***
Eve could see that the prohibited banana plant was "a desirable tree to make one wise, good for food, and a delight to the eyes" (Gen. 3:6). And wisdom seemed (to Eve) like a good thing; which would mean that God must have told her an evil thing; which would mean that the Snake's information was probably a good thing; and that the banana was probably a good thing as well – it certainly looked good – and then God, who had told her an evil thing, may not be such a good thing as she had once supposed.
But Eve had no "knowledge" in the moral sense of the term, so she could not yet decide whether it was a good thing to be an evil thing. Then, too, the knowledge of both things, evidently, came from the exact same tree, which meant that good and evil could be the same thing, to wit: a long, smooth, seedless yellow thing, shaped rather like Adam's hairy, wrinkly, seed-filled, uncircumcised pink penis-thing; compared to which organ, each individual seedless yellow fruit hanging from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil seemed quite handsome.
Eve wished she were more "wise," so that she could decide whether or not she should taste the forbidden fruit; but she knew she could not be made "wise" until after she had already done it; which, in retrospect, might seem un-wise.
So it was all very confusing. Eve reached out a hand, just to stroke one banana ever so gently, but checked herself, arched a little, and pulled back.
Here's how your mother finally worked it out, in her own words:
My Dilemma
There's a cute tree in the middle of the Garden, called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yahveh says I shouldn't touch it. Snake says I should.
God says that eating just one banana-snack will kill me dead in my tracks. Snake says it won't. Snake says that the snack will open my eyes, and make me like God, knowing the difference between good and evil; and he says if I then eat a banana from the Tree of Life, I will live forever. If Snake is right, then God has made a big mistake.
God says: don't eat that long seedless fruit, it's a big mistake, it will kill you! But let's say that I do eat the fruit, and it doesn't kill me: I may yet discover that it was a big mistake. But then Snake shall be proved right, anyway, for in having made a big mistake I shall become like God, who has made a big mistake in saying it would kill me, and unlike Snake, who did not make such a big mistake.
But Snake says that God is mistaken – that it is not a big mistake for me to eat the fruit. And if Snake is correct about that, well, then – so what? Eat!
What a woman! Not just naked, but brainy! I could have stood at attention beside her all day long, just to hear her talk. (Her husband, Adam. spoke mostly in nouns: "Cow." "Ox." "Pigeon." "Bug." Compared to Eve, Adam was a knucklehead not much brighter than the apostle Paul.)
Eve tiptoed up close. She looked both ways. She reached out her hand, and chose – not the largest fruit, for size seemed less important to her than I would have guessed – but a handsome one, perfect yellow, without bruises. Eve pulled. The fruit yielded to her touch. She then dropped to the ground, giggling. She peeled. She tasted. She swallowed.
"Oh, my!" she cried. "This is so incredibly ... good!" She rolled onto her back, and patted her plump, naked tummy, and kicked her legs in the air with innocent glee, though not quite as innocently as before.
Your mother Eve had eaten figs and pomegranates a-plenty, but nothing seemed to please her so well this forbidden fruit. She whispered in my ear, in Hebrew: "Oy...oy veh! ... oy, ken, ken, KEN!" ("oh! oh my goodness! oh, yes! yes! YES!").
One Bible commentator has said that God made a mistake in not forbidding Eve the snake; in which case, she would have eaten the snake. And truly, if I had been disguised that day as a banana slug, and not as a fanged viper, then I think your mother Eve, after that first taste of sin, would have had her way with me, too.
– L.
