What is, or was, the tree of knowledge of good and evil? All we know about it, really, is that along with the Tree of Life, it stood in the center of the Garden of Eden, and God commanded Adam not to eat of its fruit lest he “surely die” (Genesis 2:17, NKJV). Fourteen verses later, at the encouragement of the serpent, Adam and Eve violate God’s prohibition and eat from the taboo tree but do not die, at least not in the biological sense (Genesis 3:6). When God discovers their transgression, He sends them into exile lest they eat of the Tree of Life and “live forever” (v. 3:22), which means, mind you, that death was a reality in creation from the get-go!
Interestingly, even though it plays a crucial role in mankind’s story, the tree of knowledge of good and evil is never again mentioned in either Testament.
Upon googling “tree of knowledge meaning,” one finds numerous Bible pundits proposing a variety of theories. According to theologian Nathan French, for example, the Eden narrative tells the story of how human beings acquired forbidden knowledge that endowed them with quasi-divine power. A similar interpretation was put forth by Maimonides (1138 – 1204), arguably the most famous of Hebrew sages. Some think it’s a metaphor. I don’t buy that at all.
I propose that as it appears in Genesis, “knowledge of good and evil” is a bicameral concept. On the one hand is God’s authoritative definition of good and evil; on the other is man’s autonomous understanding of good versus evil, truth versus falsehood, and right versus wrong.
When God created Adam and Eve, their natal worldviews were God-centric. Although they did not, initially, fully comprehend His significance, the first couple intuitively understood that God was “the Boss.” Their comprehension of their existence and context sprang from that fundamental awareness.
The serpent promised Adam and Eve that upon eating from the forbidden tree, they would become “like God [or, in some translations, “like gods,” not that it matters], knowing good and evil (v. 3:5)” by which the wily one meant they would become capable of discerning good from evil autonomously, according to their “own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5), irrespective of the fact that the true definitions of good and evil are His intellectual property. The serpent’s offer of being self-sufficient and on par with God carried the day.
Upon eating of the fruit of the tree, Adam and Eve’s worldview shifted – as the serpent had told them it would – from God-centric to self-centric. That is the meaning of “Then the eyes of both of them were opened” (v. 3:7). In an instant, they no longer “saw” themselves and their circumstances from a God-centric point of view, one that acknowledged God’s authority in all things, but from a self-centric point of view that falsely equated their authority with God’s.
That paradigm shift is affirmed in the next phrase: “and they realized they were naked.” As the effect of the fruit took hold and altered their understanding of everything, the first thing Adam and Eve saw with their newly “opened” eyes, was their nakedness. I cannot emphasize enough that the phrase in question does not refer to the onset of overwhelming shame, which is the prevailing theological position. Rather, under the spell of their radically altered point of view, Adam and Eve begin to self-appraise. The first discernment they make concerns their outward appearance which, they determine, could do with some enhancing.
In other words, the fig-leaf garments were not, as the prevailing narrative asserts, for the purpose of covering sin and shame. Quite the contrary. They were a means of upgrading their appearance as well as a declaration of self-determination. Adam and Eve are making what is called, in contemporary vernacular, a “fashion statement.” In that regard, it is significant that the leaf of the fig tree – the only tree in the story identified by genus – has long been regarded in the Middle East as the most beautiful of all flora.
The question arises: Why, if the story is not about shame, do Adam and Eve hide when they hear God approaching (v. 3:8)? Because, as Adam clearly states, of fear. Adam says, “I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid” (v. 10). Note, Adam is not afraid because he is (present tense) naked. That would make no sense since the reader has just been told he and Eve are now wearing fig leaf aprons. Adam is afraid because he “was” (past tense) naked. In other words, he is no longer naked, which he knows will incur God’s displeasure; therefore, he hides to avoid being caught wearing bodily ornamentation, thus altering God’s design without asking permission to do so.
Returning to the original question, when our first ancestors ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in an unsaved state (not having accepted and fully submitted to God’s authority in all matters) they instantly became infected with the toxin of moral relativism, the Mother of All Sin. In fact, a credible case can be made that eating of the fruit, while a sin, does not qualify as rebellion, which dictionaries define as a deliberate attempt to overthrow an established government. The construction and donning of fig leaf adornments was the first act of authentic rebellion. In so doing, Adam and Eve modified God’s design for themselves and declared their independence when it came to moral judgments.
The snowball of moral relativism has been rolling downhill for more than five thousand years. In the 1960s, it became an avalanche, the latest iteration of which is the satanic notion that whether one is male or female is wholly a matter of personal preference and not a matter of God’s design.
No doubt about it, God is going to win the cosmic chess game between Himself and the serpent, but it is going to be one wild ride, and the worst is yet to come.
This article is derived from John Rosemond’s next book, “And Their Eyes Were Opened,” which he is currently publishing, one chapter at a time, on substack.com.
