The story of Genesis, I think, is a story of humanity choosing a path for itself. Basically, I think there is a historical explanation. For brevity's sake, I will be rather imprecise. The beginning of the agricultural evolution is marked with independence from nature. Before the agricultural evolution, when we were hunter-gatherers, we had to rely on the land (the animals and vegetation therein). Eventually, we realized that we could manipulate the land to allow us to live beyond our needs. The new agriculturalists, started to take over land in order to produce more food. This upset the hunter-gathers who then proceeded to tell stories saying that somewhere these agriculturalists went wrong in thinking that they could act like gods and control their own destiny. Thus, I think, is the story of the tree of knowledge. A later part of Genesis, which I think is still a reflection of the agricultural revolutions, is the story of Cain and Abel. Cain, a tiller/agriculturalist, kills Abel, the herder.
Anyway, that was the short, informal, and slightly imprecise version of my historical explanation for two parts of the story of genesis.
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