GEN399 Perhaps the most striking instance of this divergence [between Jews and Christians in interpreting Scripture] is the role that the Paradise narrative in Genesis plays in both religions.  For traditional Christianity, the tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden is of transcendental significant; indeed, the entire Christian drama of salvation would be inconceivable without it.  Basing himself primarily upon the narrative of Adam and Eve in Genesis, Paul enunciated the Christian drama of salvation: Adam and Eve, disobeying the Divine will and eating of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, were guilty of the primal sin. The Fall of Adam placed an ineradicable stain upon all his descendants, who are doomed to perdition.  God, however, in His infinite live, sent His son to redeem mankind from the consequences of the Fall by his suffering.  Only faith in the Savior and his sacrifice can save mankind from perdition.  This doctrine of innate evil in man was maintained by various sectarian groups in Judaism at the beginning of the Christian era, as is clear from the Book of Baruch and the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The innovation of Christianity lay in the role of Jesus as Savior.  For traditional Christianity, the significance of Genesis is thus primarily theological.  Far less importance is attached to the Genesis narrative by normative Judaism.  For classical Judaism, the narrative reveals the strength of human weakness, the propensity to sin characteristic of men and women.  The transgression of Adam and Eve in disobeying God’s will is the first tragic illustration of this human trait, but Judaism finds no evidence in the text of Scripture that the sin in the Garden of Eden placed an eternal stain upon human nature.  It finds in Scripture a straightforward account of the punishment meted out upon all three sinners: the serpent, Eve, and Adam. … In sum, the snake is made to crawl upon its belly, woman must suffer pain in childbirth, and man must eke out his difficult existence by backbreaking toil.  Most important of all, by being driven out of the Garden of Eden, humanity loses access to the Tree of Life and thus is stripped of immortality, becoming subject to death.  [Genesis 3:22-23] In sum, the theological importance for normative Judaism of the Paradise narrative is comparatively slight and the divergence from the Christian view considerable.  For Christianity, man sins because he is a sinner; for Judaism, man becomes a sinner when he sins.  GORLAW 68-9