Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a tree in the Garden of Eden which had the purpose of giving Adam and Eve the ability to choose to love Yahweh by obeying his commands, or to rebel against him. The tree gets it's name from the Hebrew line of thought that a person knows something by doing that thing that they know. In this case, knowing good means doing good and knowing evil means doing evil. Before Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of this tree, they had not done any evil, only good. Therefore they knew good, but not evil. In order for the name of the tree to fulfill its purpose, it must be evil to consume the fruit of the tree. In order for consuming the fruit of the tree to be evil, God must have given a command forbidding it, which he did in Genesis 2:17. By eating the fruit of the tree, Adam and Even had done evil and therefore now know evil as well as the good that they already knew. There is no other way to know good than to do good, and no other way to know evil than to do evil.
False Teachings
The Fruit of the Tree Gives Knowledge of Right and Wrong
It is a common teaching that Adam and Eve gained knowledge of right and wrong by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But this teaching is the exact same deception that Eve fell for in Genesis 3:5. The serpent spoke what was technically true in a deceptive way, so that it would appear good for gaining wisdom. It wasn't until after the serpent said "you will be like God, knowing good and evil" that Eve saw the tree as good for gaining wisdom [Genesis 3:6]. The reason she never perceived the tree this way before is because it was never meant to be perceived that way. It should also be noted that since God cannot do evil, he cannot know evil in the same way that humans know evil. God knew evil because he knew what would happen to his perfect creation if evil entered it. There is no way for a mere human to know evil in this way.
The Fruit Revealed that Nakedness is Sinful
One teaching that is the logical conclusion of the false teaching about the fruit giving knowledge of what is right and wrong is the teaching that one of the things revealed by the fruit is that it is sinful to be naked in front of others, with a few notable exceptions. Teachings about what specifically was revealed by the fruit can be tested by comparing it to Torah, that is, God's Law, which defines what is good and what is evil. The premise of the test is quite simple: If the Law that God gave the Israelites through Moses has a prohibition against something, then that thing is sinful. Otherwise, that thing is not sinful. Being naked in front of others is never prohibited by God's Law and therefore not sinful. Therefore, the fruit could not have revealed that being publicly naked is sinful. This could only have come from the serpent, making this "knowledge" yet another deception of the serpent.
The misconception comes from Genesis 3:7, when Adam and Eve realized they were naked after eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God himself providing better clothing for them in Genesis 3:21 is used to reinforce the belief that it is now somehow wrong to be naked in public. As mentioned above, the fact that God never prohibited being publicly naked proves that the fruit could not have revealed this to them. The fruit could have also not revealed that it is shameful to be publicly naked, for God never called public nudity "shameful" either. The lack of any instruction to Adam concerning clothing after the incident, along with the question of "who told you that you were naked?" in Genesis 3:11 proves that nakedness being a sin did not come from God (who is the only one who has the authority to call something a sin). The Bible never tells us why God clothed Adam and Eve. Any reasons given as to why are therefore reading into the text by definition.