{"id":3063,"date":"2009-10-06T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T11:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2009\/10\/living-outside-eden\/"},"modified":"2009-10-06T11:40:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-06T11:40:00","slug":"living-outside-eden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2009\/10\/living-outside-eden.html","title":{"rendered":"Living Outside Eden"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.episcopalcafe.com\/lead\/theology\/question_for_the_day_the_fall.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Lead<\/a> asked a question about how those of us who don\u2019t treat \u201cthe Fall\u201d as a literal description of a historical event <em>do<\/em> interpret it. Here\u2019s what I wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If by \u201cthe Fall\u201d what is being referred to is the story in Genesis 3, then I understand it as about \u201cadam\u201d in the Hebrew meaning of the term \u2013 it isn\u2019t a name, it is the word for \u201chuman being\u201d, and I take the story as being about us human beings in general.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201ceast of Eden\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cwalking with God\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nothing <a href=\"http:\/\/exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\/2007\/09\/teaching-genesis-creation-stories.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">I wrote<\/a> above is likely to surprise or be new to regular readers of this blog, but I thought I\u2019d share it nonetheless. Because liberal and moderate believers are often very articulate and outspoken about what we <i>don\u2019t<\/i> think\/believe, but we\u2019re not always as good at articulating what we think\/believe instead.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-5081340531905486114?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lead asked a question about how those of us who don\u2019t treat \u201cthe Fall\u201d as a literal description of a historical event do interpret it. Here\u2019s what I wrote: If by \u201cthe Fall\u201d what is being referred to is the story in Genesis 3, then I understand it as about \u201cadam\u201d in the Hebrew [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Living Outside Eden<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Lead asked a question about how those of us who don&#039;t treat &quot;the Fall&quot; as a literal description of a historical event do interpret it. Here&#039;s what I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2009\/10\/living-outside-eden.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Living Outside Eden\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Lead asked a question about how those of us who don&#039;t treat &quot;the Fall&quot; as a literal description of a historical event do interpret it. Here&#039;s what I\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2009\/10\/living-outside-eden.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-06T11:40:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-5081340531905486114?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. 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