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.