EdenOne,
Interesting analysis of the text. I have to say that the story of the Garden of Eden is probably one of the most interpreted stories in the Bible. You made mention of the idea that God would have ultimately allowed Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, yet you made no mention (that I can recall) of the Tree of Life. The fact that two distinct trees are mentioned in the myth is important. The fact that one is accessible and the other outside the limits or boundaries of man is also very important. The tree of knowledge or "wisdom" as you mention, is simply a means to an end, an explanation, a cause....the effect, sin. There is, in my opinion, no other purpose for the tree.
I have commented several times before that the story of the Garden of Eden, in fact the entire pre-Mosaic portion of Genesis, simply serves the purpose of distinguishing the Jew or Israelite from other peoples. It is akin to the legends built around any nation-state. The U.S. history books are replete with the notion of legends. The Paul Revere story, the George Washington and cherry tree story, the Benedict Arnold story. They all serve a purpose in identifying what became the nation. If you read the book of Genesis from that perspective, you will find less mysticism and more political propaganda.
SOP
), and the serpent the vegetative. Thus, when it is said that the serpent shall eat dust, it indicates that the vegetative soul cleaves to the dust of materialism. The coats of skins typify the body; the tree of life is the perception of the upper intelligible world, just as the cherubim, the angels, are the intelligible beings of the upper world. In addition to this allegory of Gabirol's, Ibn Ezra quotes another interpretation of Jacob's dream; but while it is possible that he may have applied this method to visions or similar passages of the Bible, it is altogether unlikely that he presumed to apply it either to the Law or to the historical events chronicled in Scripture.