Why did God forbid Adam and Eve to eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge?

Answer 1

Well, honey, it wasn't an apple, it was just called the "fruit of the tree of knowledge." And God didn't want them to eat it because He wanted to keep them in the dark, literally. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say. But we all know how that turned out - Eve took a bite, Adam followed, and the rest is history.

Answer 2

In order to understand why God placed the prohibition on the Tree of the knowledge of good and bad, it is necessary to know what it represents. Adam was created by the Sovereign of the Universe, he had limitations and he needed to acknowledge this fact. For universal peace and harmony, it would devolve upon all reasoning creatures to acknowledge and support the Creator's sovereignty. Adam would demonstrate his recognition of this fact by refraining from eating the fruit of that tree. As father-to-be of an earth full of people, he must prove obedient and loyal, even in the smallest thing. Adam had the capability for such obedience. There was evidently nothing bad intrinsically in the fruit of the tree itself. The act of removing the fruit from the tree and eating of it clearly demonstrated an attack on God's sovereignty, or his right to rule.

Answer 3

Tradition says the fruit that Adam and Eve ate was an apple, but this is not the case.

The Tree from which they were forbidden to eat was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, obviously not a real tree, or at least one we would recognise today. The ancients considered that everything was either good or evil, so to know good and evil was to know everything. We can see why this was forbidden by God's reaction after they had eaten the fruit:

Genesis 3:22: "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us..."

Adam had become like the gods, except that he was still mortal. So that he would not eat from the Tree of Life and then become also immortal, Genesis says God drove him out of the Garden and placed cherubim and a flaming sword to block the way to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:24). Not everyone reads this passage literally.