Becoming Yet More Like God: A Jewish Perspective on Radical Life Extension

Abstract

Here, in one of the opening chapters of its very first book, the Bible contemplates what it would mean to live forever. Adam and Eve had already eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil—that is, they had already attained moral knowledge and, presumably, the ability to make decisions and act according to that knowledge. This asset makes them more like God than any of the other animals. If they additionally were to live forever, they would effectively become gods on earth. Thus, God must banish them from the Garden of Eden lest they attain the second aspect defining the differences between human beings and God, the ability to live forever.

And the Lord God said: “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken. He drove man out and stationed east of Garden of Eden the cherubim and fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

—Genesis 3:22—24