Genesis 3:1-24
The Fall of Man
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us,knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
1 Corinthians 15:45-58
Adam Was the First Earthly Man, and Jesus Was the First Heavenly Man
45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Acts 4:12
Salvation is Found in Jesus, and No One Else
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
Some people want to read Genesis in symbolic fashion rather than in reading it literally...And there are parts of the Bible which has symbolism and metaphors and maybe some Bible sections are not to be taken as literal as others...And you have to ask yourself as you read through the Bible, is it important to read Genesis and the Fall of Man (as well as other Scripture) literally?...
Let us look at the Fall of Man and ask ourselves should we read the Fall as symbolism and metaphorically...Moses writes in Genesis that sin originated with Adam and Eve...Moses writes that Adam and Even rebelled and were disobedient with God in their decision to eat the fruit that He had forbidden them to eat...If this happened metaphorically, then I think we must ask ourselves several questions...So as Moses wrote this, was he writing about sin metaphorically?...Is this original sin just a figure of speech?...Did Moses regard sin as being a representative or a symbol for something else that happened?...Did it happen at once like it did in the Garden or did sin happen symbolically over time?...So did sin evolve in a symbolic way?...And if this Fall is symbolic, did the Fall of Man, as Moses writes, actually happen?...And in regards to Jesus, can we say that He saves us from our symbolic sins?...
For believers Eden is where sin originated...Sin ironically originated in Paradise with the evil one when Adam and Eve rebelled and did not follow what God had ask of them...Sin is Adam and Eve's rebellion to God's Word...I believe to take the Fall of Man literally and that Adam and Eve violated God's Word and His Law...I believe that the origin of sin came from these two people, Eve and Adam...For me, without the Fall of Man to be taken literally by Adam and Eve, then it is hard to believe in sin and sinning and especially where it originated...The origination is important, because it means it would have taken place in a certain place and at a certain time -and not over a period or evolved time...Moses lays out the origin of sin out for us, and it is difficult for me to turn the Fall into metaphoric sins or a symbol...Eve ate the fruit, Adam did the same and sin happened...
As for St. Paul, he wrote about Adam quite regularly and believes that Adam was the first man, and was the first man to sin...St. Paul writes about Adam and about Jesus...Paul says that it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit...The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual...The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven...As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the Heavenly Man, so also are those who are of heaven...And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the Image of the Heavenly Man...I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable...Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet...For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed...For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality...When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”...“Where, O death, is your victory?...Where, O death, is your sting?”...The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law...But thanks be to God!...He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ...
Jesus gives us salvation...Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
So from the Fall of Man as Moses writes about it, I see and believe that it actually happened...Eden is literal...Eve is literal...Adam is literal...The fruit is literal...Sin is literal...And Jesus literally saves us from the sins that originated from our original grandfather and grandmother...