The Forbidden Fruit and The Making of Pharisees

God tells Adam that he could eat the fruit of any of the trees in The Garden except that one over there: the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a No-No. Not 24 hours later, Eve adds her twist to the commandment when she tells the serpent that they can’t touch the fruit.

Eve: You know, Adam, I have been thinking. God said we weren’t to eat the fruit of the tree but what if we touch the fruit, the juice then gets on our hands, and we touch our mouths? You see where I am headed, here?

Adam: Got it. Good point. Yeah, verily, boys, God doesn’t want us to touch the tree, to not get near it.

Boys all grow’d up: Cain, I have been wondering about this Don’t Touch, Don’t Eat policy. You know how our children are always playing Kick the Grapefruit? It hit me that, man, if the grapefruit flies up and knocks down some fruit from the No-No Tree, I think the temptation might be too much for them. What do you say we build a fence around that tree? I think this would please God .... probably what He meant to say all along. Able then tells their boys that God’s will is to stay one-hundred yards away from the tree, while Cain begins sawing away at a tree to make wood for a fence: both pleased with themselves for seeing deeper into the mind of God than their parents.

Adam’s Great-grandson to his wife: Honey, the other day the children were playing Throw the Watermelon and it sailed over The Fence of Our Fathers. George being who he is climbed the fence to retrieve it. Scared me to death. What if there had been some forbidden fruit lying on the ground? I was nauseated at the mere thought. We need to erect a new fence, farther away from the old one. So. Up goes a new fence, farther away and higher than the First Fence; only this one was made of stone, so the sight of the tree far off in the distance wouldn’t tempt them. “Children, turns out what God actually requires of us is …”

And so on and on it goes, until there are so many fences that no one has access to all the trees, rivers, and beauty, of the Garden where all is good and to be enjoyed … except the fruit of the No-No-Tree, which is not to be eaten.  

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2013