Some
interpreters (both traditional and revisionist) have suggested a “fall upward”
approach to this text, which the “becoming like God” theme might suggest. Most
of these scholars have interpreted this understanding of fall negatively: human
beings transgress the limits of creatureliness and assume godlike powers for
themselves. Yet, this understanding of all and sin is insufficiently primal,
for it assumes a more basic problem, namely, mistrust. Other interpreters have
taken the “fall upward” theme in a positive direction (at least since Irenaeus
in the second century). In this view, human beings move out from under the
parental hand of God, a necessary move for a child on its way to true maturity.
Yet, in such an interpretation, God becomes the problem in the text, setting
the arbitrary limits in the first place, opposing maturity, and overreacting
when humans transgress them. The text gives a few suggestions that the human
lot actually improves, from either the divine or human perspective, as
relationships at every level fall apart. If the sin of the humans is minimized,
then so are the effects of the sin specified in 3:14-19, including the
patriarch that now ensues. At the same time, to speak of a fall in the sense of
falling “out” or “apart” would resonate well with this basic imagery that is
used throughout these chapters. (Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the
Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation [Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 2005], 71)
