The Tree of Knowledge

For reasons best known to himself, God singles out one particular tree -- called the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" -- whose fruit man is forbidden to eat. This, of course, is the famous "forbidden fruit," though you may be surprised to know that that phrase appears nowhere in the Bible. (It was coined in the seventeenth century; "forbidden apple" is even older). And despite all those pictures of a serpent tempting Eve with an apple, the Bible never tells us what kind of fruit the tree of knowledge bears. If anything, it was more likely apricots, pomegranates, or figs than apples. (Adam and Eve will use fig leaves to hide their nakedness at Genesis 3: 7; thus the expression "to cover with a fig leaf.")

According to the Jewish tradition, God's command not to eat from the Tree was to give Adam and Eve free choice and allow them to earn, as opposed to receive, absolute perfection and intimate communion with God, a higher level than the one on which they were created. According to this tradition, Adam and Eve would have attained absolute perfection and retained immortality had they succeeded in withstanding the temptation to eat from the Tree. After failing at this task, they were condemned to a period of toil to rectify the fallen universe. Jewish tradition views the serpent, and sometimes the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil itself, as representatives of evil.