Mankind was placed in perfect delight when God put him in Eden. Everything was provided for them from a job to perform to what to eat. Only one stipulation was put upon them. They were forbidden to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And even that was not so difficult as there were plenty of other beautiful trees from which to eat. Nothing was out of place . . . until the whisperings of the serpent, which led the first parents to distrust their Maker and sin.
Something I noticed this time in my reading through it was that the first thing Adam and Eve noticed after their partaking of the forbidden fruit was that they were naked. Naturally, I would have assumed that they would now know the evil they had committed or something along the lines of knowing good and evil, such as was suggested by the name of the tree. But that was not the case. They noticed something that had been hitherto unobserved and seemingly so unrelated.
Yet I believe that it is really significant, the significance being that they are now looking at themselves. Before this point, there is no mention of them having any particular interest in themselves outside the realm of taking care of their physical needs, such as eating. It is only after they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that they are aware of themselves. To me, this says that knowing good and evil is not necessarily that you can see both the good and bad in the world, which is a part of it as well. Rather, it’s now you care more for yourself and how you appear than anything else. No longer is it others before self and their betterment; now it is all about the all-consuming “I”.
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