How did Adam and Eve sin?

This question has been pondered for millenniums ... What in Adam and Eve caused them to sin? They were born innocent so what caused them to will disobedience to God? Perhaps the most insightful comments that I’ve heard on Gen 1-3 are from one of the brothers at Taizé. Here it is in a nutshell ... (because this is quite wise and it would be wrong to let you think that I came up with it myself…)

"In the context of the story, you need to think of the man and the woman as if they were children. Imagine a mother who says to her child ‘thou mayest play in the garden, but thou shalt not play in the road, for in the day when thou playest in the road thou shalt surely die’. The child understands that she is going to kill it if it chooses to play in the road; actually she is simply saying that it will get run over by a car. Simple cause and effect. God says ‘you may have everything in this entire garden, but I’d avoid that thing over there. Touching that one thing is a really bad idea.’ It’s also interesting that people tend to focus on the single thing that is off limits, and not the whole garden full of stuff that God does give them.

Furthermore, it isn’t that God doesn’t intend for the man and the woman ever to become wise, the question is how they are meant to become wise. God’s plan is for them to become wise by trusting and being in relationship with Him. In the surrounding cultures, the serpent, on the other hand, represents wisdom that you get to all by yourself without reference to God. So the choice is not wisdom or no wisdom, but wisdom with or without God. They choose to listen to the serpent, which is a choice to attain independent wisdom without wanting to continue to trust God."

I’m not sure if this quite answers the question, but it seems to me like a useful starting point to bear in mind. The disobedience is about wanting to get somewhere without God’s help, which doesn’t necessarily mean that God never intended for them to get there!

Have a blessed day everyone!