Unraveling the Garden of Eden: Why God Planted the Forbidden Tree
God’s big gamble with humankind
The Biblical creation story concerning Adam and Eve was on high rotation in my Sunday School curriculum when I was growing up. It felt like we covered it every year — maybe even more — just to make sure that we kids, from our earliest days, were deeply ingrained with the Christian explanation of the origins of the world and, more importantly, why we were all such wicked sinners.
I can still picture the story being told by Mrs. Spencer, my well-meaning and ancient Sunday School teacher, as she slapped felt animals on a flannelgraph set on an easel while we all sat cross-legged on the floor.
God makes the world. Adam and Eve are the crowning glory of his creation. And everything is good. God sets Adam and Eve loose in a paradise called the Garden of Eden and tells them to live long and prosper. There is only one caveat to their idyllic existence. Right in the middle of the garden, God places a tree and tells Adam and Eve not to touch it… or else! We hear about this particular tree in Genesis 2:15–17:
“The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to work the soil and take care of the garden. The Lord God gave him this command: “You may eat from any tree in the garden. But you must not eat from the tree that…
