Fall of Man

The Fall of Man, or more simply The Fall, is one of the central events in the mythology of the Abrahamic faiths, but particularly in Christianity. The story is told in the third chapter of the Book of Genesis (following the accounts of The Creation in ch. 1 & 2), ending with Adam being placed in the Garden of Eden, with one command being given him: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." According to the second version of The Creation (Gen. ch. 2), God created Eve to be a companion to Adam at this point - i.e. the female is secondary to the male. This is not implied in chapter 1, where "male and female created he them": women and men were created simultaneously, and should, it appears, be equal.

The serpent, "more subtle than any beast of the field" (and usually equated, though not in Genesis, with Satan, for example by Milton) came to Eve and advises ('tempts', in the Christian tradition) Eve to eat of 'the Forbidden Tree' - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent says "Ye shall not surely die... your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Eve is persuaded, and eats the 'forbidden fruit', persuading Adam to do the same. The first knowledge they have is of the fact that they are naked: they take fig leaves as aprons.