Symbolic trees
Continuing with the Adam legend we next read:
Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became the source of four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon: it flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and onyx stone are also there. The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel. This is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die."
This passage raises lots of questions in one's mind, but it is worthwhile to note that all the archaeological evidence of the very early history of homo sapiens is that he was a hunter-gatherer; he subsisted on the food that grew naturally, supplemented by meat obtained by hunting. Was there ever a time when just gathering was enough to sustain life? The Adam legend suggests that there was.
The locality of the especially fertile area called Eden, based on the names of the rivers, is clearly Mesopotamia, and it is obvious as we read further through these early family chronicles that this is, broadly speaking, the right geographical area. Abraham was called to move westward to the land bordering the Mediterranean we now call Palestine, and was then called Canaan.
Now we must address the trees in this passage. Were there literally two trees? I am not sure that it matters, because what we must focus on is the meaning behind them.
The 'tree of life' gets mentioned again in the last book of the Bible, where we read in connection with the new order, the new heaven and the new earth, and the new Jerusalem:
One of the seven angels ... carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God ... He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. [Revelation 21:9-22:2]
Commentators on this Genesis reference to the tree of life, including Augustine of Hippo and John Calvin, were prepared to consider an allegorical or symbolic interpretation. The best understanding may simply be that there was a means for early man to use gathered food to keep in perfect health.
I am sure that the other tree was symbolic:
You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.
The Bible is very clear about death, and it is death that is the key concept here. This simple symbolic message is saying just one thing: sin causes death. Paul describes death as the 'wages', the natural outcome, of doing evil. And we can understand 'having knowledge of' as meaning participating in.
Here is a possible retelling:
At the very beginning our first ancestors lived in a wonderfully fertile part of Mesopotamia. The food we had kept us perfectly healthy. But we were warned that if we participated in evil we would lose that health and die.