And [the] LORD God commanded the man saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)
We’ve all heard the story. When God created the world, he put the first people into a paradise. They had it made, but Eve started talking to a snake, and ended up eating the forbidden apple. Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden, had some children, and a few millennia later, here we are.
The trouble is, what does any of that mean? Read the first three chapters of Genesis. This is supposed to be the explanation for how humanity came into existence, and how we came into our current obviously flawed condition. We’ve got a garden, a woman, a talking snake, and some sort of magic apple that turns people into sinners. Isn’t it ridiculous to take this story literally?
Much of our understanding of this story has been colored by tradition and superstition, so much so that many people insist that it must mean something other than what it plainly says. How much of our understanding is based on the Bible, and how much on tradition? Why not take the story literally?
The Bible actually says very little about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It certainly doesn’t tell us that the fruit was an apple. That tradition came much later. In chapter 3 of Genesis, the Bible records that the tree’s fruit appealed to Eve, on several levels, but ascribes no intrinsic value or virtue to the tree or it’s fruit. The closest the Bible ever comes to that is Genesis, chapter 3, verse 5:
For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
However, you’ll notice that these are actually the words of the serpent, Satan, although, in a sense, he’s telling the truth. But what does it mean to know good and evil, and how did this tree have that kind of power? Look again at the verses I quoted at the beginning of this article, and note the key phrase, “God commanded.”
Adam and Eve already knew good. They lived it every day. They had communion with God, relationship with each other, health, peace, food, water, comfort and safety. They had work and purpose, and no worries.
They did not know evil. Adam spent time every day in the company of God, he was no fool. He knew what God meant when he heard the command not to eat from the tree. He understood that it was possible to disobey. He knew what it meant to die as punishment. Of course he understood these things, he had just never experienced them.
The tree had no mystical power, it was just a fruit tree. It was simply a choice. God said, “Don’t eat from that tree.” Hanging on this one tree was the one and only opportunity in existence to disobey God. God’s command could have been anything from “Don’t eat from this tree” to “Don’t sit on that rock.” Maybe it never mattered what the command was, only that there was a command, and an opportunity to disobey it.
It was only the one tree, Adam and Eve certainly wouldn’t have gone hungry had they left it alone. The Bible doesn’t say, but I suspect that the tree was unique, so there would be no way to mistake its fruit for any other. Adam and Eve would have to choose and act deliberately to disobey the command, and that is the whole point. Evil began with a choice.
In making this choice, Adam and Eve began to know evil. For the first time, they experienced fear and doubt. They knew God’s warnings already, but now had to wait for the reality of the consequences of their actions. Through their choice, they learned pain and death. They learned both disobedience and its consequences. So we see, it was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, not because it was of any special nature, but because it was forbidden by God’s command.
Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)