Reading the book of Genesis, I came upon the creation of man, and then woman, and the story of their expulsion because they ate the forbidden fruit. By the way, in the Bible it’s not called an apple, just a fruit. What made me think, however, was the reason for their expulsion. By eating the fruit, in the words of the serpent, they became capable of distinguishing between good and evil, and that would bring them close to the status of gods. In other words, not knowledge per se, but knowledge leading to moral judgment is  the distinguishing factor that elevates men from the brute condition of a featherless biped to the exalted status of a rational being, close to divinity. And the reverse is equally significant: whoever loses his moral compass, thereby regresses to the condition of the brutes and becomes just another denizen of the animal world, Our language makes this also clear: inhumanity means negating humanity, only the ethical conduct is what makes us humans and not animals.

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          Another question comes to mind. Why did God create the serpent, with such evil inclination? In fact, why were these two forbidden trees placed in the center of Garden of Eden in the first place? To put the temptation in front of the two innocent beings, man and woman, and then allow another being, the serpent, to lead them to violate God’s prohibition, is no simple matter.

 

           It makes sense only if the entire episode was part of a preordained plan. Man – the human race,  had to develop, evolve, gain knowledge but not in excess, so they would not be like robots, but were capable of making decisions, and no less important, was the lesson earned by Adam and Eve, that their actions had consequences, that they had to take responsibility for their own decisions, and blaming others (e.g. the serpent) would not exonerate them.

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          Another interesting question that arises from this episode is the matter of language. Both God and the serpent spoke to the first couple. What was the language they used? The Biblical text, of course, is in Hebrew, so the first assumption is that they all spoke Hebrew. No other language is mentioned until we come to the Tower of Babel episode, when the original language, Hebrew, was lost or superseded by multiple languages, unintelligible among each other.