ex-xian

I remember reading a very short article about how the story of Adam and Eve is contradictory on its face. Basically, the argument goes that before A&E ate the fruit, they had no knowledge of good and evil. Therefore they had no conception of sin or that disobediance to god would be a moral wrong that deserved punishment.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'd like to have the original source to cite.

The Evil One

I have heard that "knowledge of good and evil" is an idiom for "knowledge of everything" - because to the ancient Hebrews everything was either good or evil, so knowledge of good and evil is general knowledge about everything. A download of omniscience if you like. (This explains why God was scared.)

If this is true, then the fact that they gained KoG&E does not imply that they were previously incapable of telling right from wrong, as the modern reading of the phrase suggests.

But then, this is only something I've heard, so I would be interested to know if any of the resident Hebrew scholars can confirm / disconfirm.