One has to remember that first and foremost this story was not and never written with the intention that it was to be open to interpretation to other religions and other cultures outside of the Hebrews of Judaism. Second, the narrative of Eden is the prelude to the Torah of the Mosaic Law itself, and it's position in Genesis is not haphazard but foreshadowing.
Keeping these two things in mind may not give anyone identical answers in the end, but it may help some arrive at more logical ones. How? Let's start with the first point, the Jewish intention behind the story.
You have to leave behind the Watchtower beliefs that this is the story of the Fall of Man and that this is an historical account. You also have to totally give up the idea of Satan the Devil being the snake as there is no such being in Judaism to this day.
What you are left with is a story explaining how God deals with a humanity that he loves but that is so truly designed in God's image so much so that they naturally tend not to obey laws, just like a god. The legend seems to be telling us we are built to make our own decisions but have to be taught how to do this first. Otherwise it seems to be built in us to see laws as restrictive, so God has to do something else before reintroducing humanity to laws.
God's laws when rightly understood as introducing us to our own freedom produce benefits and healing. This is what the Jewish sages seem to be explaining in this myth and those that follow this one, but in this myth it is a lesson that must be taught. The Hebrews come to learn this "lesson" during their slavery in Egypt.
The second point is that the legend of the rejecting of God's law in Eden is contrasted with what is supposed to be a historical event* for the nation of Israel: the Theophany at Sinai or the acceptance of God's Law upon themselves as a nation. Adam and Eve say "no" in Eden, but God makes a covenant with descendants of theirs that both recognize God among the nations through Abraham but still wrestle with what they are "told what to do" like Jacob/Israel.
People are made in God's image. Like God we aren't supposed to want to be merely told what to do and blindly obey. God expects the wrestling like with Jacob because we were, after all, created to "be like God, knowing good and evil," but apparently it's part of our evolutionary process, at least the way the Jewish myths tell it.
Again, this story isn't meant to be applicable to humanity in general. The Eden legend is written in such a matter to foreshadow the Sinai event, so even if there was something like this in history, the way it is presented in the Bible is tailored to fit the Jewish obligation to the Mosaic Law. Gentiles are not under such an obligation, so attempts at unraveling the details to apply them to another paradigm might not be very efficacious.
*--It should be noted that the Biblical account of the Theophany at Sinai is composed of maybe two or three different traditions, none of which are the same as Judaism's historical claim of the Theophany. Biblical accounts are rarely historical in modern terms, nor is Christianity's claim that Jews use the Bible as the chief means of preserving history true. There are other authentic Jewish understandings of the Theophany which space and time do not here permit and which can be obtained from other Jewish sources.
