Knowledge of good and evil

The story of Adam being expelled from Eden is in the foundation of Christianity. They understand it as a story of original sin and God’s punishment to Adam and Eve for lack of faith and for disobedience. “Faith”, “obedience”, “sin”, “punishment” are the key concepts in Christianity. But Torah was written by Jews and for Jews. Jews know that God goes out of His way to implant some moral knowledge in us. Why would it be any different with Adam and Eve?

The story is very complex. Let us recall main events. I use “New Translation” by James Tabor.

- God (Elohim YHVH) created Adam from soil. Adam means “soil creature”.

- God plants garden of Eden and places Adam there. As God creates new animals Adam gives them names.

- God tells to Adam: Eat from every tree except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat it, you, surely, die.

- God creates woman who was later called Eve.

- There was a creature called Nachash. This may mean “snake”. This Nachash was “shrewd”, more than anybody.

- Nachash asked Eve, if they are allowed to eat from every tree.

- Eve says: “no, not from the tree of knowledge. If we eat or even touch it, we will die”.

- Nachash says: Not at all. You will not die. When you eat from it, you will be like Elohim knowing good and bad.

- Eve saw that the fruits on the tree appeared to be eatable, attractive, “desirable for causing insight”.

- She took the fruit and ate it. She gave it to Adam, and he ate it too.

- "And the eyes of the two of them become open, and they knew that they were nude… they made for themselves loin-cloths”.

- Elohim figures out that Adam ate from the tree of knowledge.

- Elohim is very angry with Nachash, curses him to walk on his belly. At least, it is what He said. Obviously, Nachash did not look like a snake then.

- Adam and Eve did not die, as God threatened them. Nachash was right, and God was wrong.

- God explains Eve how difficult it will be to be a woman.

- God explains Adam how difficult it will be to be a man.

- God makes robes of skin for Adam and Eve, “and He dressed them”.

- God further confirms that Nachash was right, that Adam and Eve become like Elohim, knowing. God exclaims that if Adam and Eve stay in the Garden of Eden, they would, perhaps, even eat from tree of life and live forever! Was it a joke? There was no word about this tree before or after. Was there such a tree? Who was it planted for? May be, God is kidding.

-Elohim sent them from the garden of Eden.

To summarize: the eyes of Adam and Eve “become open”, they recognized their nakedness. They become self-conscious, self-aware. They obtained an ability of self-reflection and self - judgment. In other word, they become awake.

Adam and Eve obtained this knowledge despite threat of death. They become responsible adults ready for difficult independent life. They obtained agency. Only after that God sent them out from the "incubator” of this special garden to the Earth. It was very nice of Him to make them a parting gift, “robes of skins”, like the first ever designer He was.

This is what God created humans for: to populate the world, to be moral creatures after His image.

Now, we have all this confusion with God deceiving Adam about inevitable death, and Nachash saying the truth, and God cursing Nachash for saying the truth, while confirming that Nachash was right.

God created this tree of knowledge, made it seductive, planted in the middle of the garden. Who was supposed to eat these fruits? Nobody but Adam and Eve would ever be interested in getting any knowledge this way. God planted the tree for Adam and Eve. But God did not want the knowledge to be obtained easily. It was necessary for Adam and Eve to show independence and will. It is why He tried to frighten them off at the same time. Nachash provided the last push toward the God’s secretly desired outcome. Nachash did the work for God, in my opinion.

Conclusions

God of Judaism values conscientiousness, self-awareness, will and independence. This is what God achieved with Adam and Eve violating the prohibition and eating from the tree of knowledge, planted by God for them.

Adam and Eve wanted to eat from the tree because it was “desirable for causing insight”. They had a desire for moral knowledge. At least, Eve did. And they were willing to risk their lives for it. This is what God wanted from them.

Judaism and Christianity found opposite meanings in this story. But Christian understanding can not be reconciled with the rest of Torah, with God’s consistent demands that people make moral decisions, with his preference for independent and moral-minded heroes, like Abraham, Jacob, Moses.

God of Christianity values obedience, blind faith and fear. Christian concept of God is very similar to typical polytheistic concept of gods, which I discussed here https://abouttorah.substack.com/p/fate-is-not-deterministic.