God created man and woman by conjuring magic words in 4004 BCE. He placed two trees in the garden. One was the tree of Life. The other was the Tree of Knowledge. The serpent in the mythical Garden of Eden had an important purpose.
Most humans with healthy brain circuits have a perpetual hunger for knowledge. Supposedly, God made human have a powerful desire to acquire knowledge, to know how things worked, to know how we came to exist, and to know how the Earth and Sky came to exist. God told them that he (God) spoke magic words bringing everything into existence.
Why did God create the human brain with that thirst for knowledge, so much more demanding than other animals? Did he want humans to seek knowledge through observation, study, and rational-analytical thinking?
He apparently did not want them to gain knowledge. He put them in a dilemma of a big Sting Operation. He would forbid them from seeking knowledge (eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge.) Yet he put that tree in the centre of the garden. Why?
God invented serpents. One serpent supposedly had intelligence, speech, reasoning, and some understanding of human desire for knowledge. Why did God put such a serpent in the Garden to tempt Adam and Eve to seek knowledge when he (God) had forbidden knowledge and inquiry? I cannot think of a sensible reason except that God was sadistically playing with his human pets much like a bad little boy does tormenting butterflies or earthworms.
The serpent tells Adam and Eve to improve their status by gaining knowledge (eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge) a metaphorical or allegorical magic story. God was angry when Adam and Eve sought knowledge and threw them out of the Garden.
Adam and Eve had lived a protected Hunter-gatherer existence in a garden of plenty. However, once they sinned and were thrown out, they culturally evolved. They were forced by circumstances to find more food than simple hunter gathering produced. One poor game season and the tribe might starve to death.
So humans enhanced their survival by capturing and breeding the former game animals into captive animals saved for food, without the dangers and uncertainties of old time hunter gathering. This was the second great stage of human cultural evolution, i.e. pasturage. Men moved with the large migrating herds, protecting them from carnivores so they could be slaughtered for food when needed.
They found edible plants, like cereals and tubers. Instead of just eating them until they ate the entire field, the smarter ones observed that seeds falling on ground grew up into seed bearing plants, apple seeds grew into trees, etc. Therefore, humankind started planting seeds. They improved the seed's chances by ploughing the ground, use of animal fertiliser, and eventually crop rotation. This allowed food storage and permit larger populations. It allowed specialisation of occupations by tribal members. They could have toolmakers, house builders, traders, vendors, and even some who had time for art, poetry, sculpture that added to the joy of living.
Moreover, this they owed to an unnamed Serpent in a place vague in memory, a garden of endless plenty that required no work, no ploughing fields, no moving with herds. In their fragmented memory and folk tales, they "remember" the magic garden in which they had plenty of food and water without the need to sweat in the hot sun ploughing a hardscrabble field.
What did we do wrong? Why do we have to sweat and exhaust ourselves in the hot sunlight? Why did we lose the mythical garden of plenty?
Oh, a powerful God expelled us from the garden of plenty. We must have sinned. The sin made the jealous and vindictive god, expel us from the Garden. What sin would make the Jealous, narcissistic, violent, and vindictive god so angry?
It likely was not masturbation, sex, pissing on the roses, lying about the size of a melon on the south end of the Garden, or throwing stones at the squirrels.
It had to be something threatening or challenging God's knowledge by inquiring. Ha! Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a biblical allegory telling primitive humans that God forbade seeking knowledge. Man with knowledge would "become like us" (Gods.) This would be a challenge to God.
The serpent is the hero who though cast as a villain, actually was a savour of the human race because he stood for courage, independence, inquiry, learning, and scepticism of assumptions.
Amergin
The forbidden knowledge spoken of in Genesis is simply the knowledge of evil. Without knowing evil we would know only good. On the same note the knowledge of evil also gives us an understanding of what is good (It provides contrast), hence its name "The tree of knowledge of good and evil".
The only reason this knowledge was 'forbidden' is because evil is useless, unpleasant, harmful to our kind, and it ultimately makes the world an ugly, dangerous, and volatile place to live. Without evil the world would be a paradise.
In order to truly know something like evil, you must experience it first hand. Otherwise all you have is a concept with no substance. It's much like reading about the Vietnam war. You gain some insight, but unless you were there to experience it you really haven't a clue what it was truly like.
God didn't warn against having a concept of evil, but rather he warned against the knowledge of evil, or rather he warned against acting in a manner that would allow evil to manifest on earth whereby we would be forced to experience its effects.
The story is metaphorical in its entirety. There was no literal tree able to impart evil, but there was mankind who was able to act with evil intent, which is how evil manifest on earth.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil simply represents a way or path in which man lives and acts either through indifference, such as Eve giving no thought to Adams well being in the story, or through evil intent. This way or "path" is in opposition to the path (Tree) of life, which represents living and acting through love, care, and concern for our fellow man.
It seems to me that life would have been much more pleasant without the knowledge of evil, and a great deal easier on the heart. In the end, the Genesis account of the fall applies to us even today. I think most people are largely unaware that both metaphorical trees are still in the midst of the garden, and that we remain also.
We ultimately choose which path to follow, whether we choose blindly or with understanding. We can care for those we share our world with and live our lives in a manner beneficial to others, or we can live with an indifferent heart and live our lives only for self. Both trees (Paths) are relevant even in today's world, yet few there be who walk that strait and narrow.
I myself prefer to look at the story in terms of wise and unwise, which is ultimately what good and evil boils down to. When we look at humanity as being a single unit as opposed to mankind being separate from one another, we can then see what is wise and unwise for us collectively.
Who knows exactly what the first humans did, but evil (That which is unwise) does not come to pass unless a person acts selfishly, not considering the well being of others. We are in this life together. It was like that in the beginning and it is like that today. Why do you think we are reaping what was sowed by the first humans?
Just as the first of humanity were responsible for us, so are we responsible for our future generations. Good and evil or rather wise and unwise actions effect us all, which is why we need to have concern for, and care for those we share the world with. Otherwise our children and our grandchildren are going to be in the same mess we are in, and that's the entire point of the story of the fall of man.
I can hear God now speaking to Amergin,
"Pursue evil if that's your hearts desire, but don't say you were not warned". The fact of the matter that we simply experienced the law of cause and effect. There was no literal banishment from the garden, there was only the consequences of our misguided deeds.
GK
