Did Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge, tree of good and evil, or tree of life?
I realize that this seems to an easy question to answer but sometimes I take the low-hanging fruit (bazinga!). Seriously though, when I typed “Adam & Eve ate from the tree of” into google I get a popup of the most common questions or phrases and none of them are correct. So I thought maybe today we should revisit this story.
To be clear, their are only two trees in the center of the garden. 1) The tree of Life and 2) The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life AND the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:8-9)
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)
Moving into chapter 3 things get confusing.
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 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.’” (Genesis 3:2-3)
Wait, which tree in the middle of the garden? Without reading chapter 2 first or continuing on to verse 5, there is no way to actually know.
5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)
Now it is clear that Eve was referring to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Conclusion
This is the easiest matter ever addressed on DOTB, to date. They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. NOT from the tree of life and not from the tree of knowledge, which does not exist. It is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I only point this small difference out about the tree of knowledge because knowledge is a broad term, whereas knowledge of good and evil is a very precise term.
Comments About This Confusion of Trees
The larger issue at hand is not that people forget which tree they ate from. It is that they probably never knew to begin with because they either don’t read their Bibles or they read very short snippets which means they miss out on valuable pieces of information and/or context for the verse. It’s like trying to settle and argument between two people but you were not there to see what started it. You’re missing too much information to be helpful.
When reading the Bible it is imperative that the entire passage surrounding the verse in question is read so that one can properly interpret the verse. This simple step can change your Bible knowledge drastically.