The traditional take on Adam and Eve makes no sense. For any "God" would certainly know the outcome of the "test" Genesis tells us He gave to Adam and Eve. Heck, any dope could have guessed how things would turn out.
God told Adam that if he ate some fruit he would die. God then put Adam alone in that garden for how long? Then God gave him a beautiful naked woman as his new best friend, "helper" and lover. Now this gorgeous babe tells Adam she thinks they should eat the forbidden fruit. Besides, she tells him, she's heard that if they do they wont really die at all. God didn't need to see into the future to figure out what Adam was going to do under those circumstances. Anyone could have guessed who Adam was going to care most about pleasing? After sleeping with squirrels for what JWs tell us was quite a few years, what man wouldn't have risked his life to make sure he didn't lose that lady's love and affection? Even if God then "chose not to" look into the future, as JWs say, the God who created man would have had to have had a very poor knowledge of His own creation not to have known that Adam was certainly going to fail that "test."
If Adam and Eve were actual historical people, the only way their story makes any sense is to understand that God not only knew how things were going to end up in Eden, but that He deliberately set the whole thing up to make a point. What point? This one. If Adam in paradise, without a problem in the world, could not manage to obey one simple command from God, what chance does any human being have of living their entire trouble-plagued life without sinning either in word, thought or deed? No chance at all. I believe that is the primary lesson that was illustrated in Eden. Human beings have a sinful nature. A nature which God gave us.
But why would God give us a "sinful" nature? Because "God is love," and because God wanted to create people in his "own image," He wanted to create people whom He could have a loving relationship with. But since true love can be neither forced nor programmed, in order to have loving relationships with us, God had to create us as free people. Free to choose to love God and His ways or to not love God and His ways. In other words, free to do both right and wong, free to do both good and evil.
Because we can do wrong and often do, and because God can't do wrong and never does, we are less righteous than God. And because we are, none of us deserve to live forever. That means all human beings have, in effect, from their births been condemned by God to die. Not because of anything Adam did, but because we ourselves all fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
I believe that the story of Adam and Eve in Eden was meant by God to also illustrate some other lessons. One being that because we are always less righteous than God we are always in need of His forgiveness even when we have not recently committed any "sinful" act. I believe this lesson was illustrated by Adam and Eve being totally unaware of their nakedness before God until after they had committed a blatant act of disobedience. (Nakedness is a condition always portrayed as shameful in the scriptures.) Then, suddenly, after they had "sinned" they became aware of their nakedness and felt the need to "hide from God." Just as we often only become aware of our shameful condition before God after committing some "sinful act." And just as we then often feel ashamed of ourselves and try to hide from God by withdrawing from Him by not praying or by not attending Church, etc., until we finally get over our guilt. However, the fact is, we are no more worthy to stand in the presence of a perfect God before committing a "sinful act" than we are after doing so. Just as Adam and Eve were, in reality, just as naked before they disobeyed God as they were after doing so. They just didn't realize it.
The Genesis account also clearly indicates that Adam and Eve were created mortal with a dying nature just like us. The story of Adam and Eve told in Genesis makes clear that their being able to live forever was not a part of their original physical nature. Rather, Adam and Eve's ability to live forever depended entirely on their eating from a tree "in the middle of the garden" of Eden, "the tree of life".(Genesis 2:9) Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were going to be allowed to continue to eat from that tree only if they passed a God given test, a test which we are told they failed. After failing that test God expelled Adam and his wife from the Garden of Eden and prevented them from ever again eating from "the tree of life".
Genesis indicates that had Adam and Eve been allowed to continue eating from "the tree of life" their lives would have been prolonged indefinately.(Genesis 3:22-24) But when God prevented them from ever again eating from "the tree of life" they died what were apparently natural deaths. A careful reading of the Genesis account shows us that living forever would have been as unnatural for Adam and Eve as it would now be for us. Genesis does not indicate that Adam and Eve originally had eternal life programmed into their genetic codes by God and later had their genetic codes reprogrammed by God in order to remove eternal life from those codes. Rather, Genesis indicates that Adam and Eve would have lived forever only if God had graciously given them eternal life from an outside source, "the tree of life".
Of course, that "tree of life" was meant to picture Jesus Christ. For, as we have seen, God was going to give Adam and Eve eternal life from an outside source, "the tree of life", only if they passed a very simple test. And the Bible tells us that we will be given eternal life from an outside source, Jesus Christ, only if we pass a very simple test. That test is to simply believe in our hearts that Christ's death was sufficient payment to buy every human being God's full forgiveness, forgiveness for both our sinful nature and our sinful acts.
