TOPIC: The First Fall and Original Sin: The Story of Adam and Eve

:
Teaching Learning
Activities
l- Understanding the Message:
A.) Sacred Scripture: GENESIS 3:1-24- The Fall
Guide Questions:
Who is Adam in the story?
Adam in the story also took part of eating the fruit which God forbidden them to eat, he did not do
anything to stop her wife from eating and because he listened to his wife to eat the fruit he also
committed sin from God.
Who is Eve in the story?
Eve is the one who tempted by the snake to eat the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and evil, because out
of curiosity that she broke God’s rule not to eat the fruit.
What kind of life given to them?
God have given them the life that will suffer them and cursed not the man but the things around them, make it more
difficult to live in.
How did the serpent tempt Adam and Eve?
Because the snake is the very cunning of all the wild animals, he tempted adam and eve most likely eve, he said that
the fruit of the tree will not kill them instead if they eat the tree they will be like gods, who knows what is good and
what is right, and the woman saw that tree was desirable for gaining wisdom and then she eat it give some to his
husband and their eyes were both opened.
What is the consequence of temptation?

Why is there sin and evil in the world?

What does original sin mean?
How does the church teaching explain on original sin?
What do you mean by concupiscence?
THE FALL

If God is good and all of His creation is good, why is there evil in this world? Why is there so much suffering? Where does evil
come from?
It is the story of man and woman sharing the same nature and dignity, as woman has been taken from man, truly fitting helpmate
of man. They enjoyed God’s superabundant blessings in the garden of Eden.
They were in his friendship characterized by closeness and familiarity. “They were both naked yet they felt no shame”(2:25) This
means that man and woman were in the state of innocence. They had no cause to feel shame.
They partook of all the bounty of the garden except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The moment they are of its
fault, they would die. To die here meant to be cut off, driven from the garden, and excluded from the friendship and communion
with God.

Genesis 3:1:24

This account was clearly a symbolic story. The author of Genesis used this story to describe the reality of sin and evil. Even the
name Adam was not the name of one particular historical person named Adam. Adam in the Hebrew language meant simply
“man”. Eve meant “the living one”. So Adam and Eve in this symbolical account were the symbolical representatives of the origin
of the human race.

Vs. 3:1-6
Jewish and Christian interpretations, always saw in the serpent the ancient enemy called Satan. These verses showed how the
serpent tempted the woman. He first distorted the command of God. He said that they would not die if they ate of the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In fact if they of the fruit, they would be like God, in their knowing good and evil.

To be like God: this was the root of the temptation. God created man and woman unto his image and likeness, but according to
God’s ways and his means. The temptation was to be like God, independent of God and according to one’s own ways and
means. The woman, seeing how pleasing the fruit was to the eyes, good to eat, and very desirable for the knowledge it could
give, ate of the fruit and gave some to her husband to eat.

Vs. 3:7-13

The author of Genesis showed in these verses the consequences of sin. After they ate the forbidden fruit, they lost their
innocence. They realized they were naked and were ashamed. So they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
coverings. Gone were their friendship and intimacy with God, for now they, afraid of him, went hiding from his sight. Gone were
their oneness and communion with God. And gone too were their oneness and communion with one another. The man blamed
the woman and woman blamed the serpent.

Vs. 14-15

The snake was cursed, condemned to crawl on its belly, eat dirt and be forever the enemy of the woman and all her offspring's.
The divine condemnation of the serpent, was a prophecy of Satan’s defeat, a hope for humankind. We saw the picture of a man
crushing the head of the serpent, but the serpent’s fangs, however, were fixed in the man’s heel, waiting to wound it. (“He shall
crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel.”) This meant that the weapons of evil would constantly to attack human
beings.

Vs. 16-20

With death (which means separation from God) came pain and suffering. Childbearing which was essentially part of a Woman
would no longer be equal with men, as God created them to be. This suggested that the woman’s inferiority and subordination to
man were not intended by God but were the results of sin.

The man was not cursed but the earth was cursed because of man’s misdeeds. Now his tilling and tending of the earth would be
difficult. Thorn and thistles would grow on the very ground that he would till. Thus, he would endure a hard life until he returned to
the earth where he came from.

Vs. 21-24

The man was not cursed but the earth was cursed because of man’s misdeeds. Now his tilling and tending of the earth would be
difficult. Thorn and thistles would grow on the very ground that he would till. Thus, he would endure a hard life until he returned to
the earth where he came from.

Punishment was not the last word. In a very subtle but significant gesture, God’s clothing them was a sign of covering their
shame, thus was a sign of healing and reconciliation. Having sinned by eating of the forbidden fruit in the garden, they were
removed by God from the occasion of further sinning by sending them out of the garden to find their way in to the ordinary world.

The story of the fall, in its rich use of symbols, showed us that sin and evil did not come from God but resulted from the free
choice of human beings. The story of sin in Genesis continued in Cain’s murder of his brother Abel (4:1-16); in the widespread
sin of the human populace in the story of the Tower of Babel (10:32-11:9). All these stories showed the progression of sin and
the growing separation of God and humankind. In Genesis 12, God reached out to humankind, in his call to Abraham, that he
might once again be a God in their midst and of their hearts.

B.) Church Teaching: CFC 373, 374

In rebelling against God, man and woman destroyed their original harmony with:
-each other (“they realized they were
 naked”),
others (Cain’s murder of his brother
Abel),
the community (Tower of Babel),
nature (“cursed be the ground…”) (cf. CCC 400)
Finally, since man and his wife were now excluded from partaking of the fruit of the tree of life (Gen.3:22-24), death would be
theirs, “For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return” (Gen.3:19)

CFC 374

The Genesis narrative presents three moments with which we are all very familiar: temptation, sin and judgment. But we must
not imagine that the author of Genesis is present in the Garden of Eden. Rather, his account is a divinely inspired interpretation
of the situation of sin in the world of his own day. Where all this evil does came from? What is the origin of this condition of
universal sinfulness?

The Genesis narrative of “The Fall” is the inspired Scriptural response to this fundamental human question of every age. Not God
but the original man and woman are the source of moral evil. And not just “Everyman” like the Medieval plays but the first
members, the origin, of our human race. This alone can explain the universality of evil in our race, and the moral evil which we
experience in our world today. Yet the final biblical word is not that “human beings are evil” but that “God is Savior.”

The CFC teaches the following points:

1. The root of sin is pride and disobedience. It is wanting to be like God, but without God, ahead of God, and not according to
God. Separated from God, human beings lose their sense of peace and harmony with themselves, with others, with community
and with nature. This is what sin does. It upsets the order of values and turns upside down the harmony governed by God’s Law.
2. The Genesis story should not be read as a strictly historical account, with the author narrating what he has actually seen and
witnessed. Rather, using rich symbols, he uses a story to reflect on the situation of sin in his own times. Divinely inspired by God,
he seeks to understand more deeply why there is evil and suffering in a world that has been created by a good God. He offers us
a deep insight into the drama of evil, in the three moments of temptation, sin and judgment.

3. God is not the source of evil; the first members, the origin of the human race, are, through the sinful use of freedom. And
because evil has come through the origin of the human race, evil has touched all men and women. It is universal. We are all born
into a sinful word.

Summary:

A. To God is good and all that He has created is good. The presence of evil in the world is due to the sinful exercise of human
freedom by men and women who seek to be like God, but without God, ahead of God, and not according to God.

B. Sin has its own consequences. Divine punishment is actually the consequences of sin, which is a violation of one’s person in
relation to God and others.

C. Sin is not the final word. Redemption is. God is always ready to save, to offer renewal and reconciliation.

REFLECTION : Why is there sin and evil in the world?

ASSESSMENTS :
Questions to Ponder:
1. Why is there evil in the world according to the story of Genesis and the Church Teaching?
2. What is the truth about God, the human person, the reality of sin and evil based on the story of Genesis?
3. What do you say about people excusing their sinning by saying, “Sapagka’t tayo’y tao lamang?”
4. What does original Sin mean?
5. Why does the Bible treat of original sin?

ASSIGNMENTS :
 Read and Summarize: CFC 373, 376-83, 1601-04.
EXPANDED
OPPORTUNITY Research The Concupiscence and the Capital Sins
RESOURCES: Maturing in Jesus Christ: Sr. Mary Rosella U. Faypon, SPC, Ed.D.
Manual- Revelation and Faith in the Old Testament
Bible (New American version)
CFC
CCC
Theology for Teachers