Genesis 3:6, Vitamin C and the Tree of Knowledge

Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

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, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

//In the Garden of Eden, the serpent convinces Eve that the fruit of the tree of knowledge won’t kill her. So she eats, and gives some to her husband Adam. Against God’s warning, they gobble down the fruit, and with it, a precious commodity: vitamin C.

Eating from the tree of knowledge must have put within us a rabid curiosity to learn. For example, we’ve since learned that vitamin C is necessary for our health. We have to have that fruit. Nearly all animals are able to synthesize their own vitamin C, but a rare few–notably, humans and our closest relative, chimpanzees–don’t. We have to have it in our diet. Without it, we develop scurvy.

We’ve also learned that chimpanzees and humans share a defective DNA. When scientists decoded the genome, they found that humans and chimpanzees actually do possess the gene for synthesizing vitamin C, in the same position that other mammals do. But in humans and chimps, the gene is broken. Apparently, somewhere in the evolutionary branch shared by humans and chimps, a mutation made the gene go wrong, leaving behind very strong evidence that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. Of course, many Christians find that evolution contradicts the story of Adam and Eve, and the very apple which provides the life-giving elixir needed to overcome this evolutionary malfunction.

A bit ironic, isn’t it? The tree of knowledge didn’t kill our bodies–it actually saved us. God said if we eat it, we die. But instead it was our simple, unquestioning trust in a literal interpretation of the Bible that died. That’s what the apple killed, as we learned more about its life-saving quality.

Is God toying with our minds?