Debunking the Myth: “The Fall of Man” Isn’t in the Hebrew Bible

Unseating an entrenched interpretation opens up new possibilities.

The Rebuke of Adam and Eve, Oil on Copper, by Charles Joseph Natoire

If “The Three Little Pigs” started out as an untitled story and later became known as “The Supremacy of Bricks,” this title would color every reading. This is what has happened with the first few chapters of the Hebrew Bible [the collection of books sometimes referred to as the Old Testament].

Texts that lie at the foundation of our society, such as the Bible and the U.S. Constitution, are here to stay. But there is disagreement on how to interpret them. Sometimes, without even realizing it, we accept an interpretation as the only reasonable way to understand the text. These interpretations shape our culture and our lives. When we challenge entrenched interpretations, we make room for new possibilities.

Religious and spiritual teachers often refer to the Bible’s Garden of Eden story as the “Fall of Man [sic].” The interpretation of the story known as “The Fall” tells us that human beings brought suffering upon themselves because they disobeyed God. Disobedience moved humans from a state of innocence to a state of perpetual guilt.

This is one way to read the Hebrew Bible. But it isn’t the only way. And as I read the text, it’s not an interpretation suggested by the Hebrew Bible itself.

The So-Called Fall

In the Garden of Eden story, the word “fall” never appears. In fact, after Genesis chapter 3, the Hebrew Bible never references Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. In the New Testament book of Romans, written many hundreds of years after the Garden of Eden story, the apostle Paul lays the groundwork for the interpretation known as “The Fall.” Referring to Adam, Paul wrote:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12)

This interpretation has become so widespread that many people no longer recognize it as an interpretation. They assume it’s the only way the story can be understood. If you like this interpretation, there’s nothing wrong with retaining it. But Paul’s interpretation that death and sin entered the world “through one man” (Adam) is just one way of looking at the story.

Unlike Romans 5:12, the Hebrew Bible doesn’t tell us that Adam and Eve were immortal before eating the fruit. Nor does it tell us that “sin entered the world” at any particular moment.

There is no indication in the Hebrew Bible that Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit was the cause of any future human misbehavior. Nor is there an indication that Adam and Eve existed in a state of grace whereas subsequent humans existed in a diminished state. Rather, it is a characteristic of humans that they sometimes misbehave. This human trait applies equally to Adam and Eve and to all the other characters in the Hebrew Bible.

The Bible Communicates Through Story

In polytheistic traditions, the gods struggle with one another. The gods’ struggles often have implications for humans, but these implications are usually incidental to the gods’ concerns. Conflicts between gods make for great storytelling. And telling stories of the gods’ struggles amongst themselves was a way for people to explain their own conflicts and struggles.

In the monotheistic Hebrew Bible, God doesn’t struggle with other gods. Instead, God and humans struggle with one another. These struggles help provide the Biblical narrative with the conflict and tension that every good story requires. The name “Israel” means “God struggler.”

If a story starts as follows:

The first time Bill and Mary were left alone in the house, their parents told them: “You can play with all the toys and games in the house. But you are not allowed to look in your mother’s sock drawer.”

Can you imagine the story continuing without Bill and Mary opening their mother’s sock drawer?

As soon as the instruction is given: “Don’t eat the fruit of the tree that’s in the middle of the garden,” we know where the story is going. As I read it, the Bible doesn’t regard human beings as “sinful” or “fallen.” Adam and Eve did exactly what the story expected, and demanded, of them.

God tells Eve that because she ate the fruit, she will have pain during childbirth. And God tells Adam he will have to work to procure food. In other words, their “punishment” is that human beings will be like most other creatures on earth.

The interpretation known as “The Fall” posits that God’s original plan was for Adam and Eve to live in the Garden of Eden for all eternity. I see no evidence within the text of the Hebrew Bible that the authors believe this was God’s plan.

Life is not an eternal picnic in an idyllic garden. It’s more complicated than that. And it’s more interesting. An idyllic eternal picnic doesn’t make for good storytelling. And as the author Elie Wiesel wrote: “God made man because He loves stories.”

And God saw all that God had made and found that it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)

Very good.

Not perfect. But also, not fatally flawed.