Genesis 2:16-17
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NRSV
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 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.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; 17 but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”
Jewish Study Bible Notes:
- 2.16-17: 'Knowledge of good and bad' may be a merism, a figure of speech in which polar opposites denote a totality (like 'heaven and earth' in 1.1). But 'knowledge' can have an experiential, not only an intellectual, sense in biblical Heb, and "good and bad" can mean either "weal and woe" or "moral good and moral evil." The forbidden tree offers an experience that is both pleasant and painful; it awakens those who partake of it to the higher knowledge and to the pain that both come with moral choice.
Was God lying??
Christadelphian brother Jonathan Bowen says that "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" would be a lie if Adam and Eve had evolved:
"Like, if Adam and Eve got to their state through a process of evolution, death has already been a major factor in the world to this point in time. 'In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die' - that is a lie, because you're already dying creatures, because that's how you achieved your current state! by a whole process of creatures dying over a period of time."
— talk published by The Christadelphian Watchman on Youtube
See "Thou shalt not eat thereof..." for the difficulty of a literal reading.
See "thou shalt surely die" for interpretations of the phrase.
