Something that has always bothered me about the story of the Fall of Man, is this "Knowledge of Good and Evil", this sudden insight into the nature of Sin, and the subsequent requirement of Laws which we (Man), have no chance of really understanding.
This has bothered me since I was a child in my Grandfather's church.
To paraphrase the story, we (Man) is told not to eat (by God) of the tree of Knowledge. We do eat from it, and suddenly we have this Knowledge.
Now, what has always been a quirk in my understanding of this tale, has never been the reason for the existence of the tree, or why God put it within our grasp. Those are simply the parameters of God's creation. He wanted the Tree there, just like he wanted Lions, Tigers and Bears. What sticks in my head is what happens next…
We have this "Knowledge" and the first thing we come up with, is we are Naked, and Naked is "wrong"; Naked is something to be ashamed of… which surprises God. After all, he's been looking at our Naked selves for quite some time.
Genesis Chapter 3 verse:7-11
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked?
Now, later God says (verse 22) And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:...
While God determines quite soon that man's thoughts are "evil" we (man) have no real instruction as to the "rules" of life. We do have the "knowledge" of good and evil, but apparently we have a warped view of things.
It is not until after the flood with Noah, that God begins to give "Laws". The first being that eating meat with blood is not a good thing. (Gen 9:4) Then warnings against Murder (Gen 9:6) and the explanation given is that Man is Created in the Image of God.
We are then told that we are to have sex and children.
And then the first covenant with Man is given.
Gen 12 we find out that Audutry is not right with God, though he has said nothing about this, assuming we know, the Pharo or Egypt apparently knows and says that he would not have had sex with Abram wife, if he didn't believe she was Abram's sister (which is how Abram introduces her to the Pharo). God just plauges him.
17And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife. 18And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? 19Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way. 20And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.
This type of discovery-after-the-fact of the Laws of God goes on until deep inside Exodus, which is the first time that God says, "Look, here are the commandments, and we'll go through the rest together later".
So, while we have this general Knowledge (awareness) of Good and Evil, we do not have clear understanding.
We know there are things that are Good and things that are Evil, but this understanding is at a very childish level. Good, we see as things that make us feel good, Evil are things that make us feel bad.
We have also lost the Spiritual connection with God.
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