Succulent Mango

One of my students put forth a very plausible explanation for a verse that has been bugging me for a few years. Endowed members will be forced to agree that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had fruit that was very desirable, and delicious to the taste. Not bitter. 2 Nephi 2:15 contrasts the forbidden fruit with the fruit of the Tree of Life, the one being sweet, the other bitter. It seems to me that the implication is that the fruit of the Tree of Life is bitter. In Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life, though, the fruit is sweet above all that is sweet. Plus, I'd like to think the thing that represents the love of God isn't bitter. My mother and I had an interesting but not super fruitful (ha!) discussion of what it all might mean. This morning, though, Alexandra suggested that perhaps the forbidden fruit was very desirable to Adam and Eve to get them out of the garden, and delicious to the taste because it was new and exotic to them. That, from their perspective in the garden, it was delicious. From our perspective in mortality though, the fruit of the Tree of Life is the sweet, delicious one. So it's natural for Lehi to talk about something being sweet that, to Adam and Even, was boring and not particularly desirable.