The Tree of Knowledge

[Chris_W]

I’m curious for thoughts about why the tree from which Adam and Eve ate was called the tree of knowledge, when it seems like the fruit actually bore a subversion of knowledge. It seems like Adam and Eve had true knowledge (knowing God and participating in His life) before eating the apple, and that knowledge was obstructed after eating from the tree.

“But it was the knowledge of good and evil”, you might say. But isn’t evil merely the lack of Good? So to “know” evil is merely to lose sight of good isn’t it? How can the inability to understand Good be called knowledge?

I just think it is an ironic description of the tree. Any thoughts on the matter?

 

[batteddy]

The “knowledge” being discussed, I think, is not “knowledge” as in Intellegence…but as in Experience.

The Bible in some translations quaintly speaks of “knowing” a woman (hint hint) and this is the kind of “knowledge” that I think was referred too from the forbidden tree.

They now “knew” evil. They had tasted evil. Not that they didn’t have information about evil before, but they had yet to “know” it, to “lay with” it, as it were.

 

[JimG]

It was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (How did the apple ever get such a bad rep?)

They already knew good, because all that God created was good. The temptation was to the knowledge of evil as well.

I don’t think it had anything to do with sex. It was God who told them to be fruitful and multiply. Nothing evil in that.