ABSTRACT
Toward the beginning of The Guide of the Perplexed, Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) recounts an “objection” raised by a “learned man” about the biblical story of Adam’s sin. According to the “clear sense of the biblical text [Genesis 2-3],” we are told that the first human was created without an “intellect, without thought, and without the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”1 Only as a result of disobeying the divine command was he rewarded with an intellect, his greatest perfection, and with knowledge of good and bad.
