Tree of the knowledge of good and evil

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stood in the midst of the Garden of Eden and was the one tree explicitly forbidden to Adam and Eve by God: "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). Its name suggests that eating it would confer a moral and experiential knowledge that God had reserved for himself — an autonomous wisdom gained by transgression rather than by trusting obedience. The serpent's temptation exploited this by promising Eve that eating would make her "as gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). Eve saw the fruit as desirable for wisdom, and after both she and Adam ate, "the eyes of them both were opened" (Genesis 3:7) — but to their shame and alienation from God rather than to the divine dignity the serpent had promised. The episode is the paradigm of human rebellion and the entry point of sin, death, and curse into creation, setting the stage for the entire biblical narrative of redemption.