The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: Symbol, Shadow, and Stone

This interpretation is an application of concepts first introduced in Token of the Bow, and expanded in What Happened to Hope? in the chapter Symbols, Shadows, and Stone. Using the principles first expressed there, this analysis applies these concepts to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil God placed in the Garden of Eden. It is a work in progress. Dr, Robert L. Wright

The account of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 2–3 stands as one of the most pivotal and multilayered narratives in scripture. Far from requiring us to force it into a single category of pure symbol, mere literary shadow, or rigid historical fact, the story exemplifies the principle articulated in my chapter Symbols, Shadows and Stone. Scripture, and life itself, can embody all three simultaneously. Each dimension enriches the others without diminishing their power. The references to the tree unfold within a historical narrative that is stone: a discrete, factual event involving an actual tree and actual fruit. Yet it pulses with symbolic depth, including its name as a classic merism, and prophetic or shadow significance. It prefigures Christ’s Atonement, the introduction of opposition and mortality into the cosmos, and the eschatological restoration of paradise. This essay offers a thorough exegetical analysis. It draws on biblical, Christian, Latter-day Saint (LDS), early Israelite, Near Eastern, and even cross-linguistic evidence. It addresses the experiential reality of the Fall, the deeper issue of moral autonomy, refutes overly sexualized interpretations, explores its cosmic implications including entropy, and traces parallels with Gethsemane, the cross, and end-times events. The inclusion of thorns in the curse and the crown of thorns at the crucifixion further reinforces these connections between the Tree, the Fall, and Christ’s redemptive work on the tree of the cross. Ultimately, the Tree invites us not only to understand ancient scripture but to apply its truths personally.

The Broader Concept of Merism and Its Application to the Tree

A merism is a literary device common in Biblical Hebrew. It expresses a totality or completeness by naming two contrasting extremes or poles, implying everything in between. Classic examples include “heavens and earth” in Genesis 1:1 for the entire universe, “evening and morning” in Genesis 1:5 for a full day, or “high and low” in English for a comprehensive search. In Genesis 2:9 and 2:17, the phrase “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Hebrew: ʿēṣ haddaʿat ṭōb wārāʿ) employs “good and evil” (*ṭōb wārāʿ*) as a merism. Literally “good and bad or evil,” it does not primarily denote moral dualism or sexual awareness. Instead it signifies comprehensive knowledge: everything from the best to the worst, omniscience-like discernment, or the full spectrum of experiential reality. The serpent promises in Genesis 3:5 that eating will make them “like God, knowing good and evil,” echoing divine totality (cf. 2 Samuel 14:17; Deuteronomy 1:39). Hebrew daʿat here functions as “knowing” (infinitive or gerund) or experiential knowledge, not mere factual data (*yādaʿ*). The tree therefore represents the acquisition of godlike wisdom through opposition: tasting mortality to appreciate life, suffering to value joy, and evil to choose good.

This merism does not reduce the tree to pure allegory. It operates within a concrete narrative framework. This allows the event to be simultaneously factual (stone), typological (shadow), and richly symbolic.

Yet the phrase carries still deeper force when read as an ancient Hebrew idiom. Beyond the merism of total knowledge, “knowledge of good and evil” functions as an expression of moral authority: the right and capacity to determine for oneself what is right and what is wrong. Biblical scholars, both Christian and Jewish, have long noted this. Bruce Waltke observes that the tree “belongs exclusively to God. Sin consists of an illicit reach of unbelief, an assertion of human autonomy to know morality apart from God. The creature must live by faith in God’s word, not by a professed self-sufficiency of knowledge.” Tremper Longman similarly states that by eating, Adam and Eve “assert their own moral independence from God. In essence, through their act, they say to God, ‘We will not allow you to define what is right and what is wrong, but we will make our own ethical judgments.’” John Walton adds that the wisdom represented by the tree is not itself the source of wisdom; God is. Adam and Eve were to gain wisdom from Him, perhaps even through the tree in due time, but only as and when they were ready. The medieval Jewish commentator Nachmanides (Ramban) points in the same direction: the fruit gives birth to the will and desire to choose a thing or its opposite, for the good or the bad. Daʿat here carries the sense of will or intention. The consistent thread is moral self-determination, the claim of the creature to occupy the divine prerogative of defining good and evil.

Thus the merism of comprehensive knowledge and the idiom of moral autonomy converge. The tree offered not merely information about good and evil, but the experiential assertion of the right to define them independently of the Creator. That assertion is the heart of the transgression.

The Historical Narrative as “Stone”: An Actual Tree, Actual Fruit, Discrete Event

Symbols, Shadows and Stone argues that many dismiss early Genesis as legend. Yet archaeological stone such as the Tel Dan Stela or NHM altars grounds even symbolic elements in history. The Genesis account presents the Tree of Knowledge likewise: not myth or mere parable, but embedded in a factual primeval history. God plants “every tree” (Genesis 2:9), including this specific one “in the midst of the garden,” alongside the Tree of Life. The command is literal: “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Genesis 2:17; cf. Moses 3:16–17). Eve “took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6), then shared it. These were discrete actions with immediate, physical consequences (eyes opened, fig leaves, expulsion).

Prophetic teachings affirm this historicity while embracing multiplicity. The fruit was literal food causing bodily change from paradisiacal immortality to mortality. Lehi in 2 Nephi 2:15 explicitly sets “the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter,” underscoring tangible opposition. The Fall was a transgression (not a sin in the fullest sense), a deliberate choice enabling progression. This aligns with the document’s stone: actual people (Adam, Eve) in a real setting, whose choices have enduring historical and covenantal weight.

The event was discrete: one forbidden act at one moment, introducing irreversible change. This singularity mirrors the Atonement’s discrete efficacy, one sacrifice for all.

Experiential Nature of Partaking, Moral Autonomy, and Issues with Sexual Transgression Theories

Partaking was profoundly experiential, not abstract or intellectual. The fruit was “good for food,” “a delight to the eyes,” and “to be desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6), sensory and volitional. Eating produced immediate knowledge through experience: “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Genesis 3:7). Shame, mortality awareness, and toil entered their reality. In LDS terms (2 Nephi 2:23–25; Moses 5:11), it enabled seed, joy, and redemption: opposition experienced, not theorized. Eve’s solitary act underscores agency and the personal, embodied cost of choice.

The deeper issue, however, is not the acquisition of information but the assertion of moral autonomy. The serpent’s promise, “ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,” is not merely a promise of expanded data. It is an invitation to seize the divine role of moral arbiter. Solomon later asked the Lord for “an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9). Solomon sought that discernment from God, as a dependent servant. Adam and Eve reached for it apart from God, as autonomous agents. The difference is decisive. One path is faith; the other is the root of rebellion.

This experiential core also exposes flaws in sexual interpretations of the Fall. Eve partakes alone first (“she took of its fruit and ate”), then gives to Adam “who was with her” (Genesis 3:6). The transgression precedes any spousal interaction, and God had already commanded “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) before the Fall. Post-Fall shame over nakedness arises after eating, as consequence, not cause. Early Christian and Jewish sources focus on disobedience rather than sex as the primal sin. Sexual interpretations often import Canaanite fertility motifs anachronistically, ignoring the narrative sequence and the merism’s broader scope of moral authority. The Fall enables full human sexuality within covenant, but the tree itself enacts the claim to moral self-determination, together with the mortality and opposition that follow.

The Pattern of Autonomy Across Scripture

The sin inaugurated at the tree did not end in Eden. It set the pattern for all subsequent human rebellion. In Genesis 4, Cain decides for himself what constitutes acceptable worship, rejects God’s correction, and murders his brother. In Genesis 11, humanity unites at Babel “to make a name for ourselves,” constructing a tower of self-glory rather than submitting to the Lord’s command to fill the earth. In the period of the judges, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25), the Hebrew equivalent of determining good and evil independently. The kings of Israel, anointed to administer God’s justice, repeatedly redefined it according to their own desires, exploiting the people and worshiping idols of their own making. The prophets cry out against the same pattern: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20). Jeremiah diagnoses the result: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Humanity’s internal moral compass is broken precisely because we seized God’s place as moral authority.

This consistent biblical thread confirms that the Tree of Knowledge is not an isolated episode about fruit or curiosity. It is the origin point of the creature’s claim to define reality on its own terms. The rest of scripture is the long working-out of that claim, and of God’s redemptive answer to it.

Entropy, the Curse, Thorns, and Cosmic Change

The Fall as a discrete event introduced entropy: decay, death, and disorder into the universe. This aligns with the Curse (Genesis 3:17–19): cursed ground, “thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee,” sweat, and return to dust. The introduction of thorns is no incidental detail. It directly stems from the transgression tied to the Tree of Knowledge. Pre-Fall, the ground yielded effortless abundance. Post-Fall, it resisted with painful, entropic growth. Thorns symbolize the new reality of opposition, toil, and mortality. We can link this to the second law of thermodynamics. The universe’s tendency toward disorder was not inherent in the pristine creation but allowed to exist by the Fall. This explains physical death, disease, and natural evil. This is not mere symbolism but a factual shift in cosmic conditions. It enables opposition (2 Nephi 2:11) while necessitating redemption.

The Tree’s fruit was the gateway to original sin’s transmission (Romans 5:12). The event was necessary for agency, family, and exaltation, yet still required Christ’s intervention. The claim to moral autonomy produced real consequences that only the second Adam could reverse. The thorns of the curse become a profound link to the Atonement. At Christ’s crucifixion, soldiers wove a crown of thorns and placed it on his head (Matthew 27:29; Mark 15:17; John 19:2, 5). The second Adam, hanging on a tree (the cross; see Acts 5:30; Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:23), literally bore upon his brow the very thorns that the first Adam’s act had introduced into the world. This crown was not random mockery but a typological fulfillment. Christ, who knew no sin, wore the emblem of the Fall’s curse to redeem it. The tree that brought knowledge through the assertion of autonomy produced thorns. The tree (cross) of obedience bore the King crowned with those thorns, reversing the curse and bearing its full weight. In this way, the historical reality of the Tree of Knowledge and its immediate consequences (thorns) find their prophetic shadow in the crucifixion. Stone, symbol, and shadow converge in the Savior’s suffering.

Possible Scientific Basis for the Fall and the Introduction of Entropy

Some thinkers have explored possible scientific correlates to the theological reality of the Fall introducing entropy, decay, and death into the created order. The Second Law of Thermodynamics describes the universal tendency toward increasing disorder, or entropy, in isolated systems. While the fundamental laws of physics, including thermodynamics, appear to have been operative from the initial creation (evidenced by processes such as solar energy transfer and digestion), many interpreters suggest that pre-Fall conditions were supernaturally sustained in a state of remarkable order and immortality. The discrete act of partaking of the forbidden fruit may have triggered a profound physical and biological shift.

In this view, the fruit itself could have contained properties or initiated biochemical processes that fundamentally altered human physiology and, by extension, the broader creation. Possible mechanisms include the introduction of oxidative stress, free radical damage, or the activation of genetic programs for aging and cellular senescence. Such changes would align with the experiential knowledge gained: mortality and the full spectrum of opposition became embodied realities.

The transition from a paradisiacal, immortal state to mortality involved a real physical transformation. The partaking of the actual fruit enacted this change, removing the divine sustaining influence that had previously counteracted or minimized entropic effects. This is not to say the Second Law itself originated at the Fall, but that its full, unchecked consequences for living organisms and the ground (thorns, toil, death) were unleashed. The curse pronounced upon the ground and the introduction of thorns serve as tangible markers of this new entropic reality. Ultimately, these scientific reflections remain interpretive models. They illustrate how the historical stone of the Fall could produce measurable physical consequences while retaining its rich symbolic and typological power.

Theological Interpretation: The Removal of the Light of Christ and God’s Presence

My personal belief is that the introduction of entropy at the Fall did not require any alteration to the fundamental structure or laws of the universe. Instead, it resulted from the withdrawal of the Light of Christ and the direct sustaining presence of God. Scripture records that light was created on the first day (Genesis 1:3–5), long before the sun, moon, or stars. This is the Light of Christ, which “proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space” and “is the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:6–13; see also John 1:4–9; Doctrine and Covenants 93:2). This divine light or power upholds, animates, and orders all creation (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3). In the paradisiacal state of Eden, God’s personal presence provided an extraordinary environment of order, immortality, and abundance. The garden itself was a localized extension of divine presence, where death, decay, and entropy were held at bay (Genesis 2:8–15; Moses 3:8–9).

The discrete transgression involving the Tree of Knowledge changed this dynamic. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, they became subject to the conditions of mortality. God then withdrew His immediate presence, as evidenced by the expulsion from the garden and the placement of cherubim to guard the way to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:8, 23–24; Moses 4:28–31). With the sustaining influence of God’s presence and the associated Light of Christ no longer operating in the same direct and localized manner within Eden, the natural tendencies toward disorder, previously restrained or counteracted, were fully unleashed. Entropy, decay, and death entered human experience and the broader creation not as newly invented physical realities but as the inevitable result of the removal of that divine restraining and ordering force. The thorns and thistles of the curse (Genesis 3:18) thus serve as visible signs of a cosmos now operating in the reduced light of a fallen world, relying on the partial light provided by the sun. This model preserves the historicity of the Fall as stone while harmonizing it with observable scientific realities. It also deepens the typological shadow: Christ, who is the Light of the World, later enters the fallen world to restore what was lost through His Atonement, ultimately culminating in the eschatological return of God’s full presence, the removal of dependence on the sun: “And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5), accompanied by the removal of every curse.

Relevance of Analyzing Eden with Gethsemane, the Cross, and Eschatological Events

Scripture invites typological reading. Eden parallels Gethsemane and the cross as shadow and fulfillment. In Eden’s garden, the first Adam asserts moral autonomy amid trees. He grasps godlikeness through forbidden fruit and introduces death and thorns. In Gethsemane’s garden, the second Adam (Christ) submits perfectly: “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). He sweats blood (symbolic of life poured out) and reverses the choice of autonomy. Where the first Adam said, in effect, “My will be done,” the second Adam said the opposite. The cross, itself a tree, becomes the antitype. Christ bears the curse Adam incurred, including the thorns now fashioned into a crown of derision and pain. Where Eden’s tree brought the knowledge of good and evil through the assertion of independence, Golgotha’s tree brings redemption through perfect obedience and dependence. This is a tale of two gardens, two trees, and the thorns that bind them: one of claimed autonomy leading to expulsion and cursed ground, one of surrendered will leading to reconciliation. The crown of thorns visibly unites the consequences of the Fall to the head of the Redeemer. The crown reinforces the tree motif at every level. The forbidden tree’s fruit led to thorns in the soil. The cross (tree) of atonement is crowned with those same thorns, declaring victory over the very entropy, opposition, and moral self-determination the original tree unleashed.

Eschatologically, Revelation 22 restores paradise. The Tree of Life returns in the New Jerusalem (no longer barred). It bears monthly fruit for the healing of nations, with “no more curse” (Revelation 22:2–3). The Tree of Knowledge is absent because redemption is complete. Moral agency, tested through opposition (including thorns), yields to eternal life without further probation. The merism’s totality and the claim of autonomy find resolution in Christ, who “knows” good and evil perfectly yet triumphs by perfect submission, and who wore the thorns so that we need not.

Early Israelite Discussions, Near Eastern References, and Linguistic Connections

Early Israelite tradition (Talmud, Midrash) speculates concretely on the tree’s nature while preserving historicity. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 70a; Berakhot) debates the fruit: grape, fig, or wheat. Midrashim portray the serpent as yetzer ha-ra or external tempter, emphasizing moral growth. These affirm the event’s reality while extracting symbolic lessons, with no wholesale allegorization. The thorns of Genesis 3:18 receive similar attention in later rabbinic sources as emblematic of post-Fall struggle. This further underscores the curse’s tangible reality.

Near Eastern parallels (Adapa myth, Gilgamesh Epic) provide context but highlight Genesis’s polemic. Genesis rejects sexual fall or cyclical myth. It affirms linear history, human responsibility, and one God’s sovereignty. Linguistically, Hebrew ṭōb wārāʿ as merism has Egyptian and Homeric parallels. Ancient Chinese pictographs encode Genesis motifs with striking specificity. The character for “garden” (園) incorporates components evoking an enclosure containing two persons (or a man formed from dust receiving breath), directly recalling the creation of Adam and Eve and their placement in Eden. The character for “covet” or “desire” (婪 lán) is composed of two trees (林) combined with a woman (女), vividly depicting Eve’s temptation as she faces one of the two special trees in the garden. The character for “forbidden” or “prohibit” (禁 jìn) consists of two trees (林) alongside a divine command or proclamation (示), precisely mirroring God’s explicit prohibition against eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Additional characters evoke temptation or the tempter as elements suggesting a garden or trees combined with a secretive or devilish figure. These ideographic compositions, preserved in the earliest oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, offer independent linguistic stone corroboration. They suggest that post-Babel dispersion carried primeval memories of the Genesis account into ancient Chinese culture, embedding the historical reality of the Fall, the two trees, the woman, and the divine prohibition into the very structure of their written language.

Full Exegetical Analysis and Application

Exegetically, Genesis 2:9 plants the trees amid provision. Genesis 2:15–17 commissions humanity as stewards with agency and one prohibition (death as consequence, spiritual and physical). Chapter 3 presents the serpent’s craft, Eve’s rationalization, Adam’s complicity, divine interrogation, curses (including thorns), and expulsion (cherubim guarding Tree of Life). These form a tight narrative arc of disobedience, the assertion of moral autonomy, knowledge, mortality, and hope (protoevangelium in 3:15). The merism, the idiom of moral authority, the sensory details, the etiology of pain, toil, thorns, death, and the typological threads integrate symbol, history, and prophecy seamlessly. The crown of thorns in the Gospels completes the exegetical arc. The curse pronounced because of the Tree is visibly assumed by Christ on the cross-tree.

Application, per Symbols, Shadows and Stone, transforms this. Surround yourself with personal symbols (temple motifs, reminders of covenants) evoking the garden’s paradise and the crown that redeems its thorns. Become shadows of Christ through service amid opposition. Wear the thorns of mortality with faith. Glimpse stone: bedrock realities of the Fall’s necessity, including the disastrous claim to define good and evil on our own terms, and the Atonement’s power in personal trials. Daily we face the same choice presented at the tree: will we lean on our own understanding and redefine good and evil according to our preferences, or will we trust the Lord’s definition and receive wisdom from His hand? Proverbs 3:5–7 and Psalm 1 reverse the Fall by calling us back to relational dependence. Solomon asked for discernment from God rather than seizing it. Christ submitted rather than asserted. We, like our first parents, choose daily between life and the knowledge that comes through opposition. We progress toward the restored Tree of Life, free from curse and crowned with glory, only as we abandon the claim of moral autonomy and abide in the One who alone defines good and evil perfectly.

In embracing all three lenses (stone, symbol, and shadow) we avoid the uncertainty plaguing critical thinkers and discover scripture’s incredible richness. The Tree of Knowledge was real. Its fruit was tasted. Its consequences (including thorns and the unbroken pattern of human self-determination) were cosmic. Yet its story points unerringly to Christ, who wore the crown of thorns on the tree of the cross and who turns the Fall’s bitter fruit into eternal joy by restoring us to dependence on the Father’s will.

References

Longman, Tremper, III. Relevant discussion of moral independence in the Genesis narrative (as cited in secondary synthesis; see also Longman, How to Read Genesis, 2nd ed., InterVarsity Press).

Nachmanides (Ramban / Moses ben Nahman). Commentary on the Torah: Genesis. Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York: Shilo Publishing House, 1971–1976. Especially comments on Genesis 2:9 regarding daʿat as will or intention and the awakening of the capacity to choose between a thing and its opposite.

Walton, John H. Genesis. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001 (and related statements). On the tree representing wisdom whose true source is God, to be gained relationally and in due time.

Waltke, Bruce K., with Cathi J. Fredricks. Genesis: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001. Especially the observation that “the tree is good, but it belongs exclusively to God. Sin consists of an illicit reach of unbelief, an assertion of human autonomy to know morality apart from God.”

Early Jewish Sources

Babylonian Talmud. Tractates Sanhedrin 70a and Berakhot (discussions of the possible identity of the fruit).

Midrashic literature (various) on the serpent, moral growth, and the tangible nature of the curse, including thorns.

Ancient Near Eastern and Archaeological Context

The Adapa myth and the Epic of Gilgamesh (comparative literature highlighting Genesis’s distinct linear, monotheistic, and responsibility-focused narrative).

Tel Dan Stele (archaeological attestation of the “House of David”).

NHM / Nihm tribal inscription (epigraphic evidence often linked to biblical place-name studies).

Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Evidence

Ancient Chinese ideographs (oracle bone and bronze inscriptions). Characters such as 園 (garden), 婪 (covet/desire), and 禁 (forbidden/prohibit) as analyzed in studies correlating early Chinese writing with Genesis motifs (e.g., traditional creationist linguistic observations of post-Babel memory preservation).

Author’s Prior Works

Wright, Robert L. Token of the Bow.

Wright, Robert L. What Happened to Hope?