Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a unique view of The Fall. For Jews and most Christians, The Fall was a terrible thing that doomed all of humanity to suffer a life of hard labor that ends in death. If Eve had not listened to the serpent, we all could have been born and raised in a beautiful garden where all our needs were met, and we were all happy. Latter-day Saints, however, see The Fall as essential for the purposes of God. In the Book of Mormon Jacob teaches "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25) In the Pearl of Great Price version of the creation story, Eve says "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which god giveth unto all the obedient." (Moses 5:11).
Let's look at the Biblical version of the Fall. We have three characters, Adam, his wife, and the serpent. Let's talk about the serpent. He is not named here, and the term Satan or Lucifer doesn't show up for hundreds of years. He mostly represents temptation, death, and hell. He is discribed as "subtile." I did a word chase on the Hebrew word used here, and it means either crafty in a pajorative sense, or clever in a positive sense. I think they chose the word subtile in the KJ because the word in English also means bendy, like a snake, but I don't think that meaning carries over to Hebrew. When he is cursed, God says, "Upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" (Gen 3:14). In a previous blog I talked about how later God calls Adam "dust" when he has sinned. In the Hebrew, as in many languages, the belly is associated with physical desire. In stories that follow we will see over and over again how physical desire leads people to rebell against God. Cain kills Able for his flocks, Esau sells his birthright for a bowl of pottage, and Kind David becomes a murderer because of his desire for Bathsheba. The Lord's pronouncement on the Serpent shows, symbolically, that rebellious people and those who give in to physical desire become prey to Death and Hell.
The Lord also says "I will put emnity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise they head and thou shalt bruise his heel." (Gen 3:15) The term used for "bruise" really is stronger than that. It is שופ pronounced, Shuph, and it is onomonopeic. It could be translated "wound" but suggests maybe "stomp" or "smite". The idea is that Eve's offspring will kill the serpent, but at the same time the serpent will rise up and attack the offspring. It is a powerful forshadowing of the Savior, who was killed, but in dying conquered death. One podcaster I listened to pointed out that it is the offspring of a woman, not the man's. This is another forshadowing of Jesus who had no mortal father, but did have a mortal mother.
Ok, this blog post is getting too long but I will add one more "ohhh" moment I had at the end of Gen 3. The Lord places Cheribim "east of the garden of Eden" "to keep the way of the tree of life." (Gen 3: 24) Two things about this verse. We will see in the next few stories that eastward=rebellion. Also, I never realized that this verse is why the veil in front of the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle has Cheribim on it. The Cheribim guard access to the presence of the Lord both in the garden and in the Temple. In a way the Temple is a symbol of the Garden of Eden and teaches us what to do to return to live with God as Adam did in the Garden.
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