Toxic Knowledge

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In Eden, we are told, God planted an orchard for primordial Man and Woman stocked with many ordinary trees and two magical ones: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowing Good and Bad (Genesis 2:9). The nature of the Tree of Life is obvious: A person who eats from it will never die (Genesis 3:22). It is the ultimate medicinal herb.¹ The Tree of Knowing Good and Bad, on the other hand, is somewhat more ambiguous.²

In some contexts, “Knowing Good and Bad” appears to connote omniscience, as in 2 Samuel 14:17, 20: “For my Lord the King is like God’s angel, understanding Good and Bad…My Lord is wise like the wisdom of God’s angel, knowing all that is in the world.” Divine knowledge is implicit in Genesis 3:5, 22, too: “God knows that in the day of your eating from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God(s), knowing Good and Bad”…“And the Lord said, behold, Man has become like one of us [i.e., God and his angels], knowing Good and Bad.”

In other biblical contexts, however, “Knowing Good and Bad” describes the faculties of an ordinary adult human, not a god. The very young (Deuteronomy 1:39; Isaiah 7:15) and the very old (2 Samuel 19:35) do not possess it; neither, we assume, do animals. Perhaps one may say that “Knowing Good and Bad” connotes human mental faculties that are godlike in essence, not necessarily in scope. In the words of Psalm 8:5, we are “slightly less than God(s).”

Since the Tree of Life was not forbidden, most likely Man and Woman were originally intended to eat from it and live eternally. Concerning the Tree of Knowing Good and Bad, however, God threatened, “Do not eat from it, for on the day of your eating from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Later, when Woman quotes for the serpent God’s command—which she knows only at second hand—she makes it even more stringent: “Do not eat from it, and do not touch it, lest you die” (Genesis 3:3).

Seduced by the snake, Woman and Man acquire “Knowing Good and Bad” before they have had the opportunity to gain immortality. To possess both Life and “Knowing Good and Bad” would constitute full divinity, and that God cannot tolerate.³ “But now, what if [man] sends forth his hand and takes also from the Tree of Life and lives forever?” God immediately expels Man and Woman from Paradise (Genesis 3:23–24).

Upon eating the fruit, the humans instantly experience shame—not guilt for their transgression, but embarrassment at their nudity. They proceed to fashion for themselves fig leaf G-strings. Here one is inclined to interpret “Knowing Good and Bad” as self-consciousness—both in the limited sense of embarrassment and in the extended sense of knowing one’s own existence apart from other beings—arguably a consciousness not shared by the animal, the infantile and the senile. The phrase “Knowing Good and Bad” may seem a funny way to say this, but all it really connotes is discernment: the ability to distinguish between the inferior and the superior, or to know what’s what.

The Eden story raises innumerable and deep questions, but here I will pose a simple one. God had seemingly promised Man immediate termination should he eat from the wrong tree. The serpent, however, reassures the Woman, “You will surely not die. But God knows that on the day of your eating from it you will be like God(s), knowing Good and Bad.” This seems to be exactly the case: The Man and Woman do not die on the spot—imagine their relief!—but become more godlike, threatening God himself. Does the Deity fear to carry out his threat? Not really; evidently, it was never intended literally. By taking God’s words at face value, the snake has misled his victims. “On the day of your eating from it you will surely die” proves to mean, “On the day of your eating from it you will become mortal.” A milder punishment, but no less fatal in the long run.

Why did the author, who could tell the story however he chose, write dialogue creating the possible impression of a wimpy or devious God? A possible answer struck me this past year in my own garden. My then four-year-old son, a severe veggie-phobe, had begun to sample the greenery surrounding our home. (Jade plants, he reported, taste like lemon.) I began to view with new eyes a small oleander growing in the corner of the yard. Oleander is highly toxic, but I had always considered it more likely that my son would be killed by a meteorite than by a vegetable. Now the words sprang into my head: “Son, of any plant in our garden you may eat. But of that plant there—by the woodpile, the one with white, star-shaped flowers—you may not eat—do not even touch it!—for on the day you eat from it you will surely die.”

Even today we retain vestiges of herb-lore—smear aloe on a burn, don’t eat strange mushrooms, etc. The average Israelite must have known far more. My theory is that the author of Genesis 2–3 put 047into Yahweh’s mouth words that a parent would use to describe a dangerous plant.⁴ The genre of God’s speech, in other words, is pharmacological, sort of a warning label. As the Tree of Life is the quintessential medicinal herb, the Tree of Knowing Good and Bad is initially presented as the quintessential toxin, a “Tree of Death,” counterposed to the Tree of Life.

But “Knowing Good and Bad” is lethal only in the long run; the poison works slowly. The story of Eden is not a simple tragedy. It is about a choice between two incompatibles, Life and Knowledge. Being only human, we must choose. Or rather, we have already chosen.