramid and see some of the tombs.
The whole semester was, of course, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all the students and we had no difficulty recruiting students for the next semester. At first a good number of the faculty were suspicious that the whole program was a boon-doggle on our part to be able to live in Greece. After they met the students who had been on the trip, however, the mood changed and we had full faculty support. We, in addition to several of the students, have returned to Sitia several times. One of the students actually married one of the young men there and has raised her family there. The whole experience was a wonderful gift to both of us.