A teacher once told me his only rule for reading the Bible is don't ask why God does what he does, in part because there is no decent/definitive answer (except arguably the end of the Book of Job and/or "because I am the Lord, your God"), and more importantly, because it isn't a very interesting question. Of more interest are things like "why did the authors choose to portray God this way?" or "how did the humans react to this?". I think even if you just consider Yahweh as a literary character, one of his few consistent character traits is that he just does stuff and is inscrutable, and attempting to divine (ha) intention is impossible by His very nature.

I also side with Leibniz in thinking that one of God's characteristics is that he is perfect.

So what does this story tell us?

1. That God, a perfect being, created us without the knowledge of good and evil built in.

2. That God, a perfect being, presumably felt that this was the preferable state of existence.

3. That Adam and Eve seem to have eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil BEFORE the Tree of Life

I am inferring this from Gen 3:22, "Now that man has become like one of us in knowing good from evil, he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and pick from the tree of life too, and eat and live forever!"

Which leads me to the more interesting question, and one that nobody seems to ask:

What is the purpose and the meaning of the tree of Life?

I don't think it is explicitly stated that Adam and Eve are mortal before the fall, but why would there be a tree that makes them immortal if they weren't? And why are they allowed this tree (Gen 2:16), but not knowledge of good and evil? The implication being that eternal life is being Godlike in an acceptable way, but being knowledgeable of good and evil isn't.

These are all questions I don't have answers to, and would love to talk about.