This should be a short post – no idea?
How many falls were there? No idea.
Was there ‘a’ fall? Don’t know.
End of post!
Classically we have the creation of Adam and Eve; they choose to disobey; the result is ‘the’ fall. Could well be so, and theologically that is how we approach it all. But ‘historical’? That is to put a category on those Scriptures that (IMHO) is unfair.
In the same way as the ‘Old Testament’ acts as a backdrop to our ‘New Testament so Genesis 1-11 acts a background to Genesis 12- Malachi 4. The language, the style of writing and the various themes (not to mention the era it was written in) are such that we are not being presented with history in the sense of a researched piece of writing. Story-telling was (and remains) so vital. The important part is that those chapters present us with a backdrop to Genesis 12… God’s choice of Abraham so that the nations might be blessed. Gen. 3-11 gives us the mess we are in; but a solution is proposed – redemption through the line of Abraham.
The majority belief among Jews (second Temple and current) was not / is not that of ‘original sin’ as often is taught in Christian circles. If Paul taught that in Rom. 5 it would indicate quite a shift from his background. Neither did Judaism believe in salvation by works. I mention that as so much is pinned on Gen. 3 as ‘the fall’ in that classic sense. What remains is that creation as we find it did not move toward the goal that Gen. 1 & 2 seemed to indicate. The world and humanity are indeed fallen. I do, though, not believe I am required to accept as literal a talking snake – that might be described as ‘Satan’ in the book of Revelation but snakes were a symbol of wisdom (‘wise as serpents’) throughout much of Jewish literature; nor of ‘angels’ having sex with women; nor of a huge boat that saved the ‘two-by-two’ varied species. Those Scriptures do not offend me nor embarrass me, nor do I ‘wish’ they were not there. They accurately draw back the veil so that we can see the multi-layered mess that we are in, and also point toward what redemption might look like. (Hence the problems run much deeper than individual sin and therefore the solution deals with much more than that. I suspect if we could move away from the individualistic world view of the Western world we might be able to re-read Scripture.)
Scripture does not end with Genesis 11. A path does not begin with Abraham for God had been walking that path beforehand, but from Genesis 12 onwards Abraham joins the walk towards ‘the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.’
And in the literature that recounts the ups and downs of that journey and, unlike the literature of Gen. 1-11, there are stories that are seriously difficult to resolve. Ones that are quoted to defend the response of ‘I read the Bible and became an atheist’!
I don’t have neat answers to them. Privately I wish they were not there or at least had a serious footnote explaining why they are present. Tomorrow I will list some of the key passages. Honesty requires we do not simply erase them! And maybe as a prelude let me make one note here as I close. God does not agree with all that was written! Yes, this we also need to add to the ‘difficulty’. It is clearly recounted in the Torah that God required the death penalty for a number of violent acts, including that of murder… and yet in response to the first recorded murder in Scripture, God covers and protects the guilty one. A clear act of not submitting to the law!
Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him (Gen.4:15).
Of course we could suggest that God can do one thing (e.g. command genocide) but that it is not acceptable as human behaviour (nor compatible with ‘love your enemy’). God can act unrighteously and our reasoning is that it is a mystery (try to line that up with ‘be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’); but I think better that we carry lightly when certain behaviour is attributed to God when it is either condemned elsewhere in Scripture or is incompatible with the Jesus we read of who was the ‘express image of the invisible God’.
No neat answers ahead.