Talk:Fall of man

  1. Home
  2. Wiki

Atemporal fall section

[edit]

@Rafaelosornio: you noted "You should add a reference" with your undo of my brief section on the concept of an Atemporal fall. There are many references in the main article, and I will consider which of them is most helpful here. As I get that in place, please let me know if there is anything else to improve. Thank you for your help. Jjhake (talk) 16:11, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, @Rafaelosornio: I've reworked it with some references. Let me know of any other issues. Jjhake (talk) 16:29, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the title for "other interpretations" into "other traditions"

[edit]

Precisely this aren't just interpretations, but different traditions, accounts, and retellings of one original myth. For example, Islam doesn't interprete Genesis differently, it has its own variation (and probably not even based on Genesis, but on alternative sources actually available to late Antiquity Arabia), without snake, no tree of good and evil, angelic prostration etc, entirely absent in the Bible. And Gnosticism likewise has its own unique narrative. The Creator deity (Ialdabaoth) is neither YHWH (Judeo-Christian interpretation of the text) nor Eloha/El (Elohim the actual term used). The "Fall of Man", isn't a strict codified narrative, but a tradition passed through different myths through the areas of Mesopotamia, later spreading through Abrahamic religions, captured whenever a scripture based religion felt like canonizing their beliefs. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 01:18, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Cole Thomas Expulsion from the Garden of Eden 1828.jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for December 5, 2024. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2024-12-05. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you!  — Amakuru (talk) 10:33, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fall of man

The fall of man is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. The doctrine of the Fall comes from a biblical interpretation of Genesis, chapters 1–3. At first, Adam and Eve lived with God in the Garden of Eden, but a serpent tempted them into eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden. After doing so, they became ashamed of their nakedness and God expelled them from the Garden to prevent them from eating the fruit of the tree of life and becoming immortal. The narrative of the Garden of Eden and the fall of humanity constitute a mythological tradition shared by all the Abrahamic religions. The fall of man has been depicted many times in art and literature. This 1828 oil-on-canvas painting, titled Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, by Thomas Cole (1801–1848), is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

Painting credit: Thomas Cole

The "condemnation" upon Eve

[edit]

Genesis 3:16 (NRSV), emphasis is mine:

I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

The part about the relationship between man and woman is omitted in the "Genesis 3" chapter. Which is the correct way to refer to it? Complete omission violates NPOV, since this particular part of the condemnation is controversial. Nxavar (talk) 11:35, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 24 August 2025

[edit]
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) CNC (talk) 14:18, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fall of man → Genesis 3 – With the present Genesis 3 moved to Genesis 3 (disambiguation) or possibly superseded by a hatnote in this article.

"Fall of man" is a strikingly Christian POV characterization of this narrative, and I'm surprised no one has raised this as an issue before. The phraseology is rather foreign in Jewish analysis throughout history.

Compare exegetic chapter headings between "The Fall" given by the ESV, a more explicitly confessional and Christian translation – versus "The First Sin and Its Punishment" given by the NRSV(ue), its sister translation with a more ecumenical philosophy, that is preferred by the current critical scholarly consensus. Remsense 🌈 论 09:40, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Judaism, WikiProject Bible, and WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard have been notified of this discussion. Remsense 🌈 论 09:41, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(I understand that some may want to preserve this article as being focused on the Christian tradition—in which case its content should be tightened up some, and Genesis 3 would very much need to be pointed elsewhere, likely Book of Genesis.) Remsense 🌈 论 09:46, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: as anyone can see by reading the article itself, the topic of Adam's fall is covered among all three major Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), as well as Gnosticism. It would be a totally unhelpful and misleading move. GenoV84 (talk) 16:06, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @GenoV84:, I'm sorry to be a further pain, but I really don't see where the rabbinic traditions surrounding this chapter are in this article. They are presently siloed off in Bereshit (parashah) where most people absolutely don't know they're there. At the barest minimum, it's unacceptable that Genesis 3 presently opaquely shuffles you here.
    As I said, and as the article already explicitly makes clear, fall of man is an alien phrase to Jewish exegesis. The Christian conception of the fall's magnitude and rammifications for salvation is likewise. So, is this article meant to be about the narrative and each of the traditions about it, or is it meant to focus on the Christian tradition, and contrast some others on the side? That is how it's presently written, as other oppose votes seemed to prefer. If it's meant to equally represent the Jewish tradition, fall of man is simply inappropriate. As I tried to state but the opposes so far haven't really engaged with, it's just as much a WP:NPOVTITLE case any anything else that "pits" two faith traditions' nomenclature against one another. Remsense 🌈 论 23:39, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Remsense: I saw the notification to this requested move on my watchlist and decided to drop my viewpoint, that's all about it. You don't need to take it personally, either. Regarding the content of the article itself and the other editors' opinions, changing the current title to Genesis 3 would be an unbalanced, too strict interpretation of Adam's fall, as this myth may appear to be exclusively relevant to a Christianocentric (or at best, Judeo-Christian) worldview, hence referring to the Christian Bible alone while forgetting about all the other sacred texts that cover the same mythological biography (Chapter 7 of the Quran in Islam, Bereshit Rabba in the rabbinic literature of Judaism, and some Gnostic texts). All things considered, changing the current title to Genesis 3 may not be the best course of action, as the fall of Adam and Eve is a common myth shared by the aforementioned Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic faiths.... which means, and I'm quoting Fedjmike here, that it deserves an article of its own regardless of Chapter 3 in the Book of Genesis. GenoV84 (talk) 02:46, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Remsense: Sorry for my first reply to your requested move, I didn't mean to come out as inconsiderate or unsympathetic towards you. I know that my communication style can be laconic at times. Perhaps, moving the article to Fall of Adam and Eve may be a better solution, per WP:NEUTRAL and WP:DUE. GenoV84 (talk) 03:04, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I am still not sure what the ideal structure of these articles would be. There is a bit of overlapping segmentation going on in exegesis, of course: Genesis 1–2 are generally considered the "creation narratives", while Genesis 2–3 are generally considered the "Garden of Eden story", for which we ostensibly have the articles Genesis creation narrative and Garden of Eden respectively?
    Assuming this article's scope should be for the narrative of Genesis 3 and its interpretations (which I'm still not sure about) the term "fall" is the POV part, to be clear: while Jewish tradition does not see the events of Genesis 3 as positive, the notion of "fall" is very explicitly generated within the Christian tradition to contrast with the salvific rise by and through Christ. I agree very much that a decently descriptive and recognizable title would be best, and I've been trying to think of one. Disobedience and punishment of Adam and Eve comes to mind, adapted from the heading Garden disobedience and punishment for the commentary in New Oxford Annotated Bible.[1] Remsense 🌈 论 20:19, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I do not know enough about Judaism to make a judgement about it. I only vaguely remember that some Kabbalah teachings had some ideas but I do not know enough to place it into the correct historical context. I agree that "Fall" is a Christian concept. In Islam, there is no "Fall of Adam". Adam in Islam was supposed to be an earthly being from the beginning. Maybe the inclusion of Islam is a remnant from the time when the Islam section consisted of Original Research and was basically a: "hey look how the Quran tells that story >inserts Quran quotes<" I then decided to improve the quality by removing the original research and add some critical sources. But honestly, it would have been best to just remove the section entirely. In the end, there is no "Fall of Man" in Islam, and it seems, not in Judaism either. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 22:24, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is possible, even likely, that the fall of man doctrine should have its own article, one that would then be summary-styled in the article about the narrative itself (which others who have stated a position seem to think should exist). My thinking starting this RM was that this article effectively purports to circumscribe the narrative itself as its topic to readers, but if the emerging consensus is that a new "parent" article should be created for the narrative akin to Genesis creation narrative, with this article remaining as it is, then that seems totally reasonable too. Remsense 🌈 论 22:27, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My issue with the idea of focusing on the narrative, something which the article effectively does right now, is that it implicitly proposes a potentially anachronistic Bible-centrisim. It may be better to focus on what we know rather then diving into speculation. And we know that the motif of Fall of Man exists in Christianity and has a rich tradition about its theological meaning. References to similar topics, such as Adam in Islam or "Garden Eden" or Gnostic views on Adam can be added to the See also section. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 23:40, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Right, the focus on the narrative would be Bible-centric in that it would touch on textual and source criticism etc., but it would hopefully be clear to distinguish from traditions about and influenced by said narrative. Remsense 🌈 论 23:42, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: Fall of man is a motif, even though I agree that the article is structurally flawed. The main-body is clearly about Christianity not about "traditional views" and the reference to Genesis 3 is only relevant for the Judeo-Christian tradition. Gnostic sects and Islamic interpretations are clearly inspired by the same myth, but they may not fall under the motif of "Fall of Man". I would suspect parallels in Greek mythology/philosophy. Whether or not we can keep the other sub-sections would depend on reliable sources making a connection between Islam, Gnosticism, etc. and the Fall of Man motif. It shouldn't be just a retelling of a Christian myth in a Quranic or Gnostic fashion. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 21:55, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: While this sort of consolidation of theological concepts with their scriptural foundations is appropriate in some circumstances, this is not one of them. Cracking open my copy of The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church,[2] this subject is covered on page 597 under the heading Fall, the. We're discussing one of the primary theological concepts in Christianity: that the world/man is fallen, necessitating the redemption that Christians hold Jesus brought. As noted above, there's an excellent case for breaking out Genesis 3 into its own article, as there's an incredible amount of exegesis and critical study of that chapter on its own merits. Simultaneously, the notion of the Fall is extrapolated on substantially in other scriptural and foundational Christian texts in such a manner that synonymizing it to Genesis 3 narrows the subject too much. Summoned by ping from OP on my talk page—thanks for the kind invitation to this discussion! ~ Pbritti (talk) 02:34, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    To further elaborate on responses to the previously mentioned alternatives formulated as Fall of X, I don't see a case that convinces me. The Disobedience alternatives are a bit off the mark, as that again narrows the subject specifically to Adam and Eve. To further reject the case for Genesis 3, Cross & Livingstone's description of the Fall actually opens in Genesis 2 and winds its way through Origen and Pelagianism. ~ Pbritti (talk) 02:41, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment/Question In traditional Jewish/rabbincial teachings, through what lens and perspective is Genesis 3 tought? If there was a common english phrase ascribed to the lessons and story/history presented, do what degree would it align with the majority of the content of the existing artcile? Is this simply a problem with the English phrase, or is the topic itself quite differently presented? TiggerJay (talk) 04:28, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Coogan, Michael; Brettler, Marc; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol, eds. (2018). "Genesis 3". The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha (5th ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-19-027607-2.
  2. ^ Cross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (1997). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.). London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-211655-X.
  • Comment: Per the sources in the article: "The phrase fall of man does not appear in Jewish scripture" and the Eastern Orthodox reject the concept. I went through several years of theology classes in school and a few years of Sunday school in Greece, and I had never even heard the story of Adam and Eve described as a fall of some kind. The current title seems awkward to me, and the Eastern theological teachings in the article's content emphasize that what changed in Adam and Eve was not "sin". It changed their "hierarchy of values" from theocentricism to anthropocentrism. We cite Maximus the Confessor for the concept that humans are born with innate tendencies for both good and evil, two versions of thelema (θέλημα, will) in opposition. I am not certain if the article's title reflects that concept of human duality and inner conflict. Dimadick (talk) 05:57, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that comment. At least some auhtors use the term: The Motif of the Fall of Man in the "Romancero del Rey Rodrigo" on JSTOR,Adam and Eve (The Fall of Man) - Digital Collection, or similar ones: The Original Sin: Humanism and the Motif of the Fall of Adam – O Captain! My Captain!
However, if Judaism explicitly lacks such motif, it should be treated as a Christian (maybe Western Christian) one? VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 12:59, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.