The story of the Fall in Ge 3 is the immediate sequel to the account of man's creation with which the Jahwistic document opens (see Creation). It tells how the first man and woman, living in childlike innocence and happiness in the Garden of Eden, were tempted by the subtle serpent to doubt the goodness of their Creator, and aim at the possession of forbidden knowledge by tasting the fruit of the one tree of which they had been expressly charged not to eat. Their transgression was speedily followed by detection and punishment; on the serpent was laid the curse of perpetual enmity between it and mankind; the woman was doomed to the pains of child-bearing: and the man to unremitting toil in the cultivation of the ground, which was cursed on account of his sin. Finally, lest the man should use his newly-acquired insight to secure the boon of immortality by partaking of the tree of life, he was expelled from the garden, which appears to be conceived as still existing, though barred to human approach by the cherubim and the flaming sword.

It is right to point out that certain incongruities of representation suggest that two slightly varying narratives have been combined in the source from which the passage is taken (Jahwist). The chief difficulty arises in connexion with the two trees on which the destiny of mankind is made to turn. In Ge 2:9 the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil grow together in the midst of the garden; in Ge 2:17 the second alone is made the test of man's obedience. But ch. 3 (down to Ge 2:22) knows of only one central tree, and that obviously (though it is never so named) the tree of knowledge. The tree of life plays no real part in the story except in Ge 3:22,24; and its introduction there creates embarrassment; for if this tree also was forbidden, the writer's silence regarding the prohibition is inexplicable, and if it was not forbidden, can we suppose that the Divine prerogative of immortality was placed within man's reach during the period of his probation? The hypothesis of a twofold recension of the Paradise story, while relieving this difficulty, would be of interest as showing that the narrative had undergone a development in Hebrew literature; but it does not materially aid the exegesis of the passage. The main narrative, which is complete, is that which speaks of the tree of knowledge; the other, if it be present at all, is too fragmentary to throw light on the fundamental ideas embodied in the story.

That this profoundly suggestive narrative is a literal record of a historic occurrence is an opinion now generally abandoned even by conservative theologians; and the view which tends to prevail amongst modern expositors is that the imagery is derived from the store of mythological traditions common to the Semitic peoples. It is true that no complete Babylonian parallel has yet been discovered; the utmost that can be claimed is that particular elements or motives of the Biblical story seem to be reflected in some of the Babylonian legends, and still more in the religious symbolism displayed on the monuments (tree of life, serpent, cherubim, etc.). These coincidences are sufficiently striking to suggest the inference that a mythical account of man's original condition and his fall existed in Babylonia, and had obtained wide currency in the East. It is a reasonable conjecture that such a legend, 'stripped of its primitive polytheism, and retaining only faint traces of what was probably its original mythological character, formed the material setting which was adapted by the [Biblical] narrator for the purpose of exhibiting, under a striking and vivid imaginative form, the deep spiritual truths which he was inspired to discern' (Driver). These spiritual truths, in which the real significance of the narrative lies, we must endeavour very briefly to indicate.

(1) The story offers, on the face of it, an explanation of the outstanding ills that flesh is heir to: the hard, toilsome lot of the husbandman, the travail of the woman and her subjection to man, the universal fate of death. These evils, it is taught, are inconsistent with the ideal of human life, and contrary to the intention of a good God. Man, as originally created, was exempt from them; and to the question, Whence came they? the answer is that they are the effect of a Divine curse to which the race is subject; though it is to be noted that no curse is pronounced on the first pair, but only on the serpent as the organ of temptation, and the ground which is cursed for man's sake.

(2) The consequences of the curse are the penalty of a single sin, by which man incurred the just anger of God. The author's conception of sin may be considered from two points of view. Formally, it is the transgression of a Divine commandment, involving distrust of the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty, and breaking the harmony which had subsisted between man and his Maker. The process by which these evil thoughts are insinuated into the mind of the woman is described with a masterly insight into the psychology of temptation which is unsurpassed in literature. But it is a mistake to suppose that the essence of the sin consists in the merely formal disobedience to a command arbitrarily imposed as a test of fidelity. There was a reason for the Divine injunction, and a reason for man's transgression of it; and the reasons are unambiguously indicated. To eat of the tree would make man like God, knowing good and evil; and God does not wish man to be like Himself. The essence of the sin is therefore presumption,