I don’t know what’s such a big deal about knowing the difference between good and evil. Do you?

I mean really, be honest; what’s the harm? What law does it break for Adam and Eve to know the difference between good and evil?

Does God not want us to be able to know the difference between good and evil? Hebrews 5:14. Does God not think we should decide for ourselves right and wrong? Deuteronomy 30:15. So why make such a fuss about a tree? And why put it in the Garden at all, within their grasp, if they were never intended to use it?

Most people believe the tree existed primarily to test Adam and Eve; but that paints God somewhat like a dog trainer who places a steak on the floor in front of a hungry dog, tells him not to eat it, and then leaves the room. Tempting man to do evil just for the sake of testing is something God promised never to do (James 1:13).

So why create a tree, put merely a “don’t touch” sign in front of it, and then call it a day? And if He really didn’t want them to eat it, why not at least fence it off? He could have even put it on a high mountain – or on the moon! So it had a purpose, a purpose for them, one which did not involve merely temptation. Yet they, for some reason, could not eat of that fruit. Why?

And the most exciting question, one which to my knowledge has never been answered before – but which I am confident I can prove to you today – is what exactly was the tree of knowledge of good and evil? What KIND of tree, and is it still around today?

The answer will shock you, and you will not be disappointed!

THE TYPE OF TREE

Most things are just not that hard. Men have thousands of opinions on this subject; the Bible doesn’t say, explicitly, what the fruit was; however, it’s shockingly easy to prove what it was if you just listen – but more on that in a moment.

The common idea of the apple is impossible, since they didn’t have apples in the Middle East until thousands of years later. The apple was popularized for two reasons; first because Jerome, translating the Bible into Latin in the 4th century, chose the word malus to translate the Hebrew word which simply meant “fruit”, in a generic sense.

Malus is a Latin word which happens to mean both “bad” and “a fruit in the apple family”. So this pun helped guide thinking towards apples; but the second and more important reason why apples came to be chosen as the forbidden fruit of choice – and which probably influenced even Jerome’s choice of word – was the association with the apple and temptation in pagan mythology.

The apple figures into several classical myths involving temptation with disastrous results; the most famous one is called the “judgment of Paris” where, long story short, Paris is judging a beauty contest between three goddesses, and the prize is a golden apple. The prize was staked by a fourth goddess Eris, who caused the contest specifically to create discord between the women (she was, after all, goddess of discord – compare to the serpent in Eden).

Anyway, each of the women tried to sweeten the pot for Paris with a bribe and he ultimately chose Aphrodite who promised him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen – thus inadvertently causing the Trojan War. So temptation, devil, lust, sin and consequence. A theme familiar enough to inspire legions of Renaissance artists to plug the apple into Adam-and-Eve scenes.

Many other fruits have been proposed over the years, including figs (largely because figs were the leaves they used to cover themselves, which made a tidy symmetry), pomegranates (which also owes a lot to pagan mythology; in the story of Persephone who was warned to eat nothing while she journeyed in the underworld, but ate pomegranate seeds anyway and as a result was condemned to stay in the underworld); grapes, wheat, even mushrooms and bananas!

…but no one has ever guessed the right answer, as far as I can find, even though the Bible gives us more than enough information for anyone with eyes to be sure!

WHAT WAS THE FRUIT?

Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise…

How would one look at, say, an apple and say “yep, that’s what I need to make me smart!” If you think that… you do need something to make you smart, but it probably isn’t this.

And yet somehow, this fruit – whatever it was – seemed pleasant to the eyes and would be desired to make one wise. Something about its appearance, and its appearance alone, convinced Eve that it would have that effect!

There was clearly some visible, obvious, intuitive way to connect this tree’s fruits with wisdom. And there is… if you just look at it like Eve did.

Remember what the devil said, precisely: “your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (verse 5).

This tells us that something about this fruit made Eve think it was connected to eyes; that could only have been true if the fruit looked like an eye.

But not only that! To convince Eve of its powers, it couldn’t merely appear like an eye, it had to appear like an eye gaining wisdom! In other words, like an opening eye! And the only fruit that fits this description is a ripe almond!

Almonds are a close relative of peaches, but with peaches we eat their flesh and throw the pit away; almonds on the other hand are bred for their pits (the nuts being inside the stone) and the flesh is useless. Wild almonds begin their lives as hard green peach-like fruits and as they ripen the useless fruity part dries up and shrinks.

As the almond skin further shrinks, the pressure on the skin increases and eventually – sometimes suddenly – cracks it open, revealing a startlingly obvious picture of an eye opening! And most likely she “happened” to be there exactly at the moment the skin snapped open and the almond seemed to “look” at her!

The similarity is striking, and unarguable – for even today, we say “she has almond-shaped eyes”. And Eve was not stupid. Gullible perhaps, but not stupid. The devil had said this fruit would open her eyes (verse 5), and so when she looked and saw an almond opening like an eye – complete with eyelids, no less – how hard was it to make that leap?!

You might say this is a bit tenuous; how can someone look at something, and conclude just from seeing it, that it would make them wise? Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?

It might be… if that wasn’t exactly what the Bible said happened.

The facts are, Eve ate something that she saw, something she had concluded just by looking at it would make her wise; something pleasant, specifically, to the eyes! And the almond is the only fruit that could possibly resemble an eye opening; we know for a fact it grows wild in the Middle East; and once you know what the tree symbolized, you’ll see the Bible proves that it was, in fact, an almond!

Don’t worry, there is a lot more proof coming, but this is all Eve needed.

FIRSTBORN ALMONDS

The word “almond” comes from the Hebrew shaqed, which comes from the root word shaqad which means “to wake, watch, awake, be alert.” Thus even the Hebrew word for almond tells us that this fruit symbolizes a conscious, self-aware person!

According to Strong’s, the almond was called shaqed because it was the first tree to bloom in the year. Brown-Driver-Briggs said it was “so called from its early waking out of winter’s sleep”. And isn’t that exactly what happened to Adam and Eve? If their eyes were opened, then you could say, in a sense, that they awakened from their mental sleep?

This goes much deeper than you might think; God doesn’t make His metaphors lightly, they are thought through to the end (Psalms 119:96, John 10:35). Because just as making judgments can be deadly, if you pick the wrong ones… almonds can be both healthy… or deadly poison.

Almonds contain a compound called amygdalin which, when we digest it, is processed into cyanide – one of the most deadly substances there is. After millennia of breeding, modern almonds contain only traces of this, not enough to poison anyone; but wild almonds contain enough to kill you even in small doses.

Over thousands of years, selective breeding has created trees that reliably produce sweet almonds. But even a single tree, producing poisonous bitter almonds, can be changed into a healthy almond tree while it still lives! A 4th century bishop wrote…

“Thus the sharp pomegranate and bitter almonds, if the trunk of the tree is pierced near the root to introduce into the middle of the pith a fat plug of pine, lose the acidity of their juice, and become delicious fruits.” (St. Basil’s Hexaemeron)

So literally, then, an almond tree can “bring forth bitter and sweet” (James 3:11), and eating their fruits can cause life or death depending on breeding and environment! But how to tell the difference? The fruit looks the same, whether healthy or toxic!

Adam and Eve were clearly not yet qualified to choose which trees, or which fruit on those trees, would give life… and which would take it away. Finding the answer requires judgment; it requires eating the fruits of the tree, and then when you discover you picked a bitter fruit, using it to kill the selfish part of your heart that led you to make that choice.

Which, if you looked a little closer at bitter almonds, you’d have already known; for the CDC says…

“Cyanide prevents the cells of the body from using oxygen. When this happens, the cells die. Cyanide is more harmful to the heart and brain than to other organs because the heart and brain use a lot of oxygen.”

Bitter almonds, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, prevent you from using oxygen – from using the SPIRIT (since “spirit” just means “air” in archaic English). And because of that, bitter almonds kill your heart, the part of you which lusted after the fruit; and kill your brain, your soul, which chose the wrong fruit.

And now you see… the scripture cannot be broken.

So anyone who listened to the Bible, and lived in the Holy Land, looking around at the trees which grew in the area – both wild and cultivated – was inexcusable for not figuring out that almonds were the forbidden fruit, because they look exactly like what Eve said she saw!!

And they were inexcusable for not realizing that there was only one fruit around that held both life and death in its fruits, depending on the environment and breeding! Thus, one tree which only the knowledge of good and evil would enable you to eat!

And anyone who spoke the Bible’s native language of Hebrew was inexcusable for not knowing what the forbidden fruit was – for their own word for almond told them it meant to “wake”, in other words, to “open your eyes”! Thus the Bible’s truths are hidden in plain sight, reserved for those who are humble enough to listen to God! (Romans 1:19-22).

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL

So we know the actual type of fruit. But we’ve only begun to ask the question of why God placed it there, and what it meant that they were forbidden to eat it. Why would God place such a deadly tree, one which required wisdom to choose good fruits, in the reach of children who couldn’t choose wisely… and then tell them not to eat it?

It wasn’t just there to give them something not to do. Otherwise, we’d have to believe that God put an appealing-yet-deadly tree in the Garden for the sole purpose of seeing if they could resist eating it. That is the textbook example of “tempting them with evil”; therefore God didn’t do that (James 1:13).

But “knowing good and evil” is an odd expression, when you think about it. Apparently, children under 20 don’t “know” this (Deuteronomy 1:39, Numbers 14:29-32). Yet that’s obviously not true, as we understand the words – for teens can certainly tell the difference between right and wrong!

But again, look at the effects of their not knowing good and evil; God didn’t hold the children responsible for their choices to rebel against Moses. Why? Because they didn’t “know” good and evil. Therefore, “knowing” good and evil doesn’t really mean what it sounds like to us; it means bearing responsibility to choose good from evil. The duty to know the difference between them.

At first, Adam and Eve were just like babies are today – utterly self-unaware. They had no idea they were naked, silly, or annoying. And God made them this way, as He does all of us, for a good reason! He spares humans that shame by not letting them have shame until they’re old enough to handle it!

But when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they promptly became aware of their nakedness. Something which, just like any children, they hadn’t noticed yet. They were not self-conscious. Think about that term; conscious of the self; aware of themselves. Self-aware. Capable of looking at themselves, judging themselves.

Until this point, they were not judging themselves because until they ate this fruit… their eyes were not (metaphorically) open! And until Adam and Eve were able to see themselves, they couldn’t have judged themselves, and thus God did not hold them responsible to choose good and reject evil (John 9:41).

As long as they were blind, they could not sin! But when they took the fruit and said “we see”… their sin remained. Which was literally what God said happened when they ate the fruit – that their eyes were opened to be like God, knowing – or better expressed, with the right to judge – good and evil for themselves!

This right to choose your own destiny is called in the Bible knowing good and evil and is symbolized by the almond tree throughout the Bible.

WORKING OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION

Eden was the house of God, and like every parent’s house it was meant to be a safe space for Adam and Eve to grow up in an environment where they could learn, as all children do, what right and wrong was without having to pay the ultimate price for doing wrong (Romans 6:23).

They didn’t begin to die until they ate of the fruit (Romans 5:12); but not, as is commonly believed, because of divine retribution. Rather, because the fruit represented the responsibility, the burden, of making your own choices – the same thing that separates children from adults even today.

Had they allowed God to make choices for them, allowed Him to carry the burden of deciding right from wrong – in other words, not eaten of that fruit – they would never have chosen anything for themselves. And they would have lived indefinitely – but not forever.

To live indefinitely, you need only eat the fruit of the tree of life. Simply put, that you obey God’s judgments, without hesitation or objection. And that’s a great thing... when you’re a child (Hebrews 5:12-14). But not so much, when you’re forty.

Because to live forever, you must not be capable of death; which means you must not be capable of sin (1 John 3:9). And you can’t learn how to do that by letting someone else choose for you! The only way to learn is to choose for yourself right from wrong, over and over, until you’re good at it.

God knew that, and always meant for their own souls to make their own decisions. But He was going to teach them how to do it a little at a time, in a sandbox where their bad decisions would not lead to death. Just as every parent teaches their children today (Isaiah 7:14-16).

This tells us, in turn, that Adam and Eve were always going to eat of that fruit eventually. But like you don’t trust your 6 year old to drive or your 14 year old to have kids of his own, likewise God knew they were incapable of being trusted to choose wisely at their age. So He forbade them from judging for themselves until He declared them ready.

Only… they, like all children, were impatient. Like all of us, they couldn’t wait to grow up; then like us, they would spend the rest of their lives wishing they were kids again. And so when the devil whispered “you can be all grown up today, if you just eat this fruit” – well, they couldn’t resist.

When he told them “you can be just like your parents (God) and decide right and wrong for yourself right now and do all the things you want to do, have all the fun doing all the things God won’t let you do” – well, that temptation was something they couldn’t handle.

Thus, the tree represented legal adulthood; the right and burden of bearing their own sins and making their own choices. It represented working out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Something that everyone must do – but something we can’t do without being properly prepared for it as all children must be prepared for the real world (1 Peter 2:2).

DYING TO EVIL

Genesis 2:17 But 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.

When we read this, we see a warning. But it was so much more than that; it was an explanation of this tree’s purpose. And a glorious purpose at that! For our flesh was made selfish; and it was always meant to die once (Hebrews 9:27). And this tree was going to make that happen!

We could have trained ourselves to mimic God; but that wouldn’t kill the selfishness in our hearts; it would only fence it off. Just like the fence around the Garden! Just like all statutes, it ropes off sin but doesn’t destroy the heart, the cause of the sin (Matthew 15:19)!

The tree of life gave only life, and never death – hence the name. If you simply do what the Lord says blindly – eat of the tree of life – you’ll never die. But if for any reason you were to lose access to that tree, without its continual guidance and nourishment, you would die (Genesis 3:22). Which is what Jesus was telling us in John 6:58.

But the other tree conferred either life or death... depending on your own choices! (Deuteronomy 30:19). So the tree of good and evil is high reward, but it is also equally high risk. Too high of a risk for a child to take. But a risk that all of us must take eventually.

This tree was going to actually kill a piece of your heart daily (Romans 8:13). Its purpose was to kill us because parts of us need to die! (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Not your whole body, and not all at once, but a little bit every day so you can learn, overcome, and replace the dead part with a holy part (Romans 12:1-2).

Living off the tree of life, as Adam and Eve were living, was always meant to be temporary; because the only path to eternal life always lay through the death of their flesh (Galatians 5:24). To become like God, we must all mortify our flesh with the lusts and afflictions thereof (Colossians 3:5); how could we do that, if this tree didn’t exist?

Using the knowledge of good and evil is the only path to eternal life in the first resurrection. We were awakened to become more like Him (Psalm 17:15). And thus, eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a step in that process. When the time is right.

Far from being a terrible thing, this tree’s fruit was the only path to life! Because in the day we eat its fruit, we start to die! Eating of this fruit represents the soul being aware of its own flesh, and realizing it was naked and shameful (Genesis 2:25, 3:11) ...and then taking action to do something about that nakedness (Genesis 3:7).

But Adam and Eve’s first choice after realizing their nakedness was to kill a plant instead. To cover up their sins, instead of repenting of them (Proverbs 28:13). So God showed them that the only way to correct their nakedly self-serving human beast was by killing a beast (Genesis 3:21).

But if you use the fruits of your choices to kill the selfishness of your heart daily (1 Corinthians 15:31), your soul will simultaneously begin to live (2 Corinthians 12:10). Through making a mistake, repenting, and letting Jesus pay the majority of the price for your sins, you “die daily”, and make of your body a “living sacrifice”.

By becoming each day a little more like God, learning good and evil but slowly, in the RIGHT way as God intended! Through the fruit, or the results of the knowledge of good and evil (Matthew 7:16-20). Through knowing what the difference is between the two.

AARON’S ROD

We’ve established that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an almond, and also that Aaron and Moses, as leaders in Israel, held the responsibility of judging good and evil for the nation. Given that it would make sense if there were a connection between these leaders of Israel… and the almond tree.

Reading Numbers 17:1-11, we find a story that establishes the authority of Aaron as the leader in Israel. What is most fascinating is that this unnamed branch of Levi yields almond blossoms and almond fruits! But there’s more; because the whole reason why this happened was to prove who should make the judgments for Israel! (Numbers 16:1-3).

The rebels were upset by this, because THEY wished to “lift themselves up above the congregation of the Lord” (verses 7-10). And clearly, God chose Aaron (verse 40). But this was a dispute among Levites; the entire nation then challenged their authority (verse 41). The challenge was, in effect, to see who should be eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!

That rebellion was quieted, but God needed to magnify Aaron in the eyes of the people, to minimize future uprisings – just as He did the apostles (Acts 5:12-13). And that’s why Numbers 17 happened: to prove, unarguably, who wielded the almond branch of responsibility over Israel.

Now compare that to Jeremiah 1:4-12. Jeremiah complained that he was only a child – thus, not entitled to the tree of judgment. But God showed him otherwise by giving him a vision of the almond – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! To show that HE COULD EAT FROM IT! And that gave him authority over the nations!

Back to that word “to watch”, from which the Hebrews got the name for almond; in any city, the first to awaken to danger is de facto the one responsible (Leviticus 19:17, KJV margin; also Ezekiel 33:1-9). Thus, Moses and Aaron were the first ones God called in Israel (Exodus 4:1-5, 14-17), awakened to be the watchmen over Israel. So naturally, their rods were of almond wood!

But we are also the first ones wakened in this age (Romans 13:11, 1 Corinthians 15:34). And those among us who are successful will be those whom God showed how to find the sweet almonds, or who made the bitter almonds sweet (compare to Exodus 15:25-26, 2 Kings 2:21-22, 4:41). So that we can help lead others to the right choices in the next life!

HUNG ON A TREE

Isn’t it strange that a single tree can yield good and evil? Isn’t it strange that a single tree can bear healthy food and deadly poison? Matthew 7:16-20. Is it right that two results come from the same source? James 3:9-11. If a spring shouldn’t give salt and fresh water, then should a tree yield life and death?

Our Lord felt “these things ought not so to be.” Read Galatians 3:10-13 very carefully. Think about it. Do you see what I see? This tree was not some random tree… but a particular reference to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!

The tree, by its very name, can bring you either one – life or death. If you choose wisely, you live forever; but if you choose poorly, even once, you die forever. And that’s why the eaters of this tree were cursed, for “in the day you eat of it, you shall die!”

The Lord didn’t want it that way; He wanted you to be capable of choosing only good; but to do that, you would have to first learn the fruits of choosing evil. And unfortunately, all of us bring forth sweet water and salty, choose bitter fruit and good; and that should not be.

In Galatians, Paul also references Deuteronomy 27:26, which is a later version of the same curse. And it was this curse, and all others brought by that same tree, which Jesus came to remove: the wages of sin being death.

Protestants widely believe that Jesus was, symbolically if not literally, crucified on a cross made from the tree of life. They believe this because the cross is an ancient pagan sign of life, based on various versions of sun and sex symbols.

Yet Jesus had no reason to be hung on the tree of life; for there was never a curse in the tree of life. There was no fear in the tree of life; there was no judgment in it. If you ate the fruit, you lived. But to eat of the other fruit… There’s a reason it’s called the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

That tree contains both good and evil fruits; both life and death are in its branches, as they are in every one of your choices. It was wrong for a tree to bring forth good fruit and evil at the same time; so Jesus became a man to fix that, to take away the bitter and leave only the sweet.

He made sure this tree could no longer produce good and evil, only good; so that people could choose for themselves good, and find life; and choose for themselves evil, and upon repentance, be healed and STILL find life!

He came to die on that tree in our place. Because the tree of life pictured Jesus, not the tree He was tortured on. The “cross” He was hung on pictured the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So it is no surprise that the whole world worships the cross; they worship the instrument that killed Jesus, rather than Jesus Himself.

That is the tree 3 billion Christians bow down to every day; the tree that killed them, instead of the tree that was hung upon it to save them. They worship the tree that opened their eyes and gave them the freedom to make their own bad choices; not the one that gave them the chance to make better choices!

So no, the cross is not a sign of life; it is, in fact, the ultimate sign of death. And it was specifically to eat of the fruit of that tree that Jesus became a man… so that He could “TASTE death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9). Get that… He tasted the fruit of the tree of death for every man!

By doing so, He bore the curse of the tree without deserving it – and thus, could remove the curse from anyone else who made the wrong choice and did deserve it.

So that God could take away the curse, and leave only the blessing of the tree of the knowledge of good.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

So you see it’s not only possible, it’s quite easy to prove what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was. We proved it with science, linguistics, history but mostly we just listened to what the Bible said and asked “what tree could that be?”

And as always, the answer comes from the golden rule; Adam and Eve were the children of God, in God’s house; and God treated them, from beginning to end, exactly as you would treat your own children.

First, He placed them in a safe, warm, loving home. Then, He told them to enjoy themselves – but as long as they were in His house, they’d have to live by His rules. Just as you’d have done to your own children. And the symbol of that obedience was this one tree, the almond fruit.

And after they emancipated themselves from His rule, He didn’t kill them for their sins; He had made the rule for their safety, just as you do for your own children; and why would a parent make a rule for a child’s good, then kill them for breaking it? How is that for their good? (2 Peter 3:9, Luke 9:56).

Which is why despite their defiance, despite their rebellion, despite how He must have felt, the Lord killed an animal instead, to make clothes for them to start their new life off with (Genesis 3:21). Just as you would have done for your own children – sending them off with the last act of love they can accept from you.

God knew their lives were going to be hard, and He knew that without His guidance they would eventually die (Genesis 3:17-19). That’s why He tried to warn them! But if your children won’t listen to you, don’t want your help, then there’s nothing you can do but hope they learn in time that your way was best.

To hope they learn that you alone, of all the world, truly had their best interests at heart. And to hope that they come home – before it’s too late.

Some children never do; but some children realize they’ve made the biggest mistake of their lives and come back (Luke 15:12-19), begging to be under their parents’ roof. And God would love nothing better than to forgive them (verses 20-24). Wouldn’t you?

Then consider yourself #goldenruled.

Continue to: The Tree Of Life