The following article is from *The Skeptical Review*, 1995 March/April:
by Farrell Till
Have you ever thought about the implications of Adam's and
Eve's
sin? They ate of the tree of knowledge (Gen.3:6),
an act that opened their eyes (v:7),
and so God drove them from the Garden of Eden, because "the
man is become as one of us, to know good and evil" (v:22).
In other words, their sin was the acquisition of knowledge. It
was a sin so great that the petulant Yahweh not only banished
them from the garden but pronounced an everlasting curse on them
and all their descendants.
The condemnation of knowledge implied in this story established
a policy that was generally--but not always-- followed by the
other biblical writers. That policy was to discourage and even
sometimes to condemn the acquisition of knowledge. Perhaps no
single biblical writer ridiculed knowledge any more than the apostle
Paul, who is considered by many scholars to be the real founder
of Christianity. His strongest denunciation of knowledge was made
in his first letter to the Corinthian church:
