Was it an actual tree?


And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Genesis:2:16

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Genesis:2:1


The greatest challenge in Christianity is understanding how a simple fruit caused so much havoc and curses.  

Could the fruit be just a symbol of something more grave? And what happens to the garden of Eden if  this tree wasn't really a tree,  :-

One thing that is most notable about God is that to Him everything is symbolic and spiritual. This is more pronounced when the Israelites come out of Egypt and they are given purification laws. It becomes clear that not all living things on the earth are considered "pure" before him.

The next consideration is, what made the unclean such. Is it just a declaration or is there something more tangible that makes one thing "clean" and another "unclean".

A house infested with mould for example, was considered unclean. So was leaven (yeast) and though they ate it, it was not to be used on holy days and in the temple. Was it because mold or fungus grows on decaying matter, and it causes decease? What if you further recognize that everything with life has a spirit.

We used to have sacred trees back in the pre-westernized societies.  The elders still consider these trees untouchable. Many traditional spiritual sarifices were only performed under very specific trees. The trees were revered and still are, some have a god-kind of status. Others have priests who take care of them, give them blood sacrifices, pray on them. 

This reminds me of a story where a certain pastor in a one such community got in trouble. The government was constructing a road and one such tree fell right in the middle of the road. The community came out and warned the construction company not to let the tree fall for fear of a spiritual reprisal against the community. One pastor decided to help the situation by conducting a  preemptive prayer against any such spiritual attacks.  He even used holy oil

After the prayers, the pastor told the community that the curse of cutting the tree would not touch them. So the construction workers proceeded to cut it. It was a huge tree. Had been there before everybody else alive in the community. Word got to the diviners that the sacred tree had been cut. They were wroth. I remember listening to their demands and threats in awe, as the journalists recorded the whole drama. This is what they said;

"[You shall bring a goat, which shall be slaughtered as sacrifice for the fallen tree, and if you don't do it by the end of today, we the diviners of our gods shall UnCloth before that tree and dance before it, and we shall see if your gods will save you from ours]. The pastor brought the sacrificial goat as fast as he could.

This is just one example of the spirit behind some trees. And I believe that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was one such tree. But eating of its fruit they got spiritually joined, perverted by a spirit that on one hand opened theirs eyes to the machinations of good and evil, and the spirit of death. Knowledge in this instance being a spiritual emersion into a realm that also was ruled by the spirit of death. The spirits of Adam and Eve became one with that realm the moment they partook of the forbidden tree.

Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die today

Funny how a god would plant trees with secrets and yet can't control who gets acess to the tree.