As gods, knowing good and evil
Read the full text in our reader
ᾔδει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ὅτι ἐν ᾗ ἂν ἡμέρᾳ φάγησθε ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, διανοιχθήσονται ὑμῶν οἱ ὀφθαλμοί, καὶ ἔσεσθε ὡς θεοί, γινώσκοντες καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν.
The serpent's real argument, and the heart of the temptation: not pleasure but divinity. "Your eyes will be opened" plays on real sight against a deeper blindness; "you will be as gods, knowing good and evil" (ὡς θεοί, γινώσκοντες καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν) offers a god's moral autonomy in place of a creature's trust. γινώσκω here is not abstract head-knowledge but the Hebrew sense of intimate, experiential knowing (יָדַע, yādaʿ) — to know good and evil by having tasted both, the way one "knows" a spouse. The serpent is not entirely lying: 3:22 will have God himself say "Adam has become as one of us, knowing good and evil" — the terrible truth inside the temptation.
Open The Septuagint 3.5 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the The Septuagint — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
The Septuagint 3.5 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/septuagint/3.5/