The first thing we should realize about our texts from Genesis is that they are intended as depictions of our life with God. The Hebrew word for “Adam” means “humankind,” and the writer of Genesis 2-3 is telling us that this is our story, that this is the way we all have walked with our Lord.

Thus we learn from Genesis 2 that while we were created in the most intimate fashion by God and given his breath of life that fills our lungs in their regular pumping (v. 7), God nevertheless set limits on our existence. And those limits are symbolized by that tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden that God planted for Adam (vv. 8, 16, 17). The fact that God forbids us to eat of that tree does not mean that he forbids us to pursue scientific knowledge or even to go to the moon. Rather, …