Especially if this rather popular metaphor is absurdly (or laughably) Backwards (?)

It portrays a putative Original Unity == the Creator + the newly Created.
The "knowledge of good and evil" postulates creation of an (this) illusion of Opposites - Good/Bad, Right/Wrong.
(hmmm digital first rears its head: and a pretty ugly head - when it's about human(oids) and not just, switching-junctions for fun and profit).

Given that metaphysics is mainly about returning one's 'consciousness' to that State of Unity (as might also be called say, The Real?) -- a neutral observer (!) would have to call the "reward" for eating this bloody figurative apple:
a Fall from (Grace, Unity, Oneness yada). Clearly it is a lesser 'State'

Why might a single Real (asexual == let's keep it nonhysterical) Entity 'need' to create critters? Long before JC - it was suggested that this might be the only means by which: The Absolute might come to 'know itself'.

Thence, within the illusion - human ego, desire for Power over other humans, that tendency to evade the hard work of deep thought / any serious exploration 'within':

Got us to where we are today.
Hey, it's All in our minds, but - never mind; most prefer the game over any silly idea of 'peaceful unity'.