In which an alternative view is offered regarding the exit of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, the action of women and the relationship of men and women are explored and the story of Cain and Abel is reinterpreted in light of the actions taken during the Garden of Eden Story.

In order to fully appreciate this discussion, it is recommended that the posts comprising the series “In God’s Image” and “Imagination and the Mind of Man” be read before reading the posts in this series.

Another Interpretation of the Garden of Eden Story

Review of the previous post.

The previous post, post number 7 of 19, discussed how human imagination figures into the Garden of Eden story

Preview of this post.

This post, post number 8 of 19, discusses the Tree of Knowledge.

The Tree of Knowledge

As discussed above, in order to fully exercise imagination, one requires knowledge. Therefore, it can be argued that God placed the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden so that when Adam and Eve were ready to be Man and Woman instead of mere animals, the means would be there for them. This implies that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of this tree and that it was not an act of disobedience for them to do so. This will be developed below.

It is noted that the full name of the tree in question was “The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” This implies that once having partaken of the fruit of that tree, man has the tools to make choices in any situation, with each of the choices producing different results. Once having “knowledge,” the human can use his imagination to make a choice. Building on the reference to “Good and Evil,” this knowledge can be viewed as picking a result which leads to a better outcome than other choices. That is, one result may better than the other, hence, relatively speaking, one result is “good” and one result is “evil” when compared to each other. As discussed in other series, in any situation involving several options, the options are good or bad relative to each other, not absolutely “good” or “bad”^[1]. In order to know “good” and “evil” relative to each other, man must imagine the results. Once man has obtained the ability to imagine results and determine which one is better for him, he has evolved sufficiently to exercise domain over the rest of creation in a manner which is not possible for other animals without such ability. Thus, the eating of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil could be viewed as being merely an allegory for having an imagination that has evolved sufficiently to be able to make choices^[2].

Thus, it could be said that “good” and “evil” did not exist until man’s imagination had developed sufficiently to be able to visualize different choices and to imagine the consequences associated with each choice whereby each situation had multiple choices and outcomes all of which man was now able to visualize and choose which outcome he desired thereby intrinsically identifying one choice as more desirable (i.e., “good”) relative to another choice (i.e., “evil”) and rejecting the evil choice in favor of the good choice. Once man had the ability to choose from among several options, he was ready to begin his task of being master of the entities created in Genesis.

Furthermore, it can be observed that the stated penalty for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was that “as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” Genesis 2:17. It is difficult to believe that God intended to kill the man and woman if they ate the forbidden fruit, why would God do this? That would destroy His creation and certainly forbid the exercise of free will, and it is difficult to believe that this is the result God wanted. As discussed in other serie^[3], God would, and did, intervene in human events to prevent the total destruction of the Jewish Nation; therefore, why would God destroy the entire Nation, indeed, the entire creation, now before it even began? Yet why the threat that appears to be “death for disobedience”? One explanation could be that once the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil has been eaten, man will become mortal and be able to exercise his imagination to determine what choices are available for any situation and to visualize the differences between choices and the consequences associated with each choice whereby one choice is “good” relative to another choice (which, thus by definition is “evil” with respect to the choice that was deemed to be “good”)^[4]. As discussed in the series “God’s Ground Rules,” if an entity is immortal, imagination will be superfluous as they will simply outlive their mistakes and thus they cannot be human[5]. Thus, after eating the fruit, Adam and Eve became mortal, that is they will die. Once the imagination is activated, the human will be able to imagine his death. Humans are the only animals that can imagine their own death and the circumstances surrounding their death. Thus, the statement “as soon as you eat of it, you shall die” could be interpreted to mean that you will understand and be able to visualize your death. If one does not understand or visualize his death, in essence, it could be said that he does not die.

Yet a further interpretation of the penalty of “you will die” could be that once the fruit of the tree is eaten and man can now have knowledge and exercise his imagination and free will, the entity living in the Garden of Eden will die and a new human being will be born. The Adam and Eve who were inhabitants of the Garden of Eden and existed as animals “died” when they evolved into human beings.

If God wanted men to progress beyond being kept entities in the Garden of Eden, then surely God would not really want to forbid Adam and Eve from obtaining the tools and abilities to progress. Knowledge is a key tool for progress.

Preview of the next post.

The next post, post number 9 of 19, proposes that the story of the Garden of Eden is actually a story of evolution and the evolution of humans.

^[1] The term “evil” was not intended to mean absolute evil, such as would be associated with the devil. The devil may not even have been associated with this story. If he is, God may not have encountered him. In this story, God does not speak to any entity that could be viewed as being the devil, in fact God does not even talk to the serpent until after the fact of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. Thus, it seems that neither God, nor man, encountered the devil in this story.

^[2] Before Adam ate the forbidden fruit, he was clearly guided by God who asked “Ayekkah?” (“where are you?”); but after the act, God withdrew thereby forcing Adam to rely on his own judgment and to learn from trial and error. Adam had demonstrated that he had evolved sufficiently to carry out this process, i.e., Adam’s had developed his imagination and an ability to use it.

^[3] See the series titled “Exodus and the Holocaust”.

^[4] Other explanations which have been offered for this prohibition include God wished to test the obedience of Adam and Eve (however, since God created them, one would think He would already know the answer to this question), the tree would introduce the knowledge of sexual relations (but again, one would think God would want this as without it, humans could not fulfill their destiny of exercising dominion over all the earth and multiplying).

[5]  This conclusion seems to agree with Maimonides’s analysis in his Guide for the Perplexed 1:1-2 of the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil that one should not base a decision on what one has been taught by others as good or evil, but, instead, should base the decision about how to act on what makes sense after a careful analysis of all relevant factors. Such analysis requires imagination.