Zucco

This is probably a simplistic question, but I've always wondered how there was a tree of good and evil in the garden of eden. From what I've read, god created everything and everything was "good." Then suddenly he places this enigmatic tree in the garden. If everything he created was good, how was there any evil to be discovered by Adam and Eve?

Alan N

Good question. Is the knowledge of evil actually evil, or only acting upon that knowledge that is evil? Kind of like electricity. It has tremendous good and bad potential. It is not inherently either...it's how we use/abuse it. Your choice.

Remember, I'm not a christian.

andy_d

Perhaps from a "Good & Evil Garden Store"?

Alan N

Maybe it was supposed to read garden weevil.

Pyrrho

Obviously, if everything were created by God, then God created the tree. Apparently, he put it there because he wanted it as an excuse to torture humanity for several thousand years, if not eternally in hellfire. It is also funny that it is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a knowledge Adam and Eve were not supposed to already have, so they could not know they were doing wrong when they ate of the tree, until after they ate from it. See, God really just wanted a lame excuse to hurt people.

Amos

No because God did not make a suitable mate for man and needed a blueprint-like idea to do that. When God created man in Gen.1 he created them (plural) male and female with the potential to become either male of female. It was Lord God-the-son who formed this image of God and later made woman (because woman was not part of God's creation) out of man to serve as a pattern to duplicate God as man and man as God.

Notice here that woman never was created but was taken from man to be his lover and life supporter and in effort to provide man with new tricks she decided to employ the tree of knowlegde because she saw that its fruit was good for gaining for wisdom, food and beauty. And yes, she did this despite that fact that he would become aware of death which is at no cost to her because she is without a created existence to start with.

Now, I best go look for my camouflage.

Magus55

It is so easy for you to mock and ridicule the Bible when you have absolutely no clue what it means. You seem to think the knowledge of good and evil encompasses ALL knowledge available. Adam and Eve didn't need to understand evil to know that God forbid them from eating from the tree. They did know what don't, and forbid mean. Those aren't good or evil concepts. The tree was created for the purpose of free will. There had to be something in the garden that God forbid, for Adam and Eve to have the ability to choose to obey or disobey God.

Demigawd

Damn, Maguss55, you really have become a broken record. How many more times are you going to accuse us of mocking your mythology? We read it just fine the first few hundreds of times you posted that charge.

BTW: it's neither mocking nor ridicule to examine a text, regardless of how questioning the validity of Christianity ruffles your feathers. Get over yourself already.

Biff the unclean

Adam and Eve didn't need to understand evil to know that God forbid them from eating from the tree.
Yes they knew that they were forbidden. Did they know that to disobey an order was evil?
They did know what don't, and forbid mean. Those aren't good or evil concepts.
But obeying orders is.
The tree was created for the purpose of free will. There had to be something in the garden that God forbid, for Adam and Eve to have the ability to choose to obey or disobey God.
How is it free will to choose to do evil over good when you don't know that there are such things as good and evil? To have free will you must be able to make value judgements. To make a choice you must be able to distinguish one thing from another. According to Gen 1 god makes A&E in a condition that we today would consider insane. They could not distinguish good from evil, right from wrong.

Alan N

This is priceless.