The account in Genesis 3 of the fall of humans from their state of joyful peace in the garden of paradise has Eve tempted by the serpent who urges her to eat of the forbidden tree of knowledge - "You will be like gods, knowing good and evil". The drama asserts that "the core of sin is the attempt to replace God as the determiner of morality". The International Bible Commentary (1998) goes on: "Eve understood the command of God clearly enough. But both she and her husband desire to be like God, and agree to the sin. They are immediately aware of their lost innocence and the new strength of their sexual passions as they find themselves naked. Now they are indeed more knowledgeable..., but it is the 'practical' knowledge of sin's effects and its power in human actions".
This mysterious incident recognises that human nature is disfigured, but a person is not demeaned, and much of the Bible tells of individuals and the privileged nation being held to account for failure to uphold their responsibilities as humans. Also, they have retained an intimate relationship with their Maker. That is borne out in Psalm 130, the De profundis, used by Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire, among others, because of its vivid depiction of a life in the depths of an evil of the person's own making. The Commentary says here, "There is an interesting link established between [God's] forgiveness and fear: rather than the anger of the Lord it is divine goodness that should give rise in us a fear of offending God".
A third insight into the continued intimate relationship with our Maker is provided by Psalm 137, where the first line goes "Beside the streams of Babylon we sat and wept...", inspiring many artistic works, even into the 21st Century. The psalm focuses on the period of exile in Babylon. The Commentary offers this insight:
The ending of the psalm contains a famous and furious curse on the enemies of Israel. [Further,] a cruel beatitude is reserved for anyone who will avenge Israel by striking at Babylon and smashing its little ones against a rock. This embittered and rhetorical cry that ends the psalm is, however, an appeal to the divine judgment and should be interpreted in the light of the other 'imprecatory' psalms such as 58 and 109. It is a manifestation of the tragedy and despair of an oppressed people but also of the enfleshment of God's word in the emotions and historical experiences of humanity.
