Genesis 6 or Genesis 3: Depravity

"Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was continually only evil" (Genesis 6:5). This sweeping verdict — not Eden — is the moment the Old Testament actually names, in so many words, the full depth of human corruption.
That is a striking textual detail. Look closely and Eden never actually gets blamed for this in so many words — Genesis 3 tells us rebellion entered the world, but nowhere does the text stop and declare humanity's heart universally, continually corrupted. That specific verdict waits until right here, on the eve of the flood, coming directly on the heels of the Watcher rebellion just described in the verses before it. It is a detail later Jewish writers from the Second Temple period clearly picked up on too — when they go looking for where the deepest rot in human nature actually started, many of them point past Eden to this moment instead. This does not displace Genesis 3 from its place as the first and foundational rebellion in the biblical story; it simply recognizes that Scripture presents a widening pattern of corruption rather than a single, self-contained event that explains everything that follows.
Eden opened the crack: "she took some of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too" (Genesis 3:6). But it is only after a second, far larger rebellion — this time supernatural in scope — that the text is finally willing to say the wound had become total. Two rebellions, not one, describe how deep the damage actually ran.