My Orthodox translation offers no insight as to God’s motivation, but I note that it translates it as “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad”. (The Hebrew word ra can mean “evil”, but it can also mean “misfortune”, without the connotation of moral judgment).
So maybe it’s not about “sin” or immorality at all. Maybe before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve lived in a state of perfect mindfulness and radical acceptance of each moment. Afterward they started to experience certain events and feelings as “bad”, and so the experience of human suffering came into the world.
That doesn’t gel with the Christian notion that the act was the original sin. A sin, a moral failing, the greatest moral failing of all, not the mere experience that there are bad things in life.
Some have interpreted it as showing that humanity’s greatest desire should be for knowledge; it first says that Eve first saw that the tree was beautiful, and that its fruit was delicious, but still obeyed God’s command not to mess with it. Only when she realized that it was a source of wisdom was she tempted into eating
Yes, well, the doctrine of original sin is a huge load of crap IMO. And obviously this book wasn’t written by Christians, so it’s not surprising it doesn’t perfectly reflect their theology. (To be clear, I am not claiming that my quasi-Buddhist interpretation is widely accepted by anyone, I just came up with it on my own).
The sages of the Talmud actually discuss what fruit it was, and the different answers they give are grape, fig and wheat. None of them say apple or pomegranate.
If you’re accepting any part of an Abrahamic religion, you have to accept that God is omnipotent and omniscient. Those are two of his defining characteristics.
This means that when God started creating the universe, he already knew the outcome of events. He knew that Adam and Eve would disobey his rule. And he could have changed the circumstances so that didn’t happen. So we have to conclude it was God’s intent for Adam and Eve to disobey him and fall from grace.
Which raises the question of why God didn’t just create Adam and Eve in a position outside of his grace. Why did God create them to fall? This suggests that it was the act of them falling rather than the state of them being fallen which was important to God.
Hmmm.
I don’t think that is true for the original writers/editors of the early part of the Bible. There are clearly traces of either henotheism and/or monolatry. Especially since they conflated two deities - El and Yahweh - to make the LORD (adonai).
I have my own idiosyncratic interpretation. I believe it is a story about the double-edged sword of human consciousness. Once one is aware of oneself and that one is separate from others and from the divine, then there is no living in the garden of innocence again. Consciousness is both its own reward and its own punishment. Once one leaves the garden, the longing to find that primal oneness with God and with all life, that you have lost, is your lot until you die.
There are many versions of this story, probably thousands that have been forgotten as well as some, like this one the ancient Jews told, preserved.
Then you’re arguing with the premise of the thread. Discussing the purpose of the tree of knowledge requires you to accept the premise that the tree existed. And that’s based on accepting Abrahamic scripture as true.
If that’s directed at me, I’m not declaring a victory on the question. I didn’t even express an opinion on it. I was just trying to avoid a sidetrack in a thread that’s already been closed once because it went off topic.