It's generally assumed that Gen. 3:1-8 is a decisive text for the Bible and that it states the premise for all that follows. This section describes how the first human beings are alienated from God through temptation and sin.

Ever since Augustine (354-430), the text has been treated as the fall which causes an ineradicable stain on the human soul called original sin. Although Augustine's theology has become the normative exposition for the church and the superstructure of its dogmatic tradition, his interpretation of Gen. 3:1-8 does not necessarily express the mind or intent of the 10th century writer of this narrative.

In order to describe a "fall", the writer finds it convenient to describe a primordial human pair who encounter a talking snake, a theme which had no appeal whatsoever to the 5th century writer of the first creation narrative (Gen. 1:1-2:4a).

The snake is one of the animals presumably created by God and brought to the man to be named, just like all of the other animals (Gen. 2:19). There is nothing to suggest that the snake is inherently evil or the person)fication of Satan as we find in a later tradition of interpretation. The snake is simply a device to introduce a new agenda in the story; a technique to move the plot. The snake is one of the players in this drama whose role should not be excessively interpreted.

But the snake is a trickster and very crafty. The essence of his craft is to persuade the man and woman to look for what is prohibited. Notice how the snake distorts God's original prohibition (Gen. 2:17) by suggesting that he had said not to eat from any of the trees in the garden (Gen. 3:1). The woman's reply corrects the snake's distortion but adds one of her own - "touching" (Gen. 3:2).

The conversation between the snake and the woman is the first "theological talk" in the Bible, talk which seeks to analyze and objectify matters of faithfulness. This is not speech to God or with God, but speech about God. The rhetoric of fidelity gives way to calculating speech that depicts God as a barrier to be circumvented.

The snake is temptation person)fied while man and woman are sin personified, not the woman more than the man but the two of them together. The text does not necessarily imply the inferiority or subordination of the woman to the man because she happens to be the first to yield to the temptation presented by the snake.

While the story depicts a 'Yall", it's not necessarily a fall in the sense that humankind is any thing else than it was before. The potential for transgression is always present in the human heart, for it's the nature of humankind to be prone to wrongdoing.

The writer of this narrative does not offer any ultimate explanation for the origin of evil, sin, and death. He merely confirms what several millennia of human history have observed, that human beings are created defective.

Fmally, there is nothing in the text to suggest that human sexuality itself is sinful. This comes much later when idealized Christian celibacy in the 4th century is retrojected to the garden. Gen. 3:1-8 is then the story of two "virgins" who sin, are punished with sexual awakening and desire, and then banished from the garden forever.