Evangelicals are no strangers to the debate over creation and evolution. Now the battle has spread from the contents of the creation account into Genesis 2-3 and the historicity of Adam and therefore the Fall. What, then, is at stake? Is this merely an ivory-tower debate or can it actually impact the Christian life? The faculty of The Master's College have here come together to contend that the second and third chapters of Genesis are indeed historical, that there are excellent reasons for believing so, and that it is an essential issue within Christian thought and life. The contents of these chapters become the history of how everything in the world came to be what it is today, its reflection in an account in our everyday lives. This Scripture--Chapter 3 especially--explains what we observe in the legal system, literature, gender roles, education, psychology, and science. Therefore the issue of the theology and historicity is not irrelevant, but something critical to our everyday lives. What Happened in the Garden? includes new research, scientific, literary, business, educational, and legal perspectives.

This multi-disciplinary approach strengthens the conclusion of the contributors that to change our understanding of the Fall is to change the way we understand reality, and a shift in the Christian worldview and the faith itself.