The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Today's quandary is on the topic of that infamous tree in the Garden of Eden. What about that tree? Actually, what about that whole creation of mankind story? What is that even about? 

The Sunday School Version:

When you are coming up in the church they teach you this Bible story about Adam and Eve. Nevermind the whole "everything was created in seven days," thing. You are taught that God made Adam and then he made a garden for Adam to live in. He had Adam name all of the animals. Then God looked around for a helper for Adam since he was alone and no helper was found among the animals so he decided to make one. He made a woman, Eve to be Adam's helper. God told them that they could eat from any tree in the garden except for that ONE tree and if they did, they would die. Then, the sneaky serpent tricked Eve into eating from that ONE tree that God said no to and Eve gave some of the fruit to Adam too and then they were suddenly aware of the fact that they were naked and covered their bodies and hid from God. God found them hiding and asked them what had happened. Adam confessed they had eaten from the no-no tree and God was so pissed he punished them; but mostly Eve since everything was her fault. He punished her with a period and painful childbirth, among other things. This "original sin" was the fall of mankind and everyone had to pay the consequence who was born thereafter. Amen.

You are taught that Eve was a real problem. You are taught that we are all born sinners because of her. You are taught that sin is wrong because it hurts God. You are taught that this story is the truth and you are not to question it. 

Today, I feel like revisiting it and questioning the hell out of it. I never looked at this story as something that was to be taken literally. But LITERALLY millions of Christians do and they believe this is how humans came to be. So, that's how we are going to treat it.

Pulling up the handy dandy NIV Bible online, I am going to go through the Adam and Eve story and I am going to comment my thoughts in pink. I have some thoughts. I will also make my conclusion regarding that ONE TREE at the end.

Adam and Eve

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams[b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Okay, when you say the whole surface of the grownd, what does that mean, exactly? 7 Then the Lord God formed a man[c] from the dust of the ground Wait, I thought the ground was covered in water, what happened there? Okay... and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. So, Adam was a piece of pottery to start, I guess? 

8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, east of where, exactly in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How come we never hear much about that tree of life? Is that like Odin's tree of life? 

10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin[d] and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.[e] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Dude has been alive for how long at this point? How does he know how to do anything at this point? And if he is the first person to exist how would he even know what the concept of death is? He would have zero point of reference. "You'll die!" Um, okay?? What is die??

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Wait a sec. I thought God had thought this all through. Wasn't this all part of a divine plan? This sounds like God is making it up as he goes along.. This feels pretty fly by night and not so much done with purpose, so far. 

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. This is funny to think about. Bet that took a while. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam[f] no suitable helper was found. That's not true because the dog was created. Also, this is super creepy and another example of this all knowing and all wise God clearly not having thought out his plan very well. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[g] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. I don't even know what to say to this. How absurd.

23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is so gross. 

24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Wait, now we have the concept of marriage? These people literally just met.

25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Note: plot point foreshadowing. 

The Fall

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Here we go with some more weird stuff. Did God make this serpent to be this way on purpose? If everything God does is according to his plan, I guess we have to assume so. But, so far God seems to be pretty ill prepared and pretty bad at making divine plans. Okay, so talking serpent. Got it. This isn't weird at all. 

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” Again, does Eve even know what that means? Does she know what it means to die? How could she have a concept of life and death? If she doesn't have any knowledge yet, of what is good and what is bad how would she be able to discern that death was bad? She doesn't understand the concept of BAD! Come on, God. Get your details straight here. 

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The serpent is actually being very honest here. This is characterized in church as the serpent deceiving Eve. How? Everything the serpent is saying here is 100% true. In fact, God is the one being dishonest in this story by telling them they'll just die if they eat the fruit which they can't even fully understand anyway. 

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, what is the point of noting he was with her? Like as in, the whole time? So this is supposed to show women are easily fooled. Got it. Good ole Biblical misogyny and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Here's where that foreshadowing circles back. 

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, HOLD IT! God is in human form on earth just wandering around in the garden. Say what!? God doesn't do that any other time in the Bible. This feels pretty uncharacteristic. and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Oh shit. Daddy's mad. This begs the question. WOULDN'T THIS BE PART OF THE DIVINE PLAN???????? Why is God surprised? God should never be surprised. He knows everything that ever did or ever will happen; no? Nothing makes sense in the Bible. 

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Classic example of a man not taking responsibility for his own actions. Woman = bad. 

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Babe, he didn't actually deceive you. He just enticed you. Although since you have been a functioning human for about fifteen minutes I can't really be upset at you over semantics.  

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. Well, that was uncalled for. Serpent threw you under the bus because you told them they were going to die if they ate the fruit which was obviously a lie. Get over it, bro.

15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring[a] and hers;

he will crush[b] your head, and you will strike his heel.” We're still talking to the serpent here. So, are we saying all women will hate snakes now because of you? lol

16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Oh, nice. It's always the woman's fault. And we know that this is bologna anyway. Child birth is painful because of biology; not a divine punishment. Cool story though. Were men in the bronze age so threatened by the fact that women are strong enough to withstand childbirth that they had to come up with a way to frame it in a negative light? One has to wonder. 

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. Finally, a consequence for a man. 

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Your punishment is.... FARMING! Um, farming is not a punishment. Farming was actually an important step in the advancement of the human species. You can't spend all of eternity in a garden when there is an entire planet to populate. Surely a God who has carefully thought all of this through and knows how everything will play out knows this. No?? 

19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Sky Daddy sure is salty with a couple of humans who haven't been alive long enough to know Jack shit about anything. He sure has some hefty expectations for these imbeciles. Again, wasn't this all expected to happen? This is so contradictory to the taught narrative of the Bible.  

20 Adam[c] named his wife Eve,[d] because she would become the mother of all the living. I mean it makes sense for a man to name his property. He already named the rest of the animals so this is clearly no different...

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. Such anger from a loving God! A loving God who should have foreseen every bit of this happening. It would HAD to have happened this way, if part of the plan. And as we know, nothing happens that isn't a part of God's plan. 

I guess the big question here is, why didn't God want Adam and Eve to have knowledge of good and evil? My assessment, based on what I know about Abrahamic religions is that there is probably a very calculated reason for this being a story in the Bible. The reason God did not want Adam and Eve to eat fruit that would give them knowledge of good and evil is because KNOWLEDGE IS THE ENEMY OF THE CHURCH! Simple as that.