Chapter XII: Introduction (10)

(2) Amongst other things which distinguish man’s present from
his original state, is the possession of a certain kind of
knowledge which was acquired by eating the forbidden fruit. This
brings us to the most difficult question which the narrative
presents: what is meant by the knowledge of good and evil?¹
Keeping in mind the possibility that the two recensions may
represent different conceptions, our data are these: In 3²²
knowledge of good and evil is an attainment which (a) implies
equality with God, (b) was forbidden to man, (c) is actually
secured by man. In the leading narrative (b) certainly holds
good (2¹⁷), but (a) and (c) are doubtful. Did the serpent speak
truth when he said that knowledge of good and evil would make
man like God? Did man actually attain such knowledge? Was the
perception of nakedness a first flash of the new divine insight
which man had coveted, or was it a bitter disenchantment and
mockery of the hopes inspired by the serpent’s words? It is
only the habit of reading the ideas of 3²² into the story of the
temptation which makes these questions seem superfluous. Let us
consider how far the various interpretations enable us to answer
them.――i. The suggestion that magical knowledge is meant may be
set aside as inadequate to either form of the biblical narrative:
magic is not godlike knowledge, nor is it the universal property
of humanity.――ii. The usual explanation identifies the knowledge
of good and evil with the moral sense, the faculty of discerning
between right and wrong. This view is ably defended by Budde
(_Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 69 ff.), and is not to be lightly
dismissed, but yet raises serious difficulties. Could it be
said that God meant to withhold from man the power of moral
discernment? Does not the prohibition itself presuppose that man
already knew that obedience was right and disobedience sinful?
We have no right to say that the restriction was only temporary,
and that God would in other ways have bestowed on man the gift
of conscience; the narrative suggests nothing of the sort.――iii.
Wellhausen (_Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 299 ff.) holds
that the knowledge in question is insight into the secrets of
nature, and intelligence to manipulate them for human ends;
and this as a quality not so much of the individual as of
the race,――the knowledge which is the principle of human
civilisation. It is the faculty which we see at work in the
invention of clothing (3²¹ ?), in the founding of cities (4¹⁷),
in the discovery of the arts and crafts (4¹⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ), and in the
building of the tower (11¹ ᶠᶠᐧ). The undertone of condemnation
of the cultural achievements of humanity which runs through
the Yahwistic sections of chapters 1‒11 makes it probable that
the writer traced their root to the knowledge acquired by the
first transgression; and of such knowledge it might be said
that it made man like God, and that God willed to withhold it
permanently from His creatures.――iv. Against this view Gunkel
(11 f., 25 f.) urges somewhat ineptly that the myth does not
speak of arts and aptitudes which are learned by education,
but of a kind of knowledge which comes by nature, of which the
instinct of sex is a typical illustration. Knowledge of good and
evil is simply the enlargement of capacity and experience which
belongs to mature age,――ripeness of judgment, reason,――including
moral discernment, but not identical with it.――The difference
between the last two explanations is not great; and possibly
both are true. Wellhausen’s seems to me the only view that does
justice to the thought of 3²²; and if 4¹⁶ ᶠᶠᐧ and 11¹⁻⁹ be the
continuation of this version of the Fall, the theory has much
to recommend it. On the other hand, Gunkel’s acceptation may be
truer to the teaching of 3¹ ᶠᶠᐧ. Man’s primitive state was one
of childlike innocence and purity; and the knowledge which he
obtained by disobedience is the knowledge of life and of the
world which distinguishes the grown man from the child. If it
be objected that such knowledge is a good thing, which God could
not have forbidden to man, we may be content to fall back on
the paradox of Christ’s idea of childhood: “Except ye turn, and
become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the
kingdom of heaven.”

¹ In Old Testament usage, knowledge of good and evil marks
the difference between adulthood and childhood (Deuteronomy
1³⁹, Isaiah 7¹⁵ ᶠᐧ)), or second childhood (2 Samuel 19³⁶);
it also denotes (with different verbs) judicial discernment
of right and wrong (2 Samuel 14¹⁷, 1 Kings 3⁹), which is
an intellectual function, quite distinct from the working
of the conscience. The antithesis of good and evil may, of
course, be ethical (Amos 5¹⁴ ᶠᐧ, Isaiah 5²⁰ etc.); but it
may also be merely the contrast of pleasant and painful,
or wholesome and hurtful (2 Samuel 19³⁶). Hence the phrase
comes to stand for the whole range of experience,――“a
comprehensive designation of things by their two polar
attributes, according to which they interest man for his
weal or hurt”: compare 2 Samuel 14¹⁷ with ²⁰ ‘all things
that are in earth’ (Genesis 24⁵⁰ 31²⁴). Wellhausen maintains
that the non-ethical sense is fundamental, the expressions
being transferred to virtue and vice only in so far as their
consequences are advantageous or the reverse. Knowledge of
good and evil may thus mean knowledge in general,――knowing
one thing from another.

(3) The next point that claims attention is the author’s
conception of sin. Formally, sin is represented as an act
of disobedience to a positive command, imposed as a test of
fidelity; an act, therefore, which implies disloyalty to God,
and a want of the trust and confidence due from man to his
Maker. But the essence of the transgression lies deeper: God
had a reason for imposing the command, and man had a motive
for disobeying it; and the reason and motive are unambiguously
indicated. Man was tempted by the desire to be as God, and Yahwe
does not will that man should be as God. Sin is thus in the
last instance presumption,――an overstepping of the limits of
creaturehood, and an encroachment on the prerogatives of Deity.
It is true that the offence is invested with every circumstance
of extenuation,――inexperience, the absence of evil intention,
the suddenness of the temptation, and the superior subtlety
of the serpent; but sin it was nevertheless, and was justly
followed by punishment.――How far the passage foreshadows
a doctrine of hereditary sin, it is impossible to say. The
consequences of the transgression, both privative and positive,
are undoubtedly transmitted from the first pair to their
posterity; but whether the sinful tendency itself is regarded as
having become hereditary in the race, there is not evidence to
show.

(4) Lastly, what view of God does the narrative present? It
has already been pointed out that 3²² borders hard on the pagan
notion of the ‘envy’ of the godhead, a notion difficult to
reconcile with the conceptions of Old Testament religion. But
of that idea there is no trace in the main narrative of the
temptation and the Fall, except in the lying insinuation of the
serpent: the writer himself does not thus ‘charge God foolishly.’
His religious attitude is one of reverent submission to the
limitations imposed on human life by a sovereign Will, which
is determined to maintain inviolate the distinction between the
divine and the human. The attribute most conspicuously displayed
is closely akin to what the prophets called the ‘holiness’ of
God, as illustrated, _e.g._, in Isaiah 2¹² ᶠᶠᐧ. After all, the
world is God’s world and not man’s, and the Almighty is just,
as well as holy, when He frustrates the impious aspiration of
humanity after an independent footing and sphere of action in
the universe. The God of Genesis 3 is no arbitrary heathen deity,
dreading lest the sceptre of the universe should be snatched
from his hand by the soaring ambition of the race of men;
but a Being infinitely exalted above the world, stern in His
displeasure at sin, and terrible in His justice; yet benignant
and compassionate, slow to anger, and ‘repenting Him of the
evil.’ Through an intensely anthropomorphic medium we discern
the features of the God of the prophets and the Old Testament;
nay, in the analogy of human fatherhood which underlies the
description, we can trace the lineaments of the God and Father
of Jesus Christ. That is the real _Protevangelium_ which lies in
the passage: the fact that God tempers judgment with mercy, the
faith that man, though he has forfeited innocence and happiness,
is not cut off from fellowship with his Creator.