Retelling the Garden of Eden myth
This brings us to the end of what we may call the 'Garden of Eden' myth, and as before it is useful to review the demythologized version in its entirety as a modern 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. We were given the gift of language and marriage. That is why a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will come together physically as a single unit. Our first ancestors were tempted by a powerful spiritual force to do something they knew was forbidden, and they succumbed to the temptation. This made them aware of things they had not known before. They were now ashamed to be unclothed, and were now afraid of Yahweh. Eve was told that one of her descendants would give birth to a saviour who, at a cost of suffering, would overcome the source of evil. Our ancestors' disobedience explains why we have pain, especially the pain of childbirth, and toil; why the easy life of gathering from the fertile area has been denied us and we have to work hard just to stay alive.