A visit to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

 

In the very beginning - gge

Are you as intrigued as I am by the Garden of Eden myth? What were the narrators of Adam and Eve’s fruit-choice story thinking when they wrote this decisive line: “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.” Obviously, the many other trees from which they may eat represent choices other than the forbidden one; the puzzling part is the notion that this one is poisonous, and why the creator would allow it to grow where Eve could reach the hanging fruit seems a legitimate question.

          The Knowledge of Good and Evil obviously equates to a mental capability that humans have, but animals don’t. The closest relative attribute spoken of in our age would have to be consciousness. We still have a hard time defining what human consciousness is, but a cursory look at the world humans have built in comparison to, let’s say tigers, provides details of what consciousness has added to life. Consciousness provides the tools of control: communication, analysis, planning, memory, reasoning ... the list is long. The serpent’s promise rings somewhat hollow: “Surely you will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

          We discover very soon—and with God’s admission—that the serpent was right. That two things are necessary for a being to become a God: one is the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the other is Eternal Life. Lest they avail themselves as well of the latter component and become God’s equals, they are banished from the Garden where the Tree of (eternal) Life also grows. In the story, God predicts what will befall humanity given consciousness and, consequently, a reliance on its own Knowledge of Good and Evil ... instead of on God.

          Here’s where the writers clarify “you shall surely die” by listing the trials and hardships that this self-reliance will cause, ending with, “You are dust and to dust you shall return,” women will bear children in pain, all will earn their food with sweat, etc., a long list of misery that could now include man-made climate change as well. The Knowledge of Good and Evil, can’t guarantee moral, life-giving choices.

          In whatever way we understand the evolution of humanity where one of millions of living species comes to rule the planet, we remain conceptually limited and decidedly unlike the gods, and this may explain our final extinction as the Genesis creation myth implies. Most of us, most of the time are shackled by linear thinking; we have a hard time conceiving of things that have no beginning and no end. The universe must have begun at a certain time, and its end will also happen at a time, and surely the distance from me to the edge of the universe must be measurable. We have words like eternal and infinite to help us, but not much.

          In any case, the scribes who first put pen to goatskin to record with language the common Hebrew conception of how the world and life came to be, had only their folklore and lived experience of their time to draw upon. Since Darwin, we have written a creation myth using the same thought processes and tools as did the scribes. Since they wrote theirs, though, our consciousness (our Knowledge of Good and Evil) has evolved considerably and our myth looks much different. It, too, will be obsolete in some distant future ... if life on the planet avoids extinction.

          Myth, story, and especially allegory, parable, metaphor are tools in the communication toolbox. They all share a similar purpose, namely, to transmit knowledge, to combine and debate knowledge and finally, to make communal progress and survival more likely. They can serve to establish and preserve moral, ethical codes that are critical to behaviour in community, whether it’s a family, a village, a city, a nation or, as is fast becoming apparent, the planet.

          Some, of course, have an easier time than others of recognizing what’s allegory, parable, metaphor and what’s simply information prose. And for those who never learned the skill of reading with informed sensitivity to the writer’s context and purpose, styles and conventions, etc., scriptures can easily be falsely comprehended. Take, for instance, Creationists bizarre attempts to find evidence to show Genesis 1-5 as a history, or American Evangelicalism support of a politic having no appreciable resemblance to the Biblical hope they claim to champion. Both show what appalling consequences can fall from wilful ignorance.

          But I’ve read a bit of Aztec, Mohawk and a few other creation allegories, and I have to say, the Genesis tale is outstanding among its peers.[i]

          But I miss one thing: as Adam and Eve are exiled from the garden, I think they should take the serpent with them in a cage … as a pet. That allegorical rascal still plagues us today! (That’s figurative; I hope you got that.)

 

NAICA

gg.epp41@gmail.com     

 

 

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[i] Egyptian creation mythology is explored at Egyptian Mythology: How the universe was created - World History Edu