QUESTION No. 20- SUNDAY August 30, 2026
Q. Who committed the first original sin?
I’ll admit I’ve always been baffled by the concept of “original sin”. How could one man’s disobedience lead to the world becoming flooded with evil, sin, and death?
Stories are easier to remember and retell if we dumb them down. The apple story is no different.
“The Fall” - Adam eating an apple and getting tossed from paradise - seems rather simple, perhaps better suited to an instructional cartoon than the canonical source of human wickedness.
“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”
- Romans 11:33
While seemingly simple, the story of original sin in Genesis 2 and 3 is immensely intricate and richly nuanced. We can only begin to scratch the surface of the true meaning here.
What exactly was the first original sin?
Who did the sinning?
And what happened as a result?
.....
God gifted Adam with a superpower still shared by angels and humans today - free will. In the garden, Adam made a choice based upon knowledge specifically given by God - a single prohibition and the sobering result if disobeyed.
“But 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.”
- Genesis 2:17
Free will, however, was not the problem. The freedom to choose is not the reason for sin; it creates the potential.
Through free will, we possess the capacity to submit or resist, to love or reject love, to walk with God in the garden for eternity or forge our own path and walk forever alone.
A WORD ON THE WORD: Ancient Hebrew was written mainly with consonants. Vowels were added centuries later. The scarcity of vowels can lead to far-reaching interpretations of a similar word, while also opening possibilities for potential poetic connections. The three-consonant root (n-h-sh) of the word “serpent” in Genesis 3 summons snake, diviner, and shining one simultaneously.
• nahash-serpent
• nahash - to practice divination
• nehoshet - the shine of burnished metal
Certain biblical scholars often cast the figure in Eden as a shining divine being who deals in hidden, insider knowledge. Not one who commands by loud pronouncement but merely suggests with low, murmured consultation.
The story of original sin is often told as follows: “Against God’s command, Adam ate the forbidden fruit - an apple - and was cast out of Eden along with his wife Eve.” Oddly the word “apple” never appears anywhere in either Genesis 2 or 3.
And it was not Adam but Eve who took the first bite. The text is quite clear: Eve was tempted by the serpent and she ate - a direct act of disobedience against God’s order.
That’s not to say Adam remained free from blame. He may have sinned not once but twice.
Not only did he taste of the same forbidden fruit when offered by Eve, but Adam sinned even before Eve opened her mouth. When the serpent spoke softly and seduced Eve to disobey, the Bible says Adam was “with her”.
“…she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
- Genesis 3:6
But Adam did nothing. He stood silently by as Eve sank her teeth into the delicious offering.
Humankind’s first man and husband failed to prevent his wife from breaking God’s commandment.
Should this negligence be considered sin #1?
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
- Genesis 3:4-5
Based upon these scriptural facts, should the story of The Fall be reordered? Eve was seduced and took the first bite – sin #2. Adam present throughout the encounter but fails to act – sin #1.
However, as mentioned, the story is never that simple.
Genesis 3 nowhere mentions the name Satan nor associates Satan directly with the serpent. In fact, we won’t learn about the serpent-Satan connection explicitly until the very end of the Bible, in Revelation.
However, Genesis 3 does explicitly state that the crafty serpent spoke. But he did not goad, or taunt, or command Eve to eat the fruit. He simply stated his opinion and asked a question.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
– Genesis 3:1
One simple question cunningly loaded with intrigue and dripping with insinuation distorted Eve’s perception and altered her supple mind. What God had created for good - Eden as the ultimate human reality - the serpent’s guile twisted and poisoned with doubt.
His simple question introduced a possibility Eve apparently had never considered: perhaps God could not be trusted.
Was God withholding something?
Was God somehow threatened?
Was becoming God, or even God-like, a possibility?
And so, she ate.
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.”
- Genesis 3:6
Satan and his fellow divine beings were created by God to serve Him and rule over a defined territory - the supernatural realm. Then God created man from clay, made a woman from his rib, and placed them both in the garden with specific instructions - rule and have dominion over the Earth.
“God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them,
“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.
Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
- Genesis 1:27-28
The angels would not rule God’s earthly creation but would be limited only to their heavenly domain.
And the next bit of news must have come as quite a shock. They would come to serve God as well as the newly formed creatures of Earth, and in the end, be judged by them.
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet.”
- Psalm 8:4-6
The serpent later identified as Satan appeared in the garden and managed to corrupt human innocence. His intent appears premeditated.
With a single question he turned humankind against God.
Should Satan’s question then be considered the first and greatest sin of all – the catalyst that precipitated the Fall?
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This opinion – that the serpent’s question to Eve was “the original sin” - is not widely endorsed by biblical scholars. However, Scripture does not sequence what sin was committed first - human or divine being. Nowhere in the Bible is the precise timeline of Satan’s rebellion found.]
BoBQ Vol. 5 pg. 85-86