"Knowledge is power", or so they say. But can it be classified?
Eating from the Tree of Knowledge was forbidden.
According to Genesis, eating of the fruit of the tree, in a sense, led to the Fall of Man, because man became knowledgeable of their sin.

The Book of Enoch 31:4, purporting to be written by the antediluvian prophet Enoch, describes the tree of knowledge as follows:
"It was like a species of the tamarind tree, bearing fruit which resembled grapes extremely fine; and its fragrance extended to a considerable distance. I exclaimed, How beautiful is this tree, and how delightful is its appearance!"

And here is the famous excerpt from Genesis:

1 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'?"
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.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
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, and he ate it. 7


But despite its purported beauty, was it wrong to eat of this tree? Is it wrong to be knowledgeable of sin? And what is your take on knowledge: good, bad, both?

I dunno, Was it wrong for Goldilocks to eat the Baby Bear's porridge? Same thing with the tree of knowledge, fairy tales are fairy tales, whether they are 200 years old or 2500 years old! And the fact that the Genesis fairy tale was "borrowed" from a much older Semite religion mades it even less valid.

It is interesting to note though, that most of these "sacred tree" stories retain the element of an "intelligent" talking serpent or dragon in them, even ones that spread to the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps there is some now inexplicable reality to the orignal mesopotamian story, but it had so changed by the time it was written down by the Hebrews that there version cannot be given any credence. In fact, the original dragon was a benificent assistant of the God(s), not the villain!

The Tree was not just the Tree of Knowledge, but rather the knowledge of Good and Evil. God said "Do not eat the fruit", and man (and woman) disobeyed. When they did that, they became like God, knowing good and evil.

So eating from the tree was wrong because God said it was wrong. God as our King (whether we acknowledge Him as such or not) makes rules for us to follow, which we can choose to follow or ignore. In Adam and Eve's case, that Rule was "don't eat from the Tree". They disobeyed God - disobeyed their King, and suffered the consequences.

That's how I see it at least.

Regards, PA

I am an American I got no KING. Don't want no KING.



Trees play a big part human mythology. They usually contain wisdom. I think it is so, because they long lived and they gather a lot of energy from the space time continum.

They certainly do. You have The Tree of Life, Tree of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. But is it wrong to eat from these is what I was aiming at.

I think the whole story was a parable. The sin was 'civilizing' the land by farming and building cities. When mankind went from a hunter/gatherer to a farmer/ city builder was when he actually lost the garden. When God talked about the various poisonous and thorny plants that were formed after the 'bite' was taken. Anybody who knows forestry knows that poison ivy, poison sumac, greenbriar, and ground briar, knows that that is disturbance growth and only grows after the ground has been disturbed.
I was always under the opinion that the original point of the story was that God did not mean us to disturb the planet by farming and building cities. God also refused the fruit of the earth( i.e. farming) and only accepted the sacrifice of the animal (i.e. nomadic herdsman/hunter-gatherer). The story and the whole point of the parable was changed when Genesis was rewritten for a Christian audience.


lapi'che ni'tis

Great, I hope people feel free to post their thoughts and interpretations.
My views on this story have changed over time, so it's nice to see what others think.

Yelekiah,

Interesting topic Yet i have a different take on the Tree of knowledge story, I see it as the original Blessing , it gave the birth to the world of relativity and we should be grateful for this because without the so called " wrong" choice we wouldn't have the possibility of choice at all, Now the mythology that has been created is inventive to say the least but the truth is all its done is to allow for the horrible treatment of women not to mention warp sexual views and create lots of lots of confusion for humanity in general. To be enlightened just means to use your observational skills and really SEE what is so and and then do what works. I truly don't know why religon made up so many negative ridiculous storys as opposed to ones that actually help humanity, Just my opinion Namaste sheri

Right, sheri. And a lot of times misinterpretations have led to unfair views. thank you so much for your input.

Yelekiah, the biblical meanings are passed down knowledge , excepted just as is and never questioned or pondered, fought over and preached about anything not fitting into the understanding of the narrow views is dismissed and all but ignored and the more evidence that shows the bible to be harmful the more its clung to and this is called religion.

Depends on what religion you are. In my religion it would not be wrong as the quest for knowledge is mandated. To not eat from the Tree of Knowledge would be the sin. From my point of view it was God who lied not the Snake. The Snake told the truth.

Thank you for your perspective. That's really cool. Was it God lying or was it more like God
fearing a type of usurpation?

Curiousity killed the cat. I know I would have wanted to eat the tree but if I was told not too I would try not to. If I were Adam and Eve I would have burned that very tree down.

Oh you sassy girl! God would have spanked you till your little bum glowed in the dark for such a naughty trick! I thought you were trying to be good!

I am I just thought out of sight out of mind.

Personally this tree reminds me of the story of Odin stabbing himself and hanging from Yggdrasil, the World Tree, for 9 long days. Then giving an eye to drink from the well at it's base. After that he gained immense knowledge and wisdom, as well as the runes.


- The Havamal

If this and this other Christian Tree of Knowledge you speak of are in any way related [Which most likely they are] then my opinion is that it would not be negative to do the same or eat from this tree, because knowledge is power.

I agree that knowledge is power, but the tricky part is...is it wrong to be knowledgeable of sin?

No. Why would it even be considered wrong? If you know it is wrong to be knowledgeable of wrong, then you know wrong. If you know it is a sin to be knowledeable of sin, then you know sin.

Because if you don't know that you have sinned, you have still sinned and you are therefore wrong. Whether you are knowledgeable of it or not.

It is not wrong to be knowledgeable of the pain and negative aspects of life alongside the good. If you only knew good, then bad wouldn't exist, and vice versa. It being wrong to be knowledgeable of sin is foolish, and almost a contradiction in itself. In the same right, it would also be a blessing to be unaware of man-made religious and moral values

I'm not talking about pain in life, I'm talking about sin. Let's stick to that.
How is it foolish exactly? I think you understand what I mean: yes, it does contradict itself in a way, that's why the question is tricky.
Being knowledgeable of sin is exactly what happened to Adam and Eve.
Being knowledgeable of sin led to the Fall of Man.
Eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge made man knowledgeable of sin.
Ponder that.

Sure. Being knowledgeable of sin, and being "fallen" far surpasses being blind. There is no pain greater than stupidity and ignorance. The bad part is, in modern times we know of sin and we are ignorant. [Not saying that I believe in any of this, of course]

Interesting. And I do respect your ideas and beliefs.
So someone not knowing they have sinned...do they deserve to got to hell?

No, because the stupidity, ignorance, and blindness should be pain enough; that would be hell. My more personal opinion is that if hell exists, no one deserves to go to a place where they will be afflicted with eternal pain and never be able to learn or grow from it, because it is eternal. Besides, in both cases, I thought there was something called confession

I thought that was more applicable to Catholicism, and we're discussing Enoch and the Christian Bible. But whether or not people "deserve" to go to hell, according to many they still go to hell if they have sinned. For example, a nine year old child commits a murder, but never read the Bible. Does this nine year old go to hell if they are not knowledgeable of sin?

Following the strict, laid out rules of this religion, and the now seeming lack of forgiveness in the forlorn love of God, then yes, the nine year old deserves to go to hell just as much as a Priest that molested children and was well aware of the Bible and sin. If there cannot be logical balance in the reasoning behind going to hell, there is atleast equality on who does and doesn't go to hell, regardless of if they know about it or not.

And it's tragic really, if we are all "borne to sin"
If a newborn baby dies, without having read the Bible,
according to this, the newborn baby goes to hell.

It is tragic, but if that is your or another's view of the truth, then so be it. If someone is that happy to send people to hell, then so be it. "All born into sin" sounds like a reason to better your life and be selfless; a crusader; paladin; martyr. It's also using this excuse/reason to explain the unexplainable or kill the unkillable beast. Error is this beast.

Just gives me more reason to stick with being agnostic and philosophic.

It's not my belief, but I want people to think about the Tree of Knowledge. I respect your philosophy. Do you know anything of the Tree of Life?

1. A tall palm (Mauritia flexuosa) of northern South America having large fan-shaped leaves and used for food, fiber, and building.
2. A tree in the Garden of Eden whose fruit, if eaten, gave everlasting life.
-Dictionary.com

I do now, and once again the Tree of Life also appears in Norse tales. How do you think the Norse's mortal Gods and Goddesses stay young and attractive? [I won't get into the rest because you probably don't want to hear anymore and this isn't a myth thread...Ok maybe it is.]

Other than that, I do not know anything of this other, Christian, Tree of Life. What can you tell me about it?

Well, I thought it was strange that Adam and Eve didn't just get kicked out of the Bible as (eating of the Tree of Knowledge) a punishment. It wasn't just like: "No more Paradise for you..."
God feared that if Adam and Eve stayed in the Garden, they would eventually eat of the Tree of Life. That was a reason they got kicked out.
I was wondering if you knew anything else about it. Because it doesn't say in the Bible that this particular tree was wrong to eat of. I guess it just implies it...

I understand the issues you have with this. I don't claim to know all the answer to this. From one side of the coin, God is merciful, and would not condemn us if we never had the opportunity to repent. From the other side, you can argue that we are all born to sin, and so have no excuse.

I honestly don't have the answer, I believe though that either way, God is in control and what He says, goes. I don't subscribe to the traditional Catholic notion of Hell as everlasting fire and torment, so a child who dies would not be forced into punishment solely because they never had the chance.

That's my opinion anyway.

Regards, PA

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.

My thoughts I suppose are to see if Men and Women would give in to the devil. The serpent is suppose to represent Satan. Since we did, I would assume God would punish us for not listening to him, but to a lesser conjuration. For this, he allows us to see our sin, and to feel guilt, and to know that we wronged him, which is a pretty horrible feeling inside if you wrong someone you really love or trust.

I watched the discovery channel awhile ago, about 5 years ago maybe now, and they were talking about the tree of life. Apparantly they found a tree in the middle of a desert that still stands with no water supply. Some scientists and religious persons believe this could be the tree of life, yet there is no more fruit left on the tree. Maybe somone could find a source for this somewhere on the internet.

No offense, but I seriously doubt that is the Tree of Life. However, people are welcomed to post it since it is a great interest of mine.

I don't believe the Tree of Life to be any different from any other tree, just as there wasn't anything different about the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

They were just trees which God designated such. On the one side, there was obedience and everlasting life. And on the other, there was disobedience, the knowledge of good and evil, and ultimately, death.

I seem to remember posting this before. Whoa..... de ja vu

(answered own question)

knowledge is knowing you are on the rail-tracks and you see the train coming.
wisdom is knowing to get off the rail-tracks when you see the train coming.

I agree. Nice post.
But one must have knowledge that the train will cause harm to begin with, before attaining wisdom.

hm, never thought of that. but power is the uniforcation of knowledge and wisdom. because without them both, you're not fully knowing. you'd be a kid with a train set without the train.

(I've used the word train to much already...)

It's not that knowledge is a sin, it's just that the orignal saying you have there 'knowledge is power' is true is both the good and 'evil' sense of the word. The power knowledge can yield can for example save lives or take them, etc.

As for Genesis, it was explained to Adam (2 Enoch) when he got his free will that, to cut a long story short there are dark and light sides and that with free will comes test of devotion (like I've said here before) as that test (and the free will) is humanity's sole reason for being. So, it wasn't really about the tree at all (nor even the fact that the snake, which was actually the angel Gadrel, copulated with Eve), it was about the test. God specifically told them NOT to eat from the tree, this was their first test of free will. Satan's role in it was the same as in any other - accusing angel, and tester of free will, Gadrel in this case being one accusing angel under him - He even warned them it would cause death on the day (in God's years a day is 1000 Earth years, to explain, Heaven being in space, imagine the light year difference. Eden itself wasn't even on Earth, but on another planet, literally in the Heavens) that they ate it, and it did, on that day which was 1000 Earth years, Adam died 70 years of being 1000. They also inherited mortality (or death) for themselves and all their descendants for as long as the Earth endures. The tree wasn't knowledge then, it was death/mortality, which prior to that death literally would never have touched them, as they were immortal, a 'second kind of angel'.




That's actually not what happens. 'Original Sin' was invented by Augustine, it doesn't exist anywhere beyond his own mind. Under the age of 7 you don't incur judgement.

The 'tree' was a symbol for knowledge, therefore 'eating' was actually acquiring knowledge. So if the tree was actually a book, in the garden (library) of Eden, and if Adam and Eve 'ate' (read) the 'fruit' (pages) they would become like God. So, God was a man, presumably? What kind of knowledge could they have acquired that could mean death to his creations? The Raelians beleive that it was scientific knowledge. And part of their beleif is that God (Yahweh), who created us, used the scientific knowledge of DNA. If humans partook in reading the scientific journals of the creators, then man would have become like them, scientific. If God was a man, and heaven was in the sky, reasoning suggests that God was an alien who came from a distant planet with scientific knowledge to create earth's species using DNA.

The danger the creators had to face was whether their scientific experiments (humans) would become too scientifically advanced as to travel to the creators planet and create havoc (we all know we have a streak!) So Yahweh said that humans could read all of the scientific journals except the one that would 1. give them knowledge of DNA and 2. give them the wisdom to make spacecraft.

The Serpent is a symbol for the scientists who gave the knowledge to Adam and Eve, the Jews. So Yahweh dispersed the Jews to the ends of the earth, so they could not speak the same languages as the locals. And the serpent has been recorded through the legends in every continent of the world.

The humans who had acquired that knowledge from the renegade scientists, the Serpent, gathered in the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. Two 'angels' (creators) warned those people in the towns to leave before they bombed it.

That is the Raelian beleif system.

Hmm....

There are several things I will probably never fully understand about the Bible, because it is contridictory. This is one of those things, it is a double edge sword.

God told Adam and Eve not to partake of the Tree of Life. We all know the story, Eve was tempted by the serpent, she ate the fruit and handed some to Adam and he ate it as well. They suddenly realized they were naked, went to cover themselves, etc... Along came God, and he asks why they are covering themselves? Obviously the cat is out of the bag and God knows they have eaten the fruit....

This is where it gets tricky for me.... God, being All Knowing, had to have known for man to get where he is today, would mean Adam and Eve eating the fruit. If they had never eaten the fruit, they would still be running around the Garden of Eden innocent. But, they did eat it and were told to leave the Garden of Eden and multiply. Which they did and Eve produced Cain and Abel.

So, why would God tell them in the first place if he knew they would have to disobey his word to start replenishing the Earth?

It was all part of god's plan. To give men and women free will, and then to let them see the consequences. Through this lesson they learned between right and wrong, and it was the best lesson God could use to teach them this. God was obviously mad at them, and had to express his anger, to show that yes indeed, you have free will, but their are consequences for such actions. Satan more then likely had no idea that it was God's plan all along and though he one that round. God obviously knew Satan would coax them into eating the apple, which started the balance of good and evil in mankind, which was needed to test us all.

Could you think of a better way to teach someone about evil ?, then to let their own curiousity bring them their ?. In this situation, God is not mean, he is enforcing his law. To me it was the best way possible for him to demonstrate such a strong point.

Are you sure the serpant wasn't just lying to Adam and Eve and making them beleive they will gain knowlage from the tree, just so they'd be tempted to eat it?

It sounds like there is no such thing as sin if it was all part of God's plan. Why are we getting punished for original sin? And if Satan was all part of God's plan, then why is he the baddie? And how can we be sent to hell with Satan if everything is all part of God's plan???

I see where you are coming from, I guess I just did not state as to where this is confusing to me. I realize this was God's plan, but why go through all that? Adam and Eve had to eat the fruit, to gain knowledge, or we probably all would not be here today. Why be angry over it or go through all of that, if you know it has to happen?

To me it is kind of like when my 13-yo wants to really do something and I don't want her to, so instead of arguing with her I make a deal with her that I am 95% sure she can't keep. Like when she wanted a new puppy... I said fine, scoop the other dog's you-know-what for a month, feed and water him everyday w/o me having to tell you and I will march down to the pound and let you pick out a new puppy. The deal went south on day 2. No new puppy and I'm a happy girl. Now 95% of the time this works, 5% of the time it comes back to kick my rear-end. I'm not being mean, I just don't want to deal with the whinning, and usually after she doesn't keep her part, I don'thave to.

But, if Adam and Eve needed to eat the fruit to get the ball rolling, why go through all of that? I'm truly not being confrontational or disrespectful, I just don't understand. I just think there are some things we will never understand until we are on the other side.....

P.S. I tried looking up where it is that tree was found and the source, haven't found it yet, but I have someone at Discovery looking for me....

The Garden of eden, like the flood of Noah share so many similarities to far more ancient Sumerian legends that we must assume the Hebrew version was based on these and merely changed in the hundreds of years of retelling as the oral traditon of nomadic sheperds.

Therefore it is pointless to ponder too much "meaning" in a story that is clearly the garbled rehash of a much earlier story.

We can assume that the later stories of the Bible, beginning with exodus may have some basis in the actual history of the Hebrew people.

If we are to believe the God of the Bible is authentic, we must still question some of the earliest stories if they happen to be garbled retellings of the same stories recorded in stone and clay over a 1000 years earlier than the Hebrew versions.

For the women out there, none of the Sumerian versions have an Eve character that eats the forbidden fruit, nor is there an evil "entity" like Satan, for this was a much later invention of the Hellenized Jews and early Christans. In one of the ancient Sumerian verisons, there is a talking dragon, but he is a benificent servant creature of a higher "God". But this is probably where the Serpent came into the Hebrew story, combined with the "trickester" serpent of the Gilgamesh epic.

So now I can argue in all the Christian threads that Original Sin does not exist?
Whew, that's a good advantage now.