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The story of paradise in Genesis 2-3 mentions two mysterious trees in the middle of the garden. There is general agreement among scholars on the symbolism of the tree of life but no agreement at all on the meaning of the tree of knowledge. It keeps its secret still. Many studies on the issue have sought an interpretation in the area of ethics (moral discernment or the ability to determine good and evil for oneself). Others have looked in the intellectual domain (age of reason, omniscience, or magic, which is a practical omniscience) while still others have searched in the area of sexuality (sexual relations). Since many authors have summed up the pros and cons of these solutions,1 there is no need to repeat this work here.
God's statement (Gen 3:22) poses a special problem. How could humanity become like God by transgressing a divine command? To avoid this problem the statement of God (3:22) has been described as ironic and the serpent's promise (3:5) as deceitful. All this shows how hard it is to grasp the meaning of the tree of knowledge of tob and ra.
Until recently biblical studies were primarily diachronic. Since the account speaks of two trees and contains other doublets such as the double divine name and the double clothing, there is a tendency to distinguish two accounts in Genesis 2-3 (von Rad: 76-77; Westermann: 288-92; Vawter: 68). The original account would have spoken of one tree in the centre of the garden: the tree, without qualification (2:9, 17). It is argued, consequently, that "the tree of life," found only at the beginning (2:9) and the end of the account (3:22), belonged to another story and that when the "tree of life" was placed beside "the tree" in the final version, it ended up being called "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" because of its function in the rest of the account (3:5, 22). Diachronic studies, therefore, study the tree of knowledge without any relationship to the tree of life and reach the different solutions mentioned above.
Some recent synchronic studies show that the text of Genesis 2-3 works quite well as it stands.2 I have shown that the doublets which have been labelled contradictions do...