The Creation and Fall (Traditional Jewish myth)
"The Creation and Fall" in traditional Jewish myth is primarily detailed in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, which recounts the creation of the world and the subsequent fall of humanity. The narrative includes two distinct accounts of creation: the first emphasizes a systematic process led by God, who creates the world in six days and rests on the seventh, declaring creation "very good." The second account focuses more intimately on humanity, describing God forming the first man, Adam, from dust and creating Eve from Adam's rib, setting the scene in the idyllic Garden of Eden.
The myth takes a pivotal turn in the third chapter, where the serpent tempts Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, leading to both Adam and Eve’s disobedience. This act of defiance results in significant consequences: they become aware of their nakedness, face divine judgment, and are expelled from the Garden to prevent them from accessing the tree of life. The themes of innocence, temptation, and the nature of sin are central to this narrative, and it has been interpreted in various ways throughout history, influencing theological concepts such as original sin. The text reflects deep questions about human nature, morality, and the relationship between humanity and the divine.
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Subject Terms
The Creation and Fall (Traditional Jewish myth)
Author: Traditional Jewish
Time Period: 2499 BCE–1000 BCE
Country or Culture: Middle East
Genre: Myth
PLOT SUMMARY
The first three chapters of Genesis, the first book of both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, relate the creation of the world and the fall of humanity. Chapters 1 and 2 offer two differing accounts of creation, although both ascribe the world’s existence to God.
Genesis 1 is a stately litany of creative activity, with each of the first five days of creation beginning with the phrase, “And God said, ‘Let there be . . . .’” Each day’s activity concludes with some variant of the statement, “And God saw that it was good.” Beginning with a formless void and the wind sweeping over the waters, God creates light; sky; earth and seas, with vegetation; sun and moon; and living creatures.
On the sixth day, the pattern changes. God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon earth” (Gen. 1:26). God creates man and woman, and following this sixth day of activity, he pronounces everything he has made “very good” (1:31). The seventh day is a day of rest, commonly called the Sabbath.
The second version of creation begins in chapter 2, which concentrates on the creation of humans. In this account, man is formed from the dust of the earth, and God breathes the breath of life into the creature, who becomes known as Adam. In this telling, God creates the Garden of Eden, in which grow the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God tells Adam to care for the garden, prohibiting him from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve, the first woman, is a second, separate creation, taken from Adam’s rib as he sleeps and presented to Adam as a helpmeet. The text comments, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).
Trouble, in the form of a serpent, comes to the Garden of Eden in chapter 3. Approaching Eve, the serpent casts doubt on God’s commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve not only eats the tree’s fruit but also gives some to Adam. The first piece of knowledge they receive is that of their nakedness; to cover themselves, they sew together fig leaves.
This disobedience is discovered when God enters the Garden of Eden and calls to Adam and Eve, who are hiding. When questioned, Adam places the blame on Eve, who shifts it to the serpent. God pronounces judgment on all those involved. The serpent will travel on its belly and experience enmity against the woman and her offspring. The woman will experience pangs in childbirth, and her husband will rule over her. The man will find caring for the earth burdensome, with thorns and thistles complicating the task. Finally, death is pronounced as a result of disobedience; Adam and Eve are driven from the Garden of Eden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life, which is guarded by an angel and a flaming sword.
SIGNIFICANCE
Scholars debate how the Hebrew Bible—particularly the first five books, called the Pentateuch—came together. Although the biblical prophet Moses has traditionally been held as the author of those books, modern source criticism posits four editors or compilers, based on the style and vocabulary of different passages. These editors worked with traditional stories that had been passed down in their communities, which became early Israel. According to the theory, the works of the Yahwist (J), Elohistic (E), Deuteronomic (D), and Priestly (P) writers were finally collated, probably after the exile to Babylon that occurred around 586 BCE. This final redactor seems to have been of the priestly class, which tended to focus on a majestic, distant God. Thus, the first chapter of Genesis reflects a Priestly sensibility. The redactor chose also to include a Yahwist story of creation, with its focus on a more personal God, one who forms humanity from clay rather than speaking the world into creation. For the Yahwists, God is anthropomorphized as one who is willing to get his hands dirty.
The theme of a fall from a pure state of innocence and grace is one of the major themes of the myth and one on which many writers and artists have focused. In the fifth century CE, Saint Augustine derived the idea of original sin, based on a mistranslation and misunderstanding of the writings of Saint Paul. In Romans 5, Paul creates an extended analogy of Christ’s death controverting Adam’s fall. Paul writes of death, not sin, coming upon all humanity. Both the Roman Catholic church and Protestant denominations adopted Augustine’s faulty application of Paul’s ideas.
The theology of reformer John Calvin, for example, included the concept known as total depravity. Original sin meant that babies were born in sin and condemned to hell if they had not been baptized. The Great Awakening in the United States during the eighteenth century, led by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, stressed this doctrine. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” one of Edwards’s sermons, has been anthologized in generations of American literature and history textbooks, enshrining original sin in the curriculum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Bible. Ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Print. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Rev. Standard Vers.
Cunningham, Conor. “What Genesis Doesn’t Say: Rethinking the Creation Story.” Christian Century 127.23 (2010): 22–25. Print.
Kim, Yung-Suk. “A Lesson from Studies of Source Criticism: Contradicting Stories and Humble Diversity in Creation Stories (Gen 1–2).” SBL Forum. Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Web. 11 June 2013.
Mühlberger, Richard. The Bible in Art: The Old Testament. New York: Portland House, 1991. Print.