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,→Interpreting Genesis
==Interpreting Genesis==
Orthodox interpretations of the first chapters of[[Book of Genesis | Genesis]] inform the Church's interpretation view of sexuality. There God is credited with the origin of life on earth, the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:22), and human sexual differentiation (Gen. 1:27, cf. 2:18 ff). While the Church is not committed to a literal interpretation of the Creation story, or the historicity of Adam and Eve, it insists that the story is nevertheless "true," at least typologically.
In the patristic tradition, marriage is a consequence of the fall of the protoplasts. Athanasius the Great remarks that in God's initial plan for man, marriage was not part of it: But the transgression of the commandment brought in marriage because Adam transgressed the law given to him by God. Adam’s fall, which resulted to death, created the need of putting on ''"garments of skin"'' (Gen. 3:2). This garment is interpreted as man adapting to the condition that was created after the Fall and does not belong to the pre-Fall condition; it does not belong to the condition of the Kingdom of God. St. Gregory of Nyssa elaborates on the ''"irrational skin,"'' saying what man put on includes the following: marital relations, procreation, food, growth, old age and death, none of which will exist in the transformation and assimilation of humanity in the Kingdom of Heaven.
