How Does the Fall Fit within the Hebrew Bible | John Collins
Channel: Henry Center
Date: 16/07/2019

Lecture Title: The Place of the Fall in the Overall Vision of the Hebrew Bible

The notion of the “fall” of Adam and Eve, our first parents, has played an important role in Jewish and Christian theology. It has been used to explain the “brokenness” of the world, and it has also been declared unbiblical, or at least of little historical and theological consequence. This paper will focus on sound reading strategies and show, first, why we should indeed read the Hebrew Bible as presenting the “fall” as a reality. Second, it will consider some of the consequences (for humankind, and for the non-human creation). Third, it will show its importance in the rest of the Bible beyond Genesis 1–11. Finally, it will take up the matter of the enduring relevance of the “fall,” and how the world can still be called “good.”

C. John “Jack” Collins (PhD University of Liverpool) is Professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, and was a Senior Research Fellow for The Creation Project. He was Old Testament Chairman for the English Standard Version of the Bible, and is author of Did Adam and Eve Really Exist?: Who They Were and Why You Should Care (Crossway, 2011) and Reading Genesis Well: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1-11 (Zondervan, 2018).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

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