Living Outside Eden

The Lead asked a question about how those of us who don’t treat “the Fall” as a literal description of a historical event do interpret it. Here’s what I wrote:

If by “the Fall” what is being referred to is the story in Genesis 3, then I understand it as about “adam” in the Hebrew meaning of the term – it isn’t a name, it is the word for “human being”, and I take the story as being about us human beings in general.

I understand the story as a mythical analysis of that common human experience that we all have and yet of which we cannot specifically date the occurrence, namely growing up, losing our innocence, becoming responsible for our obedience and disobedience.

Scientifically speaking this is largely hardwired into our biological makeup. But experientially and existentially, we often lament the loss of childlike innocence and long to return to it. But I think Genesis depicts not a historical loss of a perfection that we can one day hope to see restored, but a depiction in narrative form that the normal state of affairs for adult human life is existence outside or “east of Eden”.

I also think that the story (or at least, the wider Biblical narrative) invites us to rediscover even as adults who can no longer return to Eden as much as we can of that experience of simplicity and “walking with God”.

Nothing I wrote above is likely to surprise or be new to regular readers of this blog, but I thought I’d share it nonetheless. Because liberal and moderate believers are often very articulate and outspoken about what we don’t think/believe, but we’re not always as good at articulating what we think/believe instead.