Well, were all in this together, and if it has been any of us back then, we probably would have done the same thing. And we have been doing a lot worse since.
However, I’ve given some thought to eating that fruit of knowledge of good and evil.
Origin myths (myth being the true and most sacred and lofty stories of a culture) are used to explain the present, how we got to where we are. So ancients who wrote down Genesis (the best they could as God revealed it to them) would have noticed the differences between animals and humans, our intelligence and knowledge. They would have also seen that such often enough leads to killing, death, and destruction, knowingly.
Also they would have noticed that animals don’t seem to understand death. They don’t have human language, so they can’t talk about the past or future, even tho the higher animals do have memory and can anticipate. Humans, however, can wonder what would happen to the dead – obviously they look like the living at first (before decay), but something crucial is missing, something that animated them, something … well, spiritual & special that dead animals don’t even have. (I’ve even read that the dead are heavier than the living…so that something was buoyant, uplifting.)
So in a way, pre-human-knowledge (before eating the apple) we (Adam and Eve) were not so aware of death. We could talk to the animals and they could talk to us, like the serpent, and to God; perhaps it was not in human language, but in some clear communication. But after eating the forbidden fruit we (ever since Adam and Eve) were then aware of death and it seems could no longer communicate with animals or even with God very well – after the fruit was more like difficult revelations only given to a few until Jesus came and told us all everything we had to know.
The ancients also needed to explain how death came about…surely from sin. Surely knowledge of good and evil is a double-edged sword, which can be used for good and for evil.
So I don’t really believe that no life formed died before Adam and Eve ate that fruit – you can if you want to – but that with the knowledge of good and evil came the understanding of death…and the possibility of going to Hell.
Just some of my musings…