Forbidden Tree Research Articles

The Issue of Satan’s Abstention from Prostrating to Adam in the Holy Qur’an - An Objective Study-


 
 
 
 The research deals with the issue of Satan's abstention from Adam after Allah Almighty commanded him to prostrate to him, by studying the Qur'anic verses contained in this issue.
 The purpose of this study is to clarify the problematic issue of this prostration and the secret of Satan’s disobedience, and whether Iblis was right in his refusal to prostrate as raised by the skeptics with the aim of defaming Allah’s destiny and wisdom in his creation. Adam was afflicted with Satan, and Satan was afflicted with Adam. The first affliction of Iblis with Adam was that Allah favored Adam over Iblis, and commanded iblis to prostrate to Adam, but he refused and was arrogant, and insisted on his disobedience and arrogance, so he was among those who were expelled, cursed, and seen until the Day of Judgment.
 Adam was first tested by Satan and he whispered to him by eating from the forbidden tree, so he took him out of what was in him, and when it became clear to him, he repented to his Lord, so Allah repented and guided him. Satan’s position on the command to prostrate was a departure from obedience to Allah , and not rebellion against Allah . Rather, he refused to prostrate by Allah’s command also to clarify, and he also tried to research the invalidity of the suspicions about this issue as much as possible.
 
 
 
 
 This research is considered as a scientific effort in addressing the thorny issues and issues related to the life of every Muslim.

An Alien Perspective

During the pandemic, a lot of people who I spoke to, were struggling with challenging mental health issues. One person recounted her experience of how she felt like an alien – her vision inspired me and prompted me to paint this piece. The point of view adopted is that of an alien – unfamiliar with the ways of the world and feeling uncomfortable and distant. The new-borns signify a state of naivety and innocence that is short-lived – a state where one is ‘un’feeling and oblivious to human judgement, rat-race and toxicity. The circle reflects the wholistic impression of life; the plants symbolize life and modes of intoxicated existence, like a trance – before reality jolts one back to forcibly ‘feel’. The serpent is the eye, akin to the Biblical allusion of tempting Eve to bite the apple from the forbidden tree of knowledge; here, the serpent signifies the temptation to ‘feel’ and acts as a resistance to human tendency to ‘un’feel. The shape is consciously a circle, like a circular eye - symbolic of ‘nirvana’ – a state of enlightenment in Buddhist philosophy – where souls ‘feel’ through ‘un’feeling.

İletişimin Doğuşu: Köken Dil ve Dillerin Çeşitlenmesi

Çalışmanın konusu, iletişimin doğuşu: Köken dil ve dillerin çeşitlenmesidir. Makalede ilk dilin ortaya çıkışı ve dillerin çeşitlenmesi konusunda ileri sürülen tevkīfîlik, doğalcılık, uzlaşı ve meleke teorisi gibi farklı görüşler, değişik paradigmalar etrafında değerlendirilmiştir. Mevcut iletişim çalışmalarında dil, daha çok önemi ve işlevi yönünden değerlendirilmekte; köken dil ve dillerin tarihsel süreç içerisindeki değişiminden yeterince bahsedilmemektedir. Günümüz bilim anlayışı daha çok pozitif bilime göre hareket ettiği için meseleyi sadece açıklama merkezli ele almakta, dil ve iletişimin kökenlerine inmemektedir. Bir diğer problem de çağdaş bilim paradigmalarının dili ve iletişimi uzlaşı teorisine göre açıklamalarıdır. Oysaki İslâmî ilim yaklaşımında dilin çok yönlü değerlendirildiği görülmekte; dilin doğuşu, dilin tevkīfî olup olmaması, kökeni ve dillerin çeşitlenmesi gibi konular etraflıca ele alınmaktadır. Tevkīfîliği kabul etmek aynı zamanda doğalcılık, uzlaşı ve meleke teorisini de kabul etmek anlamına gelmektedir. Modern bilimlerde de elbette bazı dil çeşitlerine değinilmiştir, fakat bu sadece günümüz dillerini gruplara ayırıp tasnif etmekten ibaret kalmıştır. İslâmî ilim anlayışına göre dil ile iletişimi insan icat etmemiştir. Bir köken dil vardır ve bu köken dil, Hz. Âdem’e ilâhî bir bildirimle öğretilmiştir. Zira Kur’ân’da “Allah Adem’e isimleri öğretti” beyânı ve Yüce Allah’ın Hz. Âdem’e “isimlerden haber ver” diye hitap etmesi, Hz. Âdem’in de bu isteği anlayıp cevap vermesi (el-Bakara 2/33) Hz. Âdem’in bir dil bildiğine işaret etmektedir. Kur’ân’da Hz. Âdem’in ve Hz. Havva’nın yasak ağaca yaklaşmaları ve sonrasında yaptıkları tövbeyi anlatan âyetlere bakıldığında onların bir dil bildiği açıkça görülmektedir. Bu âyetler düşünce ve algıları, kelime ve kelime grupları ile ifade etme anlamında iletişimin ilk insanla beraber başladığının delilleridir. Ampirik delillere bakıldığında da duygu ve düşüncelerini en açık ve en mükemmel şekilde anlatan varlığın sadece insan olduğu görülmektedir. İnsanın bu özelliği “Allah insanı yarattı, ona beyânı öğretti.” (er-Rahmân 55/3-4) âyetiyle de belirtilmiştir. Hatta dilin ve iletişimin gelişmiş açıklamaları olan edebî sanatların ilk insanlar tarafından da kullanıldığına dair Kur’ân’da sarih ifadeler vardır. Örneğin Hz. Âdem’in talihsiz oğlu Kābil, kıskançlık neticesinde kardeşi Hâbil’i öldürdüğünde ne yapacağını bilememiş, çaresizlik içerisinde bocalarken yeri eşeleyen kargadan cesedi gömeceğini anlamış ve “Eyvahlar olsun bana, şu karga kadar olup da kardeşimin cesedini örtmeyi beceremedim.” (el-Mâide 5/31) demiştir. Onun bu açıklamaları bir durumu ifade etmenin yanı sıra temsilî teşbih ve istiare gibi beyân sanatlarını da içermektedir. Yukarıda anılan ve daha başka ayetler ilk dil ve köken dilin başlangıcı konusunda bize açık deliller sunmaktadır. Zira realite de bunu göstermektedir ki diğer canlılar beden dili ve birtakım seslerle iletişim sağlarken insanoğlu özellikle dil olarak tanımlanan belli harf, sözcük ve kelime kalıplarını kullanmaktadır. Dil sayesinde insanoğlu, bilgi aktarımı, kültürel süreklilik ve uygarlıktaki ilerlemeyi meydana getirmiştir. Bu özellik sadece insan türüne aittir. İnsanın sosyal bir varlık olması sebebiyle etkinliklerinin tümü iletişimle özellikle de dille gerçekleşmektedir. İslâmî ilimlere göre insanlık tarihi Hz. Âdem ve Hz. Havva’nın Arafat’ta buluşup Mekke’ye yerleşmesi ile başlamış; sonra Hûd kavminde olduğu gibi insanlık güneye; Semûd kavminde görüldüğü batı Arap yarımadasına, oradan Lübnân, Sûriye ve Mısır’a geçmiş olmalı; Mısır’dan da tüm Afrika’ya yayılmış olmalıdır. Kuzeyde ise Mezopotamya ve Anadolu üzerinden insanlık Asya ve Avrupa’nın ücrâ bölgelerine dağılmıştır. Dillerin çeşitlenmesi de yine bu bölgeler üzerinden önce köken dilden Sâmî-Hâmî, Hint-Avrupa ve Ural-Altay dillerine sonra da alt dillere ayrılmış olmalıdır. Çalışmanın amacı köken dil, köken dilin öğrenilme şekli ve dillerin çeşitlenmesinin ele alınmasıdır; önemi ise günümüz iletişim çalışmalarında yer almayan köken dil ve mahiyeti üzerine açıklama yapmasıdır. Çalışmada nitel yöntem tekniklerinden kabul edilen doküman incelemesine başvurulmuş; köken dil, köken dilin öğrenilme şekli ve dillerin çeşitlenmesiyle ilgili eserler değerlendirilmiş; dil ve iletişimle alakalı çalışmalara başvurulmuştur.

‘He Gave to Adam Knowledge’: A Competing Creation Tradition in Early Judaism and Early Christianity

Abstract The Eden narrative in Genesis recounts the story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from God’s paradise because they consumed fruit from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While the creation account in Genesis 2–3 is well known to modern readers of the Bible, this paper demonstrates that a competing creation tradition existed in Second Temple Judaism. According to this tradition, which circulated at least as early as the Persian period, God intentionally gave knowledge or wisdom to the primordial human(s) as a benevolent gift, and it was this knowledge that set the primordial human(s) apart from other earthly creatures. During the late Second Temple period, the creation account in Genesis 2–3 and the tradition that God gave knowledge to the primordial human(s) came into direct conflict. Consequently, many Jewish writers attempted to accommodate both creation traditions, often by suppressing certain elements of the Eden narrative such as the specific details of Adam’s transgression or the negative portrayal of the tree of knowledge.

Do We Go Back to Where We Came From? Mullā Ṣadrā's Philosophical Exegesis on the Paradise of Adam and the Promised Paradise of the Afterlife

The cosmological location and identity of the Paradise in which Adam and Eve dwelled and from which, we are told in Q. 7:22 and 24, they were sent down to earth after giving in to Satan’s temptation and approaching the forbidden tree, has long been a controversial issue among exegetes and theologians. Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā Qawāmī Shīrāzī Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640), a flag-bearer for the philosophical and mystical exegesis of the Qur’an, is one of those who has engaged with this question. The subject is important because it is closely connected with several important anthropological Qur’anic topics: the philosophy of the creation of humankind and their earthly abode; the states of human existence before earthly life on this world, and in the descending journey to it; as well as the connections between these states and those following death and in the ascending journey. An analysis of Ṣadrā’s approach to the issue of Adam’s Paradise has implications for both our appreciation of his philosophical understanding of the Qur’an and his methodology, as well as a clearer understanding of his contribution to Islamic philosophical thought. Mullā Ṣadrā took the view that the location of one Paradise on the descending arc of the circle of being, and a second on the ascending arc of this circle, indicate the stages of human existence before and after this world. He believed that these two Paradises suggest the same reality, though from two different aspects; the first shows the inward and indistinct aspect of the human soul while the second represents its outward and distinct side.

Milton’s Tree of Knowledge and Adam’s Education

In Paradise Lost, the tree of knowledge can be a decisive touchstone for discerning and practicing God’s will for humans. With the tree of knowledge as the center, God conditions Adam to be a vicarious ruler who governs Eden, and Adam absolutizes God as the creator who grants him the authority and the means to rule. The tree of knowledge is at the core of the relationship between God and human beings, beyond simply the problem of knowledge derived from the tree’s name. Adam’s right understanding of the tree of knowledge is especially Milton’s core educational content about Adam. In this education of Adam, factors such as reason, free will and obedience can be verified in the process of securing the subjectivity by which Adam establishes himself as a true human being. In regard to Adam’s education, the important thing is that Adam should yearn for the presence of God himself and the Holy Being before making a decision not to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. This is because the Divine Presence is the perfect signification of the tree of knowledge and the aggregate of all reference systems. The power to refuse the fruit of the tree of knowledge depends not on Adam’s effort but on the presence of God, and the initiative of whether or not to eat the fruit of this tree belongs to God, not Adam. In fact, God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not a law but an ethic, a matter not of coercion but of spontaneity. Man cannot be saved by the law and the efforts to obey it, but he can achieve everlasting and real life only by the presence and love of the Holy God. God alone can guide Adam on the path to life and salvation, the ultimate meaning of the tree, overcoming the temptations of the tree of knowledge and its superficial signs. In conclusion, the lessons that Adam must realize through the tree of knowledge come down to the question of who the Holy Being is and who Adam is, which is also the essence of Adam’s education on the tree of knowledge.

Untangled Branches: the Edenic Tree(s) and the Multivocal WAW

Abstract This narratological study of Genesis 2–3 examines whether the principal trees in the Garden of Eden—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—are two in number or one and the same. While the answer to this question seems self-evident, namely, that the Edenic trees are two, the woman’s description of the forbidden tree as if it were an amalgam of both makes this conclusion uncertain. This ambiguity creates a certain tension in the text; a tension which commentators have been trying perennially to resolve. Yet rather than join the long list of attempts to eliminate this tension, this article explores its role as a narrative feature and is thus able to show how conflicting details function cooperatively within the text. This leads to the conclusion that the principal tree(s) in the Garden of Eden should not be understood as one or two in number but as one and two in number.

Fruit of a forbidden tree: Delhi High Court reemphasizes the rights of the prior adopter of a trade mark

Fruit of a forbidden tree: Delhi High Court reemphasizes the rights of the prior adopter of a trade mark

Many H-Copies in Graphs with a Forbidden Tree

For graphs $H$ and $F$, let ${ex}(n, H, F)$ be the maximum possible number of copies of $H$ in an $F$-free graph on $n$ vertices. The study of this function, which generalizes the well-studied Tura...

A Tale of Two Trees: Delinking Death from Sin by Viewing Genesis 2–3 Independently from Paul

Abstract The link between sin and death is rooted in the first stories of Genesis and developed particularly by Paul in the NT. While Genesis sometimes presents death as sin’s consequence, at other times the immoral are preserved and the righteous die prematurely. The presence of two trees is used to explain a cause-effect link between obedience and death, but the connection is surprisingly uncertain: the couple does not die on the day they eat from the forbidden tree as forewarned. I use both a narrative and theological approach to understand better death within God’s judicial framework and liberate it from anachronistic attempts to impose Paul’s direct link between sin and death on the more nuanced view presented in Gen 2–3. By underscoring the ambiguity in Genesis, we are better able to identify its unique theological purpose that has a bearing on other Genesis themes.

WOMAN’S STATUS IN THE CREATION NARRATIVES IN THE QUR’AN AND TORAH

Women have played various roles in all cultures throughout time. However, the Qur’an and Torah have explicated the specific role of women in their creation narratives. In particular, the story of Adam and Eve’s creation and their fall from grace after consuming the fruit from the Forbidden Tree are depicted in both holy books. There are some resemblances in this story between the Qur’an and Torah, but some significant differences as well. For instance, the Torah considers that Eve was created from Adam and seduced him to eat from the tree, thereby taking chief responsibility. However, the Qur’an states that God has created man and woman from a single soul (person) in order that they dwell in love, placing equal blame on both. Moreover, the Qur’an notes that they repented from their sin and God forgave them. Due to the Torah’s significantly more biased perspective, this has had a negative influence on some important social and religious values in Western civilization for nearly two thousand years. This comparative study can offer an essential perspective for redefining women’s dignity in the West and the superiority of the Quranic approach.

WOMAN’S STATUS IN THE CREATION NARRATIVES IN THE QUR’AN AND TORAH

Women have played various roles in all cultures throughout time. However, the Qur’an and Torah have explicated the specific role of women in their creation narratives. In particular, the story of Adam and Eve’s creation and their fall from grace after consuming the fruit from the Forbidden Tree are depicted in both holy books. There are some resemblances in this story between the Qur’an and Torah, but some significant differences as well. For instance, the Torah considers that Eve was created from Adam and seduced him to eat from the tree, thereby taking chief responsibility. However, the Qur’an states that God has created man and woman from a single soul (person) in order that they dwell in love, placing equal blame on both. Moreover, the Qur’an notes that they repented from their sin and God forgave them. Due to the Torah’s significantly more biased perspective, this has had a negative influence on some important social and religious values in Western civilization for nearly two thousand years. This comparative study can offer an essential perspective for redefining women’s dignity in the West and the superiority of the Quranic approach.

Gnats, Fleas, Flies, and a Camel: A Case Study in the Reception of Genesis Rabbah

The pages of familiar printed editions of Midrash Rabba, including the Venice 1878 folio edition, teem with the commentaries of medieval and early-modern interpreters. This paper examines these abundant sources of information about the reception history of midrash by considering interpretations of a perplexing exposition in Genesis Rabbah (5:9 and 20:8). According to this midrash, when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree, God commanded the ground to bring forth cursed animals of four species – gnats, fleas, flies, and a camel. While medieval Ashkenazi commentators struggled to explain the presence of a camel, an animal unfamiliar to them, in a list of small insects, Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi (writing ca. 1300) explained the kabbalistic significance of the creatures. The sixteenth-century commentator Samuel Yafeh emended the text with reference to recently printed editions. By examining commentaries on the midrash of the insects and the camel, therefore, this study seeks to illuminate the modes of exegesis employed by successive interpreters of Genesis Rabba and the expository resources at their disposal, and thereby to deepen scholarly understanding of the reception history of rabbinic Bible interpretation.

Mâturîdî’de Sabır, Şükür ve Hikmet İlişkisi

Sabır, başa gelen sıkıntı ve belâlar karşısında, metanet gösterip olumsuzlukları olumlu kılma, şükür ise Allah‘tan veya insanlardan gelen nimet ve iyiliklerden dolayı duyulan minnettarlığını söz ve ifade ile göstermektir. Ehl-i Sünnet âlimlerinden Ebû Mansûr el-Mâturîdî (ö.333/944)‘de Şükür ve sabır kavramları aralarında nüans olmakla beraber birbirine yakın bir anlamda kullanılmışlardır. Belâ ve musibetleri kabul etmeye sabır, nimetleri kabul etmeye ise şükür denir. Yüce Allah, Hazreti Adem‘i ağaca yaklaşmamakla imtihan ettiği gibi, evlatlarını da her hal ve durumda sabır ve şükürle imtihan etmektedir. Bu imtihan da kulun belâ ve musibetlere karşı sabretmesi, nimetleri kabul etmeye ise şükür etmesiyle gerçekleşir. Çünkü hikmet dünyasında kişinin başına gelen her şey gizli bir sebep ve hikmetin gereğidir. Böylece Mâturîdî, sabır ve şükür konusundaki hikmet bakış açılarıyla kendinden sonraki bilginleri etkilemiştir. Bu çalışmada Mâturîdî‘nin sabır ve şükür kavramları hakkında görüşleri değerlendirilecektir.

Творчість Рози Ауслендер періоду американської еміґрації

The article deals with the collection of English poetry by German-Jewish poet Rose Ausländer “The Forbidden Tree”, written between 1947 and 1956 during these exile years in New York. Among literature researches there are several versions about the reasons for the shift of language by the author, these versions are post-war trauma, loss of her mother or practical approach in positioning of her poetry in a new language environment. English poetry by Rose Ausländer is considered to be a transitional link between traditional pre-war and free verse poems written after 1957. In this publication there are examples of stylistic influences on Rose Ausländer’s writing by M. Moore, E. E. Cummings, T. S. Eliot, W. Stevens and other American Modernist poets. Generally speaking, in her English poetry Ausländer gradually loses rhyme, the rhythm becomes free, the author experiments with poetic forms a lot, until she decides for the free verse poetry and continues to write quite so in German. Like E. E. Cummings, Pose Ausländer tries different forms and usage of punctuation; like Marianne Moore, she addresses meditative poems with high attention to details. We can observe direct correspondence in dedication of some poems to the American modernist poets. Poetry written by Rose Ausländer during this period, was published in 1995 Helmut Braun in a collection entitled “The Forbidden Tree”. There are 190 poems in this poetry collection, placed in the alphabetical order.

Embryonic stem cell research and the argument of complicity

While the argument of complicity is only rarely discussed in bioethics, it is of obvious relevance to the issue of imported embryonic stem cells in countries in which the derivation of stem cells from early human embryos is legally prohibited and/or morally rejected. Complicity means that making use of the results or products of an illegal or morally problematic activity is itself morally problematic, although generally to a lesser degree than the original activity. The question arises as to which conditions make the argument of complicity plausible, thus supporting attacks against legislation that aims to promote research based on 'fruits of a forbidden tree'. This paper distinguishes a number of different variants of complicity, proposes that they deserve different kinds of moral valuation and applies the results to the ongoing debate about the German stem cell research law.

Paper Fossils: Joyce's 'Origin of Spices' and the Imperfections of the Archival Record

Paper Fossils:Joyce's 'Origin of Spices' and the Imperfections of the Archival Record Dirk Van Hulle (bio) In On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin employed a powerful metaphor to indicate the imperfections of the fossil record, comparing it to a book: 'I look at the natural geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept [...]; of this history we possess the last volume alone [...]. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines'.1 In his so-called 'pencil sketch' of 1842 he had put the matter even more crudely: 'geology presents us with mere pages in chapters, towards end of history, formed by tearing out bundles of leaves, and each page illustrating merely a small portion of the organisms of that time' (CUL DAR 6, p.35r).2 If we compare this situation of the fossil record with the archival record of modern works of literature, the problem of incompleteness seems to be almost non-existent. With regard to modern manuscripts in general, the problem for editors is usually not a lack of manuscripts, but rather an abundance. This essay attempts to draw attention, first of all to the important empirical component of genetic criticism (marginalia, notes, and drafts), but also to the Achilles heel of the empirical method, that is, to the imperfections of the archival record. Biodiversity In The Books at the Wake, James Atherton already drew attention to the presence of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in Finnegans Wake.3 'Charley, you're my darwing' (FW 252.28), the text exclaims, proceeding according to the mechanism of evolution, with variations such as 'natural selections' (FW 117.28), 'naturel rejection' (FW 252.28), 'unnatural refections' (FW 504.33), and the 'sowiveall of the prettiest' (FW 145.27). One of the most remarkable Darwinian passages is the confusion of Darwin's metaphor of the 'tree of life' with the Bible's 'tree of knowledge' in Book III. The cluster of references to [End Page 95] Eden alludes specifically to the Book of Genesis, the fruit of the forbidden tree and the serpent ('snakedst-tu-naughsy', FW 505.07), while the 'origin of spices' and 'charlotte darlings' are always in the vicinity (FW 504.28). 'Remounting aliftle towards the ouragan of spaces' (FW 504.14), Joyce thus prepares the beautiful question about the tree: 'Just how grand in cardinal rounders is this preeminent giant' (FW 504.14-15); the answer goes as follows: Your Ominence, Your Imminence and delicted fraternitrees! There's tuodore queensmaids and Idahore shopgirls and their woody babies growing upon her [...] and culprines of Erasmus Smith's burstall boys with their underhand leadpencils climbing to her crotch for the origin of spices and charlotte darlings [...] and cock robins muchmore hatching most out of his missado eggdrazzles [...] (FW 504.20-35). Where we now have the reference to the Iggdrasil - yet another tree of knowledge - there was originally just a couple of eggs.4 And the 'missado' was simply 'mistletoe'. The word 'mistletoe' survived in several versions of this section. It appears as an addition to a redraft of the third version,5 which the JJA states was probably written in November-December 1924,6 after which it remained unchanged for a while in the so-called 're-redraft',7 in the fair copy (December 1924-January 1925),8 in the top copy, and the carbon copy of the first typescript (January 1925).9 But then, in April 1926, Joyce made a new fair copy, in which the mistletoe has become 'missado'.10 The combination of the missado's origin and the omnipresence of allusions to On the Origin of Species seem to suggest a link with Darwin's introduction to his book: Naturalists continually refer to external conditions, such as climate, food, &c., as the only possible cause of variation. In one very limited sense, as we shall hereafter see, this may be true; but it is preposterous to attribute to mere external conditions, the structure, for instance, of the woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak, and tongue, so admirably adapted to catch insects under...

The Good Communicated: Milton's "Drama of the Fall and the Law of Charity"

The article offers a suggested cause for Milton's representation of the Fall in Book IX of "Paradise Lost" as Eve and Adam's transgression of the law of charity, that is, the love of God, self, and neighbour. The law of charity constitutes the essence of the divine prohibition not to eat from the forbidden tree and the kernel of the Ten Commandments and Gospel teaching, and forms the basis for Milton's concept of natural law. Milton's drama of the Fall uses a variety of literary devices to announce the restoration of humanity through the Son, Milton's 'one greater Man'.

Miltonic Marriage and the Challenge to History in Paradise Lost

In book 5 of Paradise Lost, Milton's Eve is visited in sleep by shaped and winged like one of those from heaven (5.55): Satan. She is brought before the forbidden tree, its fruit waved in her face. Reporting her dream to Adam after she awakes, she says The pleasant savoury smell / So quickened appetite, that I, methought, / Could not but taste (5.84-86). (The actual event of tasting is elided, replaced by a thought.) At the conclusion of her dream, Eve takes flight with Satan:

What do We Know about Knowledge? An Essay on the Knowledge Society

I. After God created the heaven and the earth, land and sea, plants and animals, and, finally, man and woman, everything appeared to be good. For the children of God to enjoy immortality and the peace of paradise, their ignorance would have to be maintained. Thus God commanded Man and wife to refrain from eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. But, as we know, the blissful existence of the young lovers was cut short. In the middle of the Garden of Eden, right under the forbidden tree, a snake tempted the woman into disobeying divine law. The first man and woman could not know that their impermissible appetites would bring death and tribulation to all mankind, beginning the fate of the eternal repetition of the human tragedy. If they had taken a more careful look at the snake, they would have seen the sign of their future. But they did not know anything. They did not even have knowledge of the opportunity to know anything. Above all else, they did not know that knowledge, like a snake, is constructed circularly. News of the original sin apparently caused God enough anxiety for him to make absolutely certain that in the future, creator and creatures would remain distinctly separate, never again to coincide. He drove the human beings out of paradise, far from that divine location of self-sufficient happiness, that place that makes invisible the conditions of its own possibility. In the Garden the creatures were not even able to see their own nakedness. Nakedness: meaning just as they were, living in a carefree manner and without any real interest in the world. But now, outside of paradise, life became a finite resource; a project that would have to be achieved and a project that might fail. It appears that a fundamental aim of God was to give man order, but a form of order he should never really understand. Man's erection of the Tower of Babel arrogantly demonstrated the triumph of an early knowledge society, one in which knowledge was successfully managed to achieve the world and divine truth, because all human beings spoke the same language. This human triumph was also punished by God. The punishment was the advent of confusion and difference and the curse that knowledge will never be able to reach heaven. This sentence was the beginning of the limits of knowledge: all knowledge is limited by and based on itself, not on the world. The Book of Genesis tells a story that unfolds two fundamental problems. On the one hand it shows that the primordial order of the world seems forever remote from man's knowledge. One compensation is the possibility of divine association; a relationship the creatures can believe in, but one they cannot know. On the other hand, it symbolizes that human knowledge is limited to its own circularity, bounded by language and confronted with the diversity of languages. It seems that the God of the Jahwistic tradition might be described as a considerable postmodern guy, one who has set everlasting differences into a world that disappears behind the language and the diversity of languages. God must have been rather alarmed that man's successful overcoming of difference through language would make Gods of his creatures, paradoxical characters, both created and creators. If created characters could achieve the absolute, there appears certain evidence that they are not created characters but creators by themselves. From now on knowledge was the essential resource for those mortal and particular human beings struggling to cope with a world that could be imagined as being independent from any observer. In Western tradition, knowledge emerged as a cipher to abolish the difference between observer and observation. To know something simulates having direct access to the world. The problem of reasonable knowledge than leads to the question of whether or not one's own observation, one's own sight, ultimately, one's own knowledge can be brought into harmony with the being of the world. …