I think we have really gone astray in our interpretation of Genesis 2. I see it more about connecting the dots. It was written by human beings who have to work for their food; have pains of childbirth; are preyed upon by wild animals; and fight amongst themselves.
And yet, they were created by a perfect God.
How can one reconcile these two concepts: A perfect creator and a flawed creation? Pretend for a moment that you don't already know the story of the fall.
How could you connect these dots? It seems that to explain our present, either you need to say that God is not perfect or explain our present condition in some other way. I think this conundrum gave rise to the idea of a fall and original sin. It does help provide an explanation.
Does this make it true? Not necessarily. It may not even be Biblical, as there are passages in the Bible--including some of the words of Jesus--that seem to deny the concept of original sin. (For instance the story of the blind man who did not have sin.)
It is also possible that the story is beautiful in that it connects the dots in our understanding, even while not being literally true. Perhaps God created us the way we are now: creatures who have to labor and feel pain and are subject to fault. Perhaps this isn't a failure on God's part. Perhaps as Candide proposed: this is the best of all possible worlds. While some will see it this way, others will find it inconceivable that God would have designed things this way. For those people there is the account of the fall.
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