"In spite of what the Christian doctrine of original sin claims, we are not guilty simply by virtue of having been born as children to parents who fell from perfection. Nevertheless, the myth is still eloquent and instructive not because it describes an ancient catastrophe, but because it expresses permanent human realities."

* from The Myth of Original Sin - Richard Holloway *

I think I quite like the story of the fall of humanity in the Hebrew Scriptures. Peel away the neurosis of the readings of the church fathers, it has a freshness and vitality that speaks of truth for a long time more to come.

It is essentially a masterful religious narrative that juxtaposes millions of years of human evolution with the archetypal story of a young person entering into adulthood. On a level, there's this quaint representation of youth, in a neverland garden doing things like naming animals and having asexual relations with a member of the opposite sex. Added to the humour is the representating of the Divine as a Big Daddy figure, telling the boy to eat this, and not to eat that.

But the story, of course, is about losing that innocence and moving into adulthood - and woven into the story are adult themes that we still struggle with.

It is a story about humankind growing up with the realization of death - "You shall surely die". To understand the full import of the story, we have to realize that the narrative was written in the context of a lack in a belief in the afterlife. You shall surely die. Period. No resurrection. No second chance. Just nihilism.

It is a story about humankind growing up with the realization that in the face of death, we live in suffering. Before we kick the bucket, we toil, we labour; and any process of giving life to others, we must pay the cost of labour pain.

It is a story about humankind growing up with moral progress. A story about how we can't be satisfied with simply obeying father figures, with experimenting with transgression. A story about how we learnt to listen to the 'other voices' even if from the culturally most repugnant.

It is a story of human growth that carries no turning back into the garden of Eden because of the realization that 'we are naked'. Epiphany drives us from places of comfort. The disciples of Jesus, having witnessed the Epiphany on Tibor are immediately driven to another hill named Golgotha. Jesus, having experienced the Epiphany from John at the River Jordon is immediately driven to the wilderness. The wise sages at Bethlehem, having witnessed the Epiphany is driven to witness the massacre of the holy Innocents. And the world, having celebrated two millenia of the Nativity must confront the Innocents of today, not devoured by human cruelty, but by the arbitrariness of natural forces.

So exiled from Eden, we wonder what is next. Genesis is a story about the beginning and our lives are the continuation of that narrative. And if it is a story about the Fall, then it is a fall upwards because now we have to rely on our own resilient strength, stripped of the illusions of 'walking with God in the coolness of the evening'. No wonder we need greater faith - of a different kind.