In Christian doctrine, the fall of man, or simply the fall, was the transition of the first humans from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience to God. Though not named in the Bible, the concept for the Fall comes from Genesis chapter 3. Adam and Eve live at first with God in a paradise, but the serpent tempts them into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God forbade. After doing so they become ashamed of their nakedness and God consequently expelled them from paradise. The Fall is a story of disobedience and expulsion and is referred to in both Testaments.
Many Christian denominations believe that the fall corrupted the entire natural world, including human nature, causing people to be born into original sin, a state from which they cannot attain eternal life without the gracious intervention of God. Protestants hold that Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for the elect, so they may be redeemed from their sin, both actual and original. In other religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and Gnosticism, the term "the fall" is not recognised and varying interpretations of the Eden narrative are presented. The term "prelapsarian" refers to the sin-free state of humanity prior to the fall.
Read more about Fall Of Man: Literature
Famous quotes containing the words fall of man, fall of, fall and/or man:
“It was a quiet Sunday morning, with more of the auroral rosy and white than of the yellow light in it, as if it dated from earlier than the fall of man, and still preserved a heathenish integrity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touch’d it?
Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutch’d it?
Have you felt the wool of the beaver,
Or swan’s down ever?
Or have smelt of the bud of the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“‘Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too. What the declined is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“O how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours!
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have,
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)