Talk:Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

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[edit] Tree of Life

I'm new here. Well, old actually. I contributed something a couple of years ago. I see "they presented a risk that they would also eat the fruit of the Tree of Life and become immortal".

It was only once they had eaten of the Tree of Conscience that God forbade Adam and Eve from eating of the Tree of Life.

Genisis 3:22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

That is, immortality was theirs until they had acquired conscience. Banishment from the garden meant banishment from the source of immortality - the Tree of Life.

The above quote from your article may be understood to imply they were denied access to the tree of life before they sinned, that they might "become immortal". Banishment was not about preventing them from becoming immortal but denying them the immortality they had hitherto enjoyed.

Genisis 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

Anthony (talk) 06:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)Anthony ColeAnthony (talk) 06:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] What about Cannabis?

I find it interesting there's no mention of cannabis here. Cannabis is held out as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil by several religious groups, such as Rastafarians, Essenians, Ethiopian Coptic Christians, even Sufic Islamists and Zoroastarians use cannabis in their ceremonies, and several of them explicitly identify cannabis as the Tree of Knowledge - which, if you've ever taken it, isn't too surprising.

Furthermore, cannabis was one of the ingredients of the Anointing Oil used for the Judaic kings, Solomon was said to have it planted on his tomb, it was widely utilized in ancient Semetic culture, it is reputed by some to be the identity of the "Burning Bush" that Moses was overcome by, and it is mentioned explicitly in multiple place in the Bible as Kaneh Bosem, fragrant cane, and other ancient names.

It seems like a large oversight to make no mention at all of cannabis when several religions or religious sects identify cannabis as the Tree. Even if it's a conflicted account and not fully supported, it's intellectually dishonest to completely ignore the topic.Chaos Motor 00:49, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The mystery of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

The knowledge of evil:

Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 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.

Genesis 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived

Genesis 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived

Genesis 4:25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son

Judges 19:25 But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night

etc., etc., etc.


The knowledge of goodness:

John 4:14 And Jesus said: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.


The crossing of two forces, symbolized by the christian Cross, the jewish seal of Solomon, the daoist Yin & Yan, etc., is the great Arcanum of world-religion. The tree of knowledge, also called Daath or Gnosis symbolizes the root wisdom of generation. Here's a link that should prove illuminating: http://www.gnosticteachings.org/

The gnostic position should therefore not be left out in this article.

[edit] Jewish interpretation missing

Um, Genesis is part of the Torah. Why are Jewish interpretations not listed? Arch O. LaTalkTCF 04:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:BIAS and {{sofixit}} - I will strongly support you and cheer you on. KillerChihuahua?!? 21:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Except that I don't know what the Jewish interpretations are. The article does discuss Rabbinic commentary on the fruit (grape or fig or wheat), but not the tree itself. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalkTCF 21:12, 4 April 2006 (UTC) (The editor formerly known as Archola.)

I found some info on the Jewish interpretation of the tree in the original sin article and added the info here. A web search also found this commentary, which references Maimonides. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalkTCF 09:26, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christian interpretations

I'm about to trim this article to a nub unless some sources are found - I've looked a little, but I have no idea of the sources for most of this, and the weaseling and casual wording is a bit much - "Christian interpreters" What Christian interpreters? When? Who? "you strung up the guy right away" This is not encyclopedic writing. KillerChihuahua?!? 21:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

It is a bit strange. You'd expect a discussion of Augustinian original sin vs. Pelagianism as it relates to the nature of the tree itself. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalkTCF 09:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I just did a rewrite. Be sure to look it over. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalkTCF 13:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Should there be a gnostic interpretation of the tree as well? Or just a bit on original sin/eating of the fruit as an entering of conciousness, as a modern or secular interpretation.


Also, this section needs to state more explicitly that the concept of original sin is almost exclusivly Catholic (and maybe Anglican) dogma. Few other christian religions believe in the concept of original sin.Padillah 15:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Per Archola's request, I reviewed the page. However, until citations are provided (per KC's still valid request), it will be hard to decide if any true POV remains, thus I used the citation needed tag in places where I think a cite would benefit the article. If help is needed in setting up the sourcing, etc, give me a holler. •Jim62sch• 18:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Semi-automatic peer review

[edit] Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question. *This article has no images. Please see if there are any free use images that fall under WP:IUP and WP:IT that can be uploaded. To upload images on Wikipedia, go to Special:Upload; to upload non-fair use images on the Wikimedia Commons, go to commons:special:upload.[1]. Done. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 08:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC) *Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:BTW, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006, but do not link January 2006.[2] Done. *Per WP:MOS#Headings, headings generally do not start with the word "The". For example, ==The Biography== would be changed to ==Biography==. Done. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 06:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC) *Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at WP:GTL. . Done. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 06:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC) *Please alphabetize the interlanguage links.[3] Done. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 06:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”

*As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space inbetween. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2] Done. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 06:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 06:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (round 2)

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 07:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


I deleted the section citing Family Guy as under Popular Culture, largely because it is insignificant. Personally enjoying Family Guy, this information is not informative to the subject matter and is mildly offensive.

Arbor scientie, the "Tree of Knowledge" tended by layman and monk, in a German 16th-century woodcut
Arbor scientie, the "Tree of Knowledge" tended by layman and monk, in a German 16th-century woodcut

[edit] "Huge birds of prey were common in those days and they fed upon mankind...."

...Hilarious. What does Stephen Colbert make of such a statement, one wonders? One is scarcely tempted to make sense of such an article. I thought the German 16th century woodcut at right might be suitable, but I don't think it's worth the trouble. --Wetman 20:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References in symbolic interpretation of tree

The following speculative remark from the symbolic interpretation section adds nothing:

"If so the fruit of the tree might be using moral law as a tool to break the commandment "Judge not."

There is no "Judge not" commandment. The author probably refers to the following text: "Judge not, and you will not be judged ... for with the measure you use it will be measured back to you" - which warns against hypocritical judgment.

--Dynamind (talk) 23:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Popular Culture

Many articles have a section about that article's topic's portrayal or appearances in Popular Culture. I wonder if this article should have one. I can think of numerous books and a couple of television shows that portrayed the tree significantly. Thoughts? Hooper (talk) 17:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)