/christianity/ - Christian Theology

Disobedience is sin, John 14:15 "If ye love me keep my commandments"

My initial reaction is that "knowledge of good and evil" might mean something other than our first english reaction to "knowledge", like how "knowing" is a euphemism for sex

From Keil and Delitzsch commentary

The fruit of the tree of life conferred the power of eternal, immortal life; and the tree of knowledge was planted, to lead men to the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil was no mere experience of good and ill, but a moral element in that spiritual development, through which the man created in the image of God was to attain to the filling out of that nature, which had already been planned in the likeness of God. For not to know what good and evil are, is a sign of either the immaturity of infancy (Deuteronomy 1:39), or the imbecility of age (2 Samuel 19:35); whereas the power to distinguish good and evil is commended as the gift of a king (1 Kings 3:9) and the wisdom of angels (2 Samuel 14:17), and in the highest sense is ascribed to God Himself (Genesis 3:5, Genesis 3:22). Why then did God prohibit man from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with the threat that, as soon as he ate thereof, he would surely die? (The inf. abs. before the finite verb intensifies the latter: vid., Ewald, 312a). Are we to regard the tree as poisonous, and suppose that some fatal property resided in the fruit? A supposition which so completely ignores the ethical nature of sin is neither warranted by the antithesis, nor by what is said in Genesis 3:22 of the tree of life, nor by the fact that the eating of the forbidden fruit was actually the cause of death. Even in the case of the tree of life, the power is not to be sought in the physical character of the fruit. No earthly fruit possesses the power to give immortality to the life which it helps to sustain.

>>603

> My initial reaction is that "knowledge of good and evil" might mean something other than our first english reaction to "knowledge", like how "knowing" is a euphemism for sex

That's good anon, I never considered it like that before..

OP, I think the point is that breaking the command not to eat from the tree IS the evil, there's not anything inherently evil in the fruit itself. Note there is no command not to eat from the tree of life. The point of the overall story is to set up this dichotomy, obedience = life, disobedience = exile & death, which is then developed throughout the Torah.

I read genesis 2 in light of Romans 1, "they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the creator, who is praised forever." The snake being the voice of creation which calls humanity downward to satisfy our own desires ("she saw it was good for food and pleasant to the eyes") rather than fulfill the desires of the creator. Outside the will of God is to be outside his sustaining grace and power (exile) and to be outside of it in order to satisfy your own desire carries the guilt and shame of the iniquity of betrayal.

The fall is the trickiest of all doctrines, particularly where it interfaces with the findings of modern science and theologically with the problem of evil, so if anyone has any enlightening resources, please let me know x