The bible tells us that before Eve ate the apple, she and Adam lived in harmony with the other animals.

Clearly, Adam and Eve must have been like the animals as they had not tasted the fruit of the tree of the knowlege of good and evil.

What did the eating of the fruit give them?

The real difference between humans and all other life forms was well known to the writers of the bible.

Man  knows the 'future consequence of actions'. This is the knowlege of good and evil. Its not hard to see that no other animal has this understanding.

Simply put, we are able to predict the impact our actions will have. We can then make value judgements about these consequences, determining if we believe the results to be good or evil. We are also able to see the consequence of not taking action, such as not storing food for winter.

This is at the heart of intelligence.

After eating the fruit and gaining intellectual  distance from the other animals, god banished Adam and Eve from the garden for fear that they next would eat of the fruit of the tree of eternal life and become gods, themselves. But that's another issue for another thread.

So here's the question - Was Eve a hero for gaining for mankind intelligence that no other animal has ever had or  a villain for giving mankind intelligence but losing the garden of eden and harmony with the other animals as a result?

Would you want to be intelligent and outside the garden or dumb as a monkey but on the inside?