The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…. The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:8-17, CSB).

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.(Genesis 3:1-5, CSB).

In these two chapters from Genesis we see the formulation of some fundamental components of the Judeo-Christian ethic–free will, human depravity, moral law and justice.

God planted a garden in Eden and gave the man the responsibility for working in the garden and watching over it. (Why it was necessary for the man to protect the garden is an interesting question for another time.) Two species of trees in the garden are mentioned–the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of the former, Adam and Eve could eat and subsequently experience eternal life. Of the latter, they were commanded not to eat or they would experience death.