Why was eating from the tree of knowledge bad?

Question

God forbade us from doing something good so when we defied him we did something bad?

Answer 1

The Tree of Knowledge was not a tree that bore fruit which would teach you math or science if you ate the fruit. The fruit taught you the difference between good and evil. By eating the fruit, Adam and Even learned the difference between good and evil, and therefore lost their innocence.

Eating the fruit wan't good, it was bad. When innocence was lost, humanity became responsible for its actions because humanity then knew the difference between doing a good act and an evil one. With knowledge of evil came responsibility for evil acts.

Look at it like this: My one-and-a-half year-old neice doesn't realize she could hurt her six-month-old brother by throwing her toys at him. When she does so, she is trying to play. She should be told "no" and not allowed to do it, but she should not go to jail if she does hurt my nephew. However, an adult knows a six-month-old could be injured, or worse, if he is hit by a thrown toy. If an adult throws something at my nephew, that adult should face charges for child abuse. The child does not know but the adult does, and resposibility comes with that knowledge.

The entire story is contained in Genesis chapter 3, it will take you about two minutes to read.

Answer 2

Yes why was it bad.It is strange how God mentions the tree explicitely drawing their attention to it. We also know that if you forbid a child something his curiosity might get the better of him. Further God places the tree in the very center of the garden. He may may as well have put up signs that said "Eat Here". Before Adam and Eve ate of the tree if they didnt have knowledge of good and evil, how would they even know that it would be wrong to eat of the tree even if told not to. They could not understand that it would be wrong to disobey!And besides if god is omniscient he would have known what was going to happen, he could have just placed the tree in an obscure corner of the garden. How is any form of knowledge bad anyway? The Gnostic Ophite version of the story has an interesting twist. Where God is demonic and false and enslaves man but the serpent liberates man through his wisdom. Also read carefully that God lied and the serpent told the truth.

Answer 3

St. Irenaeus, a theologian from the 2d century, suggested that Adam and Eve were created as incomplete. God created human beings so that they could only be finished even as that they had totally exercised their freedom in love, and so beforehand that they had a lot of a probability to workout that freedom, they were inevitably incomplete or immature. As such, human beings (and the human race usually) is going by stages of progression and adulthood. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of comprehend-how beforehand they were waiting for it. Irenaeus has some great word about how they received punishment for ingesting what on the right time might want to were salutary or something like that. God did not favor them to be ignorant, he merely wanted them to get carry of the comprehend-how on the right time. it really is a position held 1800 years in the past, and which i imagine continues to be quite compelling as a reading of Genesis 3.

Answer 4

The first thing to identify is that man sinned and the result of this sin was the creation of Adam and the creation of Adam is equal to the fall of man. The fall of man happens in Gen3. where man wanted to be "like god" (small g) instead of just being God (Gen 1) and Lord God (Gen 2). Accordingly the word Adam should never appear in the bible until God said "Adam where are you" because the "shame/no shame" distinction that is found between Gen.2 and 3 means that an ego (wherein only we can have shame) has been created and this ego identity is called Adam. Thereore, man fell and the fall of man created Adam as a second identity and the [lesser] serpent became Eve.

The bible does not say that without eating the fruit we would not die but it says that we will know that we will die. The difference here is that a conscious memory is needed to remember that we will die (because we remember that others died).

Nobody said that the act was evil in itself but will result man knowing the difference between good and evil.

Answer 5

There was nothing essentially evil about the tree or the fruit of the tree. It is unlikely that eating the fruit truly gave Adam and Eve any further knowledge. It was the act of disobedience that opened Adam and Eve’s eyes to evil. Their sin of disobeying God brought sin and evil into the world and into their lives. Eating the fruit, as an act of disobedience against God, was what gave Adam and Eve knowledge of evil. Genesis 3:6-7, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

Answer 6

God's creation, God's garden, God's tree...

Eating of the fruit was bad because God told Adam and Eve not to do it.
Pride + Rebellion = disobedience

Answer 7

Their are those of the opinion that Adam and Eve would have been eat of the tree of knowledge the next day.

They failed in the sense that could not wait.

Answer 8

God didn't want them to die.

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die

So God created the trees and plants pleasant to the eyes and good for food. Logically it would seem he did not create the tree that was not good to eat. The enemy did, and God warned Adam not to partake of the enemies seed.

Who planted the tree of knowledge of good and evil....

To answer we have to first read the parable of the wheat and tares...

24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

First though, what is a tare?

darnel, tare, bearded darnel, cheat, Lolium temulentum -- (weedy annual grass often occurs in grainfields and other cultivated land; seeds sometimes considered poisonous)

A tare is a type of "disfigured" wheat. One can not tell the difference between a tare and a stalk of wheat when they come up out of the ground. They look similar. The difference is wheat grows and produces good "fruit"(wheat), while the tare produces no fruit. The wheat from the weight of the fruit, bows down. The tare stands up straight...

Now we see the results the seeds planted by the advesary of the one who planted the good seed

26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

Now its important to understand the concept of fruit.

God said in Genesis 3,

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Seed always produces after its own kind.

27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them

30 Let both grow together until the harvest: ......................"

In Revelation the final harvest of souls comes to pass,

15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

Answer 9

Because Adam and Eve were no longer mindless slaves to God, but gained free will and wisdom.

Answer 10

Look at Christianity. Knowledge is not a good thing to many Christians. Knowledge and enlightenment would shake that religion at the core if it was allowed.