The doctrine of sin . . . means that not everything that exists in the present ought to be as it now is. . . . Both good and evil are present after Genesis 3, but they are present asymmetrically. Evil is not original, nor will it linger forever. Genesis 3 tells us that evil is real and serious. . . . It also tells us that evil is not ultimate and not intrinsic to the nature of the world. . . . An important function of the fall in the biblical narrative is in fact, and perhaps a little surprisingly, to limit evil, to say that it is not original, that it has a beginning in history, and that it is not a future of humanity as originally created. . . . The biblical account of sin . . . limits evil . . . and legitimates hope and radical transformation.
——Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture, 159, 167-68