I am not as learned in Torah as many of you, and my brother asked me this question, which I will post below. I answered as best as I could, but I would greatly appreciate it, if you could add your thoughts. Here is his question, followed by my answer:
"The story goes that God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden because of disobeying His orders (eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil). Something bothers me about this story, and I want your opinion. Here's my problem; One has to assume that, before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil. If they had no knowledge of good and evil then how did they know that obeying God was good (or disobeying bad)? Is it just to punish someone for committing an act when the perpetrator had no ability to know that the act was wrong? I'm not asking this to poke holes in the story, rather to better understand how to interpret original sin."
My answer:
The question is a difficult one because even though you are looking at this story from a rather narrow perspective (that of justice), there are many other aspects to consider. Here are several other aspects that complicate your question:
1. Genesis can be interpreted allegorically.
2. Genesis can be interpreted apocryphally.
3. Justice is difficult enough to define when the characters of a scenario are human. G-d is not human, nor is He bound by time and space. To understand how God conceives of justice (in His eyes, not ours), we must understand God. This is not possible. One thing you must consider is: Did G-d not know that Adam and Eve would disobey Him? This gets into very advanced questions of Judaic and Christian theology.
G-d gave us free will and yet G-d knows what man will do. Although your question seems like a fairly straight-forward one, it ultimately leads one to ask that which is unknowable, namely, "Why did G-d put us here and what is His plan for us?"
If I were to answer your question just as you have asked it and nothing more, I would probably say that G-d did tell Adam and Eve that it was forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and also from the tree of life. Therefore, they knew that they were doing something wrong. Proof of this is seen by their actions after they ate the fruit. They clothed themselves and hid from God. This is proof of a guilty mind.
One example in which this story is allegorical (and there are many examples of this) is that when we sin, we are banishing ourselves from God. Remember that before God banished Adam and Eve from the garden, they hid from Him. Sin alienates us from G-d.
This is all I could think of right now. Remember that I am not a learned scholar in Talmud or Torah. This is a good question to ask a Rabbi, a real Rabbi, not some conservative or reform so-called Rabbi.
There are also many books and articles written about the meaning of Genesis 3.
I hope this helps.
Nir
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