Could the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" mean "tree of intelligence"?

[tonychanyt]

I don't think so.

Ge 1:

28 God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Before the fall, the human brain was equipped to be able to subdue the earth and have dominion over other living things.

Ge 2:

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Don't eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If you do, you will die. God wasn't against knowledge or intelligence in general. It was specifically about moral knowledge. God decides what is moral and immoral, not humans. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was not about problem-solving skills, which they already had before the fall.

The serpent tempted Eve in Ge 3:

5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The serpent conflated this moral knowledge with wisdom and desirability, leading Eve to overgeneralize.

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,

In fact, Eve made this fatal mistake: she thought the tree of knowledge of good and evil was like the tree of wisdom and intelligence. She overgeneralized what God said and what the serpent said.

she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

Because they had acquired a new piece of knowledge according to their new way of deciding what was good and evil independently from God's point of view.

And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Immediately, they decided that being naked was not good. God didn't think that was immoral and they didn't think that either before. The tree symbolizes the choice between trusting God’s authority and seeking autonomy. By eating the fruit, Adam and Eve rejected God’s moral framework and sought to establish their own.

Could the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" mean "tree of intelligence"?

No, in fact, thinking so was Eve's fatal mistake in overgeneralization. That was her first logical error. Don't conflate moral intelligence with general intelligence. That's what the serpent did to Eve.

 

[Aaron112]

Men today are overwhelmingly sinning every day, and trying to get everyone else to sin also.

Yahweh does not accept excuses.

 

[soldier of light]

Depending on your definition of Intelligence, it isn't a fruit of the Spirit, but truth is.

 

[tonychanyt]

Depending on your definition of Intelligence, it isn't a fruit of the Spirit, but truth is.

By intelligence, I mean IQ.

 

[soldier of light]

By intelligence, I mean IQ.

It's not a fruit of the Spirit in my opinion.