Fall, The

Orthodox View

The term given to the mythical event described in Genesis 3:1–24 in which God cast Adam and Eve out of the paradisal Garden of Eden because they had disobeyed God in eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In casting Adam and Eve out, God said that in so eating the forbidden fruit, humankind had become “like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Although God had told the primal couple that if they ate the forbidden fruit they would die, instead God banished them from the Garden of Eden declaring that thenceforth Adam would have to work hard to produce food from the earth and Eve would be subservient to her husband and undergo great pain in producing offspring. The orthodox Augustinian interpretation of this event is that Adam and Eve’s condition in the Garden of Eden was one of paradisal perfection but that their rebellion against God led to a separation from God and hence a “fall” into sin, pain, and death. This theology understands the present...