Genesis – 1 to 3

Having Knowledge Of

Question: How could Adam and Eve know it was wrong to eat of the forbidden fruit if they did not yet know Good and Evil?

The English word “knowledge” used in the English translations of Genesis 2:17 is translated from the Hebrew word “da‛ath”, identified in Strong’s Concordance as H1847 and in its simplest definition, it means “to know”. The English word “know” as used in our English translations of the Old testament is translated from the Hebrew word “yada”, and is identified in Strong’s Concordance as H3045 and defined as “To in part or in whole, have intellectual perception, to understand, to grasp, or to ascertain; especially to be familiar or acquainted with a person or thing”.

Like the word “know” (“yada”), the word “knowledge” (“da‛ath”), in the Old Testament most often has connotations of having an intimate acquaintance (relationship, experience or skill) with someone or something. This therefore includes but runs deeper than just “knowledge about”, in the sense of an objective, mental apprehension – intellectual – perception but rather, a personal relationship is implied between an individual and the object.

The knowing of God versus knowing God perhaps provides good illustration of these two different aspects of knowledge. To have knowledge of God is to have an intellectual perception, whereas knowing God means to have a personal and intimate experience in relationship with Him.

Therefore, the same can be said of Adam and Eve inasmuch Adam and Eve had intellectual knowledge (perception and understanding) of what is right, wrong, good and evil but Adam and Eve did not have experiential or relational knowledge with wrong and evil, until the moment they disobeyed God and ate from the forbidden tree.

Good and Evil vs Right and Wrong

Many people today use the words good and right as though they are synonymous. Likewise, evil and wrong are often treated as interchangeable terms. While these concepts are closely related, they are not identical. There are profound differences between what is good and what is right, just as there are differences between what is evil and what is wrong.

For example, a person may be required to do what is right even when he does not fully understand why it is good. Doing what is right concerns conformity to an objective standard, whereas perceiving something as good or evil often involves subjective judgment, personal experience, preference, or perceived benefit.

Consider a soldier receiving a lawful command. He may not fully understand all the moral, strategic, or ethical considerations behind the order. Nevertheless, he understands that obedience is right and disobedience is wrong because he is operating according to an established authority and objective standard of conduct.

Subjective and Objective Distinctions

Good — Derived from the Hebrew word tob (H2896), meaning good, pleasant, agreeable, beneficial, prosperous, morally excellent, or desirable. Good generally describes that which is perceived as beneficial, desirable, or favorable. In this sense, it carries a subjective dimension because it is often experienced and evaluated by a person.

Evil — Derived from the Hebrew word ra’ah (H7451), meaning bad, harmful, distressing, injurious, disagreeable, immoral, or destructive. Evil generally describes that which is harmful, corrupting, undesirable, or contrary to well-being. Like good, it is frequently understood through experience and perception and therefore contains a subjective aspect.

Right — Derived from the Hebrew word yashar (H3477), meaning straight, upright, righteous, just, proper, fitting, and correct. Unlike good and evil, right refers to conformity with an objective standard. Something is either right or wrong according to that standard, regardless of personal opinion or preference.

In accordance with etymology, the English word right developed from the Old English riht, a term closely associated with what we would today call righteousness. Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defined right primarily as conformity to the will of God and to His law—the perfect standard of truth and justice.

In its most literal sense, right describes a straight path, whereas wrong describes a crooked one. Thus, righteousness may be understood as moral straightness or rectitude. Perfect righteousness exists only in God, whose nature and will provide the ultimate standard by which all conduct is measured.

Scripture reflects this understanding. Deuteronomy 6:25 states: “And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.”

Similarly, the Hebrew concept translated as wrong often conveys injustice, violence, corruption, or deviation from what is righteous and proper.

The Necessity of Objective Morality

To those who claim that objective morality does not exist, one might ask why every civilized society continues to maintain laws, courts, judges, and systems of punishment. Unless society has abandoned order altogether, the existence of such institutions suggests a widespread recognition that certain actions ought to be condemned and others encouraged.

The real question, therefore, is not whether objective moral standards exist, but what source possesses the authority and reliability to define them.

If morality is grounded primarily in political institutions, religious traditions, cultural customs, or social consensus, then morality becomes vulnerable to the changing opinions of those who hold power. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that societies have often approved, legalized, and normalized practices that later generations rightly recognize as atrocities.

A standard that declares an action morally acceptable today and morally reprehensible tomorrow cannot reasonably serve as an ultimate source of objective morality. Allowing shifting political, cultural, or social trends to determine morality is akin to allowing the tail to wag the dog.

The Limits of Science

Many regard science as a dependable foundation for truth, and rightly so within its proper sphere. However, science generally concerns itself with describing how the natural world functions rather than prescribing how human beings ought to behave morally.

This limitation becomes particularly evident when considering the human conscience. Science can observe the conscience as a phenomenon and study its effects, but it struggles to explain why human beings possess a sense of moral obligation that often conflicts with their own self-interest.

When science rejects the existence of God, it can then only account for preprogrammed, internal mechanics of nature that produce logical and predictable behavior, that manifests itself in immediate and automatic responses. For example, responses like those produced by our natural instinct for survival.

Thus, the conscience presents the fields of philosophy, science, and evolution with a perplexing anomaly because while the conscience should similarly produce a logical and predictable, “moral response and or moral behavior”, our behavior is primarily in conflict – at odds – with the conscience.

To the fields of science, philosophy and evolutionism, the conscience makes no more sense than it would for electricity to break from its nature of following the path of least resistance and to randomly and inconsistently follow a path of greater resistance. 

From a purely naturalistic perspective, the conscience presents a significant challenge. It often urges individuals to act contrary to immediate self-interest, suggesting the existence of a moral dimension that transcends mere instinct or survival.

The reason why some assert there is no objective morality, is because they deny the existence of God and thus reject the authority of His word. However, God’s word presents the most correct worldview based on the world in which we live, answering the questions that science cannot, while remaining true to scientific and philosophical scrutiny. Through God’s word we find purpose and established truth.

God as the Foundation of Righteousness

The reason many reject objective morality is not necessarily because they reject morality itself, but because they reject God as its source. Yet Scripture presents God as the ultimate foundation of truth, righteousness, justice, and goodness.

Unlike humanity, God is omniscient, Omnisapient, omnibenevolent, perfectly just, and perfectly righteous. Therefore, God is always right because His knowledge is complete, His wisdom is perfect, and His character is without flaw.

God does not merely possess righteousness; righteousness is an essential attribute of His nature. Likewise, God does not merely perform good acts; He is the very standard of goodness itself.

For this reason, God’s commandments are not arbitrary rules imposed upon humanity. Rather, they are revelations of His righteous nature given for our benefit. Through His commandments, God provides intellectual knowledge of what is right and wrong. By obeying those commandments, we come to experience what is good. Conversely, by violating them, we expose ourselves to what is evil and harmful.

God’s commands therefore serve both a protective and instructional purpose. They teach us how to walk in righteousness while sparing us from learning through painful experience the destructive consequences of evil.

Exposure and Experience

It is useful to distinguish between exposure and experience.

Exposure refers to encountering, observing, or becoming aware of something. One may gain knowledge of a thing through instruction, observation, or warning without personally participating in it.

Experience refers to direct participation in or personal involvement with something. It is knowledge gained through action, practice, and firsthand encounter.

In this sense, God desired mankind to know good and evil differently. Through His commands, humanity could know intellectually that disobedience was wrong and that its consequences were evil. Yet God intended mankind to experience good through obedience rather than to experience evil through rebellion.

The tragedy of the fall was not merely that Adam and Eve gained knowledge, but that they acquired experiential knowledge of evil through disobedience rather than remaining in the experiential knowledge of good through faithful obedience to God.

Adam and Eve Knew what was Very Good

Prior to eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve knew every aspect of “good”. They had an intimate relational experience with God (Psalm 100:5). They experienced (hands-on participation in) the goodness of God’s creation and His loving welfare for them in the garden of Eden (Genesis 1:31).  Adam and Eve were able to recognize that which is good, for Eve said, (Genesis 3:6) that “the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, …”. The same trappings of sin that we face today.

In clarification, the fruit of the forbidden tree was not specious (misleading in appearance, especially misleadingly attractive) nor was it in and of itself poisonous. God never said that the tree was not good for food but instead He simply commanded “thou shalt not eat of it”. The forbidden fruit was indeed “very good” for food, meaning it was edible. To claim otherwise would not only to shift the emphasis or focus away from the act of disobedience and onto the fruit, but it would then have to be said that Eve lied (sinned) before ever eating of the forbidden fruit.

Adam and Eve Knew what was Right

Adam and Eve absolutely knew what was right (Genesis 3:2). They absolutely knew what was wrong (Genesis 3:3). One does not need first-hand experience with death in order to know of death and Adam and Eve intellectually knew of physical death, having discerned it as bad, and as an undesirable thing to be avoided. Adam and Eve were absolutely given “intellectual knowledge” of what is “right” and “experiential knowledge” of what is “good” (Matthew 19:17). Likewise, God gave Adam and Eve “intellectual knowledge” of what is “wrong” so that they could avoid “experiential knowledge” of what is “evil”.

Having Authority

As aforementioned, in creating man in His own image, God granted Adam and Eve dominion over all the earth, Genesis 1:26 ESV: “… let them have dominion … over all the earth …”. This dominion signifies rule, authority, judgement and stewardship, reflecting Adam and Eve’s unique position as representatives (to be in the likeness) of God on Earth and to manage God’s Earthly creation in accordance with His purposes and will.  This concept is further emphasized in Genesis 1:28, where God blesses Adam and Eve, instructing them to be fruitful and multiply, and to subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28).

Did God say, “neither shall you touch” the forbidden fruit?

Eve was not created until after God had created Adam and (Genesis 2:15-17) “… placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. / And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, / but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die”.

Adam was created first so as to establish his leadership role as well as to accentuate his aloneness and need of companionship. Eve was created thereafter as his interdependent helper and companion, revealing as per God’s design, the complementary roles He had intended for marriage between man and woman (see Ephesians 5:22-33). As per this design, God had given His command “not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil” to Adam and it was therefore Adam’s responsibility as the husband, to protect, and edify his wife in obedience and fulfillment of God’s word and commands. Scripture confirms this when and where:

1. The Serpent asks of Eve for a yes or no answer to his question in Genesis 3:1, “… ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?’. The Serpent, endeavouring to obscure Eve’s understanding of God’s command, was in essence asking Eve, from whose lips (God’s or Adam’s) to her ears, did this command actually come from? Eve skirts the question and instead responds by saying what she was told, Genesis 3:2-3: “… ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, [3] but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die’“. While Eve attributes the words “neither shall you touch it” as commanded by God, never are those words mentioned as being part of the command God gave to Adam in Genesis 2:17.
2. Furthermore, had God commanded Adam “neither shall you touch it”, with “it” contextually pointing to “the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden”, then unless Adam or Eve could eat the fruit without holding it in hand or touching it to their lips, Adam and Eve would have sinned (Spiritually died) from the moment they touched the forbidden fruit, rendering the act of eating the fruit nonessential. However, God makes no such mention of this in Genesis 3:17. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the instruction “neither shall you touch it”, was never part of God’s command to Adam.

Did Adam Lie to Eve in saying “neither shall you touch it”?

It is only the serpent that Scripture accredits as having deceived Eve.  Scripture does not explicitly state why Eve told the Serpent, “… God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die‘“,

However, Scripture does provide us enough clues to form a reasonable hypothesis. For example, although one might question the wisdom of Adam, there is no question that Adam as the husband, the protector of Eve, had not only the best of intention but also the authority, given him by God to modularize God’s command with his own added safeguard / instruction “neither shall you touch it”.

To modularize is to design or produce something in separate distinct sections and therefore it does not in and of itself equate to subtracting from or adding to God’s word. Nor would it amount to deception on the part of Adam in modularizing God’s command with his own instruction as long as he did not consciously and deliberately avoid distinguishing God’s command from that of his own instruction / commentary.

This is not to say however that Adam could not have made an innocent mistake in how he articulated God’s command when conjoining his own instruction to it. Neither is it to say that Eve herself could not, just as easily and innocently confused what God had commanded with what Adam had instructed.

After all, while Adam and Eve were made “very good”, in the image, and in the likeness of God, they were not made perfect as per the infallible perfection of God.  The arrangement of the same words in following two sentences represent differences that are as subtle as they are profound:

a. You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, lest you die! neither shall you touch it

b. You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die’

Therefore, we do not know for certain if Adam said “a)” and Eve innocently misunderstood it as “b)” or if Adam mistakenly said “b)”. One would assume that if Adam had instructed Eve by saying “a)” that he would have interjected and corrected Eve when she conveyed “b)” in answer to the serpent. However, that assumes that Adam was within ear-shot of the conversation between Eve and the Serpent. If we assume that he was privy to the conversation, then the fact that Adam seems to have remained silent during the exchange between Eve and the Serpent might possibly indicate that Adam did not recognize his mistake of inadvertently conjoining (not modularizing) God’s command with his own instruction. If nothing else, his inaction and silence would then have been a grave failure on his part to protect Eve from the Serpent.  After all, Adam had firsthand knowledge of God’s command and therefore he should have been without any confusion of what action leads to death. Regardless, and despite Adam’s inaction and apparent silence, had Eve simply listened and adhered to Adam’s instruction then she would have not only not eaten the forbidden fruit, but she would not even have touched it.

Did Eve lie to the Serpent in saying “God said ‘neither shall you touch it”?

Some commentaries suggest that there was quite a bit of back-and-forth, deliberate embellishment of God’s command, between and on part of both the naive Eve and the cunning Serpent. However, such suggestions would implicate Eve as having used the same tactics of intentional deviation and distortion to contradict and deceive the serpent.

Deception is defined as the conscious and deliberate act of persuading someone to believe that which is false, is the true, and or to intentionally keep the truth hidden from someone for your own advantage. It is only the Serpent who is accredited with deception in Genesis 3:13 ESV: “… The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” and so Adam did NOT deceive Eve, Eve did NOT deceive the Serpent, and the Serpent did NOT deceive Adam. Hence, for Eve to have told the Serpent, “… God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die‘“, means that she must have believed:

• That her statement was accurate / truthful.
• That the words “neither shall you touch it” was all part of the one and the same command given directly from God to Adam and from Adam to her.
• That to “eat” and or “touch” the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden would cause death.

What is the significant function of “neither shall you touch it” in the deception of Eve?

Scripture is concise in the sense that it does not tell us everything that can be known but instead only that which God has deemed important that we need know. For example, unless one believes that between the time of their creation and their fall, that Adam and Eve never spoke a single word to one another (possible exception of Genesis 2:23), it would be reasonable to assume there was much conversation between the pair that we are simply not made privy to. The same could be true of the conversation / interaction between Eve and the serpent in so much that we are not privy to the entire conversation / interaction but instead only to that which God has deemed we need know and understand.

Thus, the Scriptural inclusion of “neither shall you touch it, lest you die”, made by Eve as / in hearsay of God’s command (never directly mentioned by God, Genesis 2:17, 3:11,17) means that God deemed we ought to know and understand that it played a significant role in serpents’ deception of Eve. The fact that God does not give us the exact details of how the serpent used the words “neither shall you touch it, lest you die” against her, could be purposed to place emphasis on the means (what gave opportunity) by which the serpent deceived Eve as opposed to the method (how the opportunity was used).

We could speculate that perhaps the serpent’s modus operandi was to pick a piece of fruit from the forbidden tree and toss it to Eve. Reacting instinctively, Eve may have caught the forbidden fruit in her hands and realizing that she had not been immediately stricken dead from touching it, she became confused, second guessing  / doubting her understanding. Regardless of all speculation, were it not for either:

1. the possible negligence of due diligence on the part of Adam in loosely conjoining (not modularizing) God’s command with his own instruction

or

1. the possible error on the part of Eve in misinterpreting / conjoining of God’s command with Adam’s instruction

the serpent would have been without the means to deceive Eve. Therefore, by God’s wisdom, in not disclosing who may have been negligent, we are forced to examine both possibilities and heed warning to avoid each potential mistake as much as the other. If my interpretation is correct then this warning narrated in the opening pages of Scripture is very similar to the warning expressed at the end of Scripture, Revelation 22:18-19 ESV: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, [19] and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book”.

Was it not a sin for Eve to want to be like God or be God?

There is a major difference in wanting to be like God and wanting to be God. Adam and Eve were created in the image of / after the likeness of God, Genesis 1:26-27 ESV: “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … [27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”. Therefore, there is nothing inherently bad or sinful in having the likeness of God.

Never did the serpent tell Eve that she would be God, for that was the position that he lusted for himself. Instead, the serpent told her that she would be Genesis 3:5 ESV: “… like God in, knowing good and evil”, Never, did Eve say that she desired “to be God”, but instead she saw, Genesis 3:6 ESV: “ … that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise”, then “she took of its fruit and ate …”.

Now, unless one is to say it sinful / evil for Christians to desire and pray for Godly wisdom then it was neither evil nor sinful of Eve to desire to be wise like God. After all, Jesus himself said in Matthew 5:28, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”.  This statement reveals that sin is more than just an act but is instead about the condition of the heart and mind. Thus, if it was sinful of Eve to desire in her heart to be wise like God, then it would have to be said that Eve was sinful prior to eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and that is simply not Scriptural.

Therefore, it is important to understand that neither Adam nor Eve were deceitful or had any sinful intentions prior to disobeying God’s command not to eat from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. Instead, Eve simply made a bad decision and while one could argue it was with the best of intention, it was still a bad decision and one that led to her sinful act of disobedience of God’s command.