Monday, November 26, 2012

Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil


I recently read Jeffrey Bradshaw's paper entitled Mormonism's Satan and the Tree of Life and thought this paragraph was really insightful so I wanted to share. Here it is:

The Hebrew expression “knowledge of good and evil” in the description of one of the trees can mean knowledge of what is good and bad, or of happiness and misery—or else knowledge of “everything” if good and evil is taken as a merism. Perhaps the most relevant hint on the meaning of the phrase comes from Deuteronomy 1:39, which speaks of little children “who… have no knowledge of good and evil,” suggesting “that they are not legally responsible for their actions.” In this sense, the term aptly refers not to abstract conceptual knowledge but rather to the kind of “knowledge which infancy lacks and experience acquires.”

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