The Three Falls of Man

What the ancient reader understood from reading Genesis 1-11, is that there was not one single event to which one can ascribe all the ills and maladies of the world. Typically, we are taught in church that the Fall of Man in Genesis 3 is the whole and sole reason for everything that’s wrong with mankind and the world around him. There’s an element of core truth there, but it is usually overstated. Because ancient readers of the Bible knew full well that it was a series of rebellions that resulted in the hopeless condition of the world and the depravity of everything in it.

Breaking down the Primeval History, we are able to discern three major events that contributed to the problem of this fallen world. Event number one was, of course, the Fall, where the serpent robbed God’s image-bearers of their good standing with God by introducing sin. Adam bears full responsibility for his sin (and so do we for ours, by extension), but certainly, the sin did not occur until it was instigated by the serpent.

The second fall was, as we have seen, the fall of the angels, who taught illicit arts to humans and had forbidden unions with women, resulting in the Nephilim and their defilement and destruction of the human race (thus, a human fall).
​
The third and final event was the fall of civilization, demonstrated not in the building of a city but in the desire of the humans to exceed their divine mandate. What do these three “falls” have in common?
In each fall, there is the desire on the part of man to acquire power and knowledge that is the exclusive domain of the gods. The promise of the serpent delivered only the insatiable hunger that comes from realizing how much you lack something you were otherwise happy without.
The “sons of God” delivered on knowledge and even god-like power but at the cost of the very essence of humanity and the ravenous appetites of the flesh that were but a mere irritation before. The result was the near-total destruction of the human capacity to bear God’s image.
​
Nimrod’s offer to the world was to merge the human and the divine and restore the glory days that the Greeks later called “the Golden Age.” Ironically, this resulted in a “Silver Age” that never quite matched the imagined “glory” of the days of Noah. But the significance of the Babel event was not limited to the destructive force of giants. It went so far as to pervert world religion by facilitating the worship of a pantheon of corrupt, lesser, deities. Put simply, Babel was a transformation of world allegiance. The focus of the powers of darkness had shifted away from man’s capacity to bear the divine image. Now, the target was the allegiance of man to His Creator – if nothing could stop man’s capacity to represent Yahweh, then something had to be done about his desire to represent Him. But Nimrod can’t be credited with such evil genius. He is only remembered as a failure, a broken image, a man who tried to rule the world. He aspired to be a god but came to nothing.

- Excerpt from “Answers to Giant Questions” by T.J. Steadman.