Hi Professor,
You ought not accord the Genesis story as not having some hidden meaning. I know everybody has their take on this, but I'd suggest to you that you not ignore that Satan also got death in this process, thus the rules for the humans about not eating of the the tree of knowledge was a test of Satan's obedience as well.
If you look at the very broad picture, it could be surmised that Satan had already developed some very nasty and irritating flights of grandeur and had become a "resister" to God's way of doing things in heaven. But heaven, before the creation of man, there was probably no "sin" or possibility of sin. Everything in heaven was conceptual; there was no real way to carry out an "evil deed" because that is primarily possible within the realm of the material world. So the only way get rid of Satan and those who wanted to side with him was to set up a situation where there could be LAWS that could be broken and thus SIN and make the penalty for SIN death.
So God created a lesser reality than heaven in the physical world where DEEDS and LAWS could exist and thus also sin and death if one broke those laws. If Satan were instrumental in breaking any of these laws, therefore, he would become legally liable to death.
Satan probably understood this completely, decided he'd rather die in rebellion than serve God, but cruelly decided he would not go alone but will murder billions of potential mankind if he could get Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge and give some of it to Adam.
So Satan fell into the trap, sinned himself by getting Eve to break a simple rule though she was deceived and Adam also ate thus accomplishing the death of Adams unborn potential children. But what Satan probably did not know was about the "Ransom Sacrifice" and "Ressurection". That plan basically said that if another perfect man were willing to die sinless and childness, he could adopt Adam's children and reverse the curse of death and those faithful children of Adam could have eternal life as God intended for the faithful of mankind. Thus Satan's plan backfired. God would arrange for about 6000 years for Adams children to be born in sin, live a short life and die, later to be resurrected and based upon what choices they made during their life, be offered life or undergo the "second death" in the lake of fire. So ultimately, those righteous ones that Satan had planned to murder as part of his rebellion would get saved after all, minimizing Satan's attempt to outsmart God.
The big pay off, though, is that God could now legally and legitimately destroy Satan forever in the lake of fire, cleansing the heavens of he and all his rebellious followers.
So when looking at the big picture the Genesis scenario makes more sense. The test of obedience was just as much for Satan as it was for Adam and Eve. In the end though, Satan helped God clean up the riff raff in both heaven and earth and after the millennium and Judgment Day, all will be a wonderful heaven and earth per God's plan.
That's just another take on the Genesis story.
By the way, the length of a "day" in the Bible varies from 24 hours, 1000 years or 7,000 years (A creative day). Since Adam did not die within 24 hours but died under 1000 years we can understand the reference to his dying that "day" as a reference to the 1000-year day. So there's no scriptural contradiction here as far as God telling the truth. And of course, they did die so Satan did end up being a liar. He willingly murdered them knowing that God would have to kill him based upon his laws; therefore, his own permanent death in the lake of fire is well justified.
L.G.