What was the purpose of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil

In My Humble Opinion
134

It would just be a guess but I’d generally assume that the definition of “good” at the time was obeying the laws of the primary gods and “bad” was breaking those laws.

I also suspect that there were trickster and evil gods, who were little spoken of and rarely turned into statues. We see hints of them sometimes in the forms like the snake or as demons, etc. In general, these gods tried to convince people to break the laws.

But so, let’s say that someone asks you to explain the universe and you start by describing this great, all-powerful deities and how they have their laws… The person asks, “But, if they’re so powerful, how can it be that sometimes, people do break the laws?” They can’t be “all powerful” and also unable to prevent us from breaking the laws. That’s a contradiction.

Evil, trickster gods helps to explain this. There’s a battle/struggle going on and - even though the law gods are the more powerful - the trickster gods are able to corrupt people, every once in a while.

But then you have a second issue which is that humans are clearly different than animals. Animals just do what they’re told. Maybe they do something bad, but it’s because they were mislead and not because they intended to do wrong. They’re simple creatures. Humans are different and sometimes can and do choose to do wrong. Clearly, there’s something different about us, compared to animals.

Animals must be mislead into doing evil. Humans can and do choose to do evil, without outside prompting, sometimes.

Ergo, the fruit of the tree of knowledge. At one time, we were like animals - simply living like sheep in God’s garden. And, like animals, we were able to be mislead into bad behavior. But then we gained greater knowledge and were lifted above the other creatures. Among that knowledge, was a clear understanding of the laws and that one can choose to not obey the laws. Doing so is, effectively, working for the trickster deities, but it can be done.

135

Is it possible to explain the purpose of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil using information contained in Genesis only?

136

Of course not. It’s a book, and that’s not how books work.

137

I don’t believe that I included anything external to Genesis.

But, I’d suggest that even if you got the writer of the original story that Genesis was based on to explain what it all meant, that he’d not be able to give you a straight answer. There’s no definitive “correct” answer.

138

You mentioned trickster gods, maybe the snake counts as one, though in the religions that hold Genesis holy, it’s definitely not a god.

139

Actually, the “be fruitful and multlply” was in chapter 1, in which Adam does not appear. (It was also conferred upon the critters, but the humans alone got the “subdue the Earth” part.)

140

I suppose that, technically, that’s true. But, I don’t know that it’s reasonable to limit this to purely the simple text of the book of Genesis nor to restrict ourselves to the vernacular of the time (we’d have to discuss all of this in ancient Hebrew since our language automatically invokes different connotations than it should). Even if we assume that it was written separately from all of the other books of the Old Testament (which is unlikely), it would have been written in the context of its time, place, and culture and that fills in a lot.

If we find the note of a murder-suicide guy who killed himself and his wife, saying, “That b**** cheated on me!” Then, yes, it’s technically unknowable from the simple text of the letter who the female dog in question is (Lassie…?) but, from the context, knowledge of modern-day English, and that his wife was frequently spotted with other men, all around town, there are few mysteries in the text. I’d submit that, that external knowledge is effectively part of “the letter”. It’s the surrounding context of the matter and directly integral to it. It’s just playing games to ignore all of that, decide that the letter is about a literal female dog, and that we have any way of reasonably identifying the subject.

Textualism is just a fancy method of denialism.

We know several mythologies from the same time period; we have some knowledge of the mythologies that that fed into the Old Testament. No answer is going to be 100% absolute and there are, undoubtedly, mysteries in the world where you can’t reasonably do better than textualist answers. I don’t know that this is one of them.

There’s certainly no factual answer but we do know more about the book than is in the text.

141

All the other animals managed to be fruitful and multiply without any special tree-derived knowledge. Presumably Adam ad Eve would have managed to reproduce as well even if they hadn’t partaked.

142

I wasn’t changing the original question-I was just wondering(as an aside) if it were possible without bringing in trickster gods and other mythological entities.

143

The book of Genisis is very short. The part where Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit is only a small part of it. You could read it in a few minutes. If you do you can answer your question yourself.

Spoiler alert: The answer is no.

144

The snake is a trickster mythological entity in the tale. I’ve hinted that there could have been a larger background to that at the time than we see directly referenced in the text of Genesis. But even if we ignore that knowledge, it’s still a fairly clear trickster mythological entity and, I would say, should be read as such.

We’re really just quibbling over whether the snake should be classified more in the realm of “entity”, “demon”, “deity”, “former deity turned into a entity”, etc. I didn’t intend to imply a strong answer on that. I’m fine with any of those answers.

145

“Ergo, the fruit of the tree of knowledge. At one time, we were like animals - simply living like sheep in God’s garden. And, like animals, we were able to be mislead into bad behavior. But then we gained greater knowledge and were lifted above the other creatures. Among that knowledge, was a clear understanding of the laws and that one can choose to not obey the laws. Doing so is, effectively, working for the trickster deities, but it can be done.”

I’m not sure if I’m understanding what you’re saying here, but Adam was naming all the animals before they ate of the tree, so they weren’t just like sheep. Can you clarify this a bit for me?

146

Based on the text, God created a herding dog that could communicate and gave it license to come up with names for things, so that God didn’t need to bother.

If you wanted to precisely define that in the terms of modern cognition theory, maybe it might be that we were lacking “metacognition” or something. There’s probably not enough information to pin that down precisely. All we know from the story is that we had language; we had enough cognitive ability to manage a garden and invent names; and we didn’t understand that there was any way to disobey. You’re free to model that onto modern psychological terms as you will.

147

I don’t know who originated it but there’s an interesting theory that the story of Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge started as an allegory about the shift from a hunter-and-gatherer society to an agricultural one in Western Asia.

Also, how long were Adam and Eve in Eden between their creation and the Fall? Has that ever been discussed?

148

Yes, I’ve heard that interpretation often and am surprised this allegory didn’t come up earlier in this thread.

ETA: the hint being that the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in the Euphrat/Tigris region which actually was the place of one of the earliest agricultural cultures. The lots of A&E’s sons Cain and Abel as herdsman and crop farmer also hint in that direction.

149

The best argument that I see is that Adam and Eve should have been boning as early and often as possible (though, it’s unclear exactly when God gave this command).

They leave the garden before having ever even had sex so that implies that they were kicked out almost immediately after Eve came around.

Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old.

Seth was born AFTER Cain murdered Abel. From the context that both Cain and Abel were managing their own lands and that Cain had a wife, they seem to have already left their parents home and were adults. There’s nothing to indicate that Abel had any children and, given that the different peoples of the planet are all meant to be descended from the early generations of Adam’s progeny and it would be quite important know if there were some important early branches, it seems unlikely that there’s any significant lost arm of the family that has gone unnoted. This implies that Abel was just barely emancipated from his parents but, probably, not yet married.

If we assume that Abel was somewhere between 15-17 and that Eve was cranking out babies about as fast as can be then Cain would only be 16-19 years old. Given nine months for a pregnancy and 1-2 years for Seth to be born, we’d estimate that Eve was invented when Adam was ~110 years old and that they almost immediately left the garden.

That said, it’s not clear that Adam was, himself, immediately placed into the garden after being created. God created the man, then he created the garden, and then he put the man in the garden. Plausibly, that was a very quick process. Just as plausibly it was most of a century’s time.

From context, we know that Adam had enough time to name all of the creatures and trial them as satisfactory partners, which implies that he was there for quite a while so I would, personally, lean towards his being in the garden almost from the moment of creation but that’s not a definite.

150

According to The Legends of the Jews, 12 hours:

It was in the first hour of the sixth day of creation that God conceived the idea of creating man; in the second hour, He took counsel with the angels; in the third, He gathered the dust for the body of man; in the fourth, He formed Adam; in the fifth, He clothed him with skin; in the sixth, the soulless shape was complete, so that it could stand upright; in the seventh, a soul was breathed into it; in the eighth, man was led into Paradise; in the ninth, the Divine command prohibiting the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden was issued to him; in the tenth, he transgressed the command; in the eleventh, he was judged; and in the twelfth hour of the day, he was cast out of Paradise, in atonement for his sin.

151

Ummm…in that case, how much time did Adam take to name all the animals?

152

Not long. Turns out he named them all “Spot”.

153

@Sage_Rat: After the fall, I wouldn’t assume that Eve would be “cranking them out” as soon as possible. Remember, that’s when God cursed childbirth to be painful. And Adam has to work for food, so recovery would probably take longer.

Not only that, but he has to start doing that, then God decide it’s not good for man to be alone (unlike the other beasts), put Adam to sleep for a while, and create Eve. Given the time to make Adam, that should at least add three hours.

I’m surprised the legend doesn’t just have God make man in on hour, name things for an hour, and later create Eve. That still gives you the 12 hours.