romans8

Nephi shows that there’s at least 3 layers of interpretation to Lehi’s dream. The first, as you note, is the personal path to salvation that invariable leads to the Savior. The second is a large scale explanation that centers on Jesus’ birth, the gospel message, apostasy, restoration, and Christ’s return. Nephi only explains some of this because he refers to John’s Apocalypse. The third is familial, tracing Nephi’s descendants and their covenant relationship with the Lord. The highlight is when they are visited by the Savior, followed by a period of apostasy, and a prophesied day of renewal and restoration.
There may be other interpretations, but these are the ones Nephi gave.

If you want the "official" interpretation you need to read chapters 11 & 12 where Nephi has the same vision but in his case has the benefit of an angel to tell him the interpretation.
But I would mention a few things that may not be obvious unless you were brought being taught this dream/vision.
First of all, it is assumed that everyone on the path must endure the mists of darkness, even if Lehi did not specifically mention it. Same goes for enduring the acorn from the building. Also, these mists do not represent any specific historical event as you will read in the other chapters.
Secondly, you shouldn't view the progress along the path to the tree in a strictly linear fashion. Even when people come unto Christ (the tree) they are still on the path (enduring to the end) and encountering the mists of darkness. The sad part about that second group of people is that they had received the gospel and partaken of it's fruit, which is a tentative promise of eternal life if they remain faithful, and then they fell away.
Lastly, we believe that everyone will eventually have the opportunity to be taught the correct path back to God, whether in this life or the next. Also, there are those who do for a time leave the path for whatever reason but because of the tender mercies of God eventually find their way back. But eventually anyone who wants to receive eternal life must come to the tree of life and partake of it's fruit and remain there.

That sounds accurate to me. Anyone who falls short of exaltation, either by an inch or by a mile, is "lost" to some degree. 

I think when it refers to commandments (plural) it's simply saying that Adam and Eve failed to keep God's commandments as a whole, not necessarily that they broke a certain number of them. Also, as we view Adam and Eve as representative of ourselves any commandment broken, whether one or multiple, brings a separation of us from God.

I never thought of it that way.  I do have adulterous thoughts in my mind from time to time. Maybe
they will come to fruition some day and lead to a holy outcome. 
But for sure my wife would divorce me if I did this.

Exactly!  You don't set out to commit an adulterous act.  Ideally you marry the woman according to God's law, and then--because of the covenants that you've made and the divine instructions that you've followed--the act becomes not adulterous, but holy. 
There are, in the divine economy, tremendously significant acts that are not inherently evil but can nonetheless get us in an awful lot of trouble when we presume to perform those acts outside of divinely-imposed restrictions on time, place, and manner.  Yes, in the eternal scheme of things, Adam and Eve had to partake of the fruit.  They (well, Adam, per the Biblical narrative) had been told by God not to eat of the fruit and that doing so would result in their deaths; and then it seems they were out of God's direct presence for a while (which is why the serpent was able to effectively tempt them).  But--and this is hinted at in the Bible, but more explicitly laid out in LDS thought--they were also expecting God to come back at some point.  They were expecting further light and knowledge and instruction from Him.  If Adam and Eve had been perfectly obedient, then at some point God would have had to have lifted His previous temporal instruction to not partake of the fruit if He expected them to fulfill His other commandment to multiply and replenish the earth.  The only way to synthesize these commands is to read God's prohibition not as "don't partake of the fruit ever", but "don't partake of the fruit yet".  
Put another way: The problem wasn't partaking of the fruit per se; the problem was that they partook of the fruit because Satan deceived them (well, Eve) into seeking god-like powers without developing God-like faith, God-like patience, God-like loyalty, or God-like obedience.
I frankly don't know.  I accept Adam and Eve as historical figures, because as resurrected beings they have appeared to latter-day prophets.  I believe they were the first individuals God saw fit to deem as fully "human" and having a full divine potential.  I believe that they were incapable of having seed who were cognitively and intellectually and spiritually "human" in the same sense they were, until they made certain decisions and covenants before God that had eternal consequences for themselves and for their posterity (which at this point includes every human currently living).  I believe that the essentials of those decisions and covenants are memorialized through some mixture of historicity, allegory, and symbolism in the modern temple endowment; and I believe that the narrative of Adam and Eve as a whole encapsulates the same journey (Presence, innocence, loss of innocence, estrangement, faith, covenant, reconciliation, redemption, salvation, return to Presence) that all humans must take. 
Beyond that, I am not ideologically committed.  I am aware that some (not all) LDS leaders--including some very vocal ones--have chosen to interpret the Genesis/Moses/LDS temple narrative as a literal recounting of the creation of earth and the fall of humankind and are adamant about concepts like young-earth creationism, no proto-humans (or "pre-Adamites"), no evolution, and no death of any living creature prior to the Fall.  I am also aware that other LDS leaders have been less devoted to these ideas and, in some cases, have even embraced some degree of human evolution.  And I understand that the fossil and archaeological record and known science--while ambiguous in a lot of ways--seem pretty darned conclusive that there were plants, animals, and even homo sapiens living and reproducing and dying (and in homo sapiens' case, engaging in social and ritual activities and caring for their sick and burying their dead) well before the period when the scriptures tell us Adam walked the earth.  I am also aware that the Biblical creation and fall narrative is rife with, and responsive to, a variety of creation myths and literary and liturgical thematic tropes from all around the ancient Near East; and that when we read without understanding that context (and particularly when we try to read it as "history" in the modern western sense of the word) we run the risk of missing the entire point.
Which is all a very long way of saying:  I don't know what the animals were doing before or during Adam's time in the garden or how they were affected by the fall, and I frankly don't find it terribly germane (other than the literarily tragic quality of Adam and Eve being clothed, after their fall, with the skins of [dead] animals).
The thing is, Elder Smith did in other instances speak of it as a "sin".  Example:
It is most natural and just that he who commits the wrong should pay the penalty--atone for his wrongdoing.  Therefore, when Adam was the transgressor of the law, justice demanded that he, and none else, should answer for the sin and pay the penalty with his life.  But Adam, in breaking the law, himself became subject to the curse, and being under the curse could not atone for, or undo, what he had done. [Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 1:126, emphasis added.]
So what's going on here?  
One of the nuances of Mormon thought that you may be missing, is that some LDS leaders have tried to draw a distinction between the concept of a sin versus the concept of a transgression.  The concept here is that a sin constitutes a violation of an eternal and universal standard, whereas a transgression is simply a violation of a commandment of God that may be temporary in nature.  For example, a follower of Jehovah would have been prohibited from eating pork in Mosaic times; a follower of Jehovah is under no such prohibition today.  Under this line of thinking, an Israelite who ate pork would have transgressed, but wouldn't have necessarily sinned.  
The problem with this dichotomy is that we Latter-day Saints aren't always very careful about observing and maintaining that distinction (as Elder Smith himself demonstrates), and our scriptures don't seem to recognize it at all.  Outside the context of discussions about the Fall, we tend to use "sin" and "transgression" interchangeably.  And the more you scrutinize it, the more questions it begs as you start hair splitting over definitions ("adultery" is always wrong and a sin, "sex" is wrong only outside of marriage and is therefore a transgression, but sex outside of marriage is adultery, which we already decided is a sin, so which is it?  A sin, or a transgression?  And our proselytizing materials used to define "sin" as "to knowingly disobey God"--our online Gospel Topics guide still effectively does--which doesn't recognize that sin/transgression distinction at all).
But more to the point, both sins and transgressions result in alienation from God and, in the absence of repentance and Christ's responsive grace, can only result in damnation.
Both sins and transgressions are wrongful.  Adam and Eve's partaking of the fruit was absolutely wrongful because they did something God told them not to do.  They did not make "the right decision".  They should have waited on God, rather than acting out of ambition seeded by an enemy who had rebelled against God and was seeking to co-opt Adam's and Eve's loyalty for him own aggrandizement. 
Now, we don't need to perseverate too much on the wrongfulness of their action, because (frankly) certain other religions do quite enough of that; and the Fall narrative has been used to justify an awful lot of misogyny and oppression and even violence over the years.  The fruit was going to be eaten sooner or later anyways--from the perspective of the alienation from God that we, as Adam and Eve's posterity, experience, it makes little difference whether Adam and Eve ate out of disobedience or obedience; because the result for us (susceptibility to sin and death) is the same either way.  God turned everything to His greater purposes, and there's little point to or need for a lot of flagellation or finger-pointing.  So, for better or for worse, Latter-day Saint rhetoric has tended to give Adam and Eve a sort of pass for their conduct.  But when you get into the nitty gritty of the scriptural account--the act still occurred in a context of disobedience and was, therefore, wrongful.  
It is perhaps worth noting here that a) we shouldn't assume that just because one person didn't say something automatically means they didn't know it; and b) because of all the complexities and allusions and layers of the Genesis text as mentioned above, I don't think the sort of hyper-textual historicist scrutiny that you use to analyze Genesis 3:7 is likely to yield particularly reliable insights about either history or theology.
That said:  I do partially agree with you here in that I think the verbiage in the Moses verses you cite is infelicitous; and it begs questions about whether Joseph Smith offered a sub-optimal translation (he was known to tinker with the verbiage of the sacred texts he had generated for decades after producing them) or whether Adam and Eve still, at that point, weren't comprehending the full nature of what had happened or the nuances and philosophical implications of the interplay between "sin" and "transgression" and "wrongfulness".  (Or maybe Adam just never dreamed that a bunch of lawyers and textualists would be nit-picking his exclamations this closely!)  
Whatever Adam and Eve may have said in their exuberance at learning that God Himself would make an atonement so that they would not be be cast off forever, disobeying God is always wrong.  Always.  Latter-day Saints understand this principle, and seek to embody it in the way they live their lives; and it tends to raise our hackles when outsiders seem to be trying drive us into either the Scylla of preaching a works-based soteriology or the Charybdis of lionizing and glorifying outright disobedience.  

It does, but you have to remember that LDS constantly have to deal with people who ask questions like yours. The questioners almost always think they possess great knowledge and can “educate” those foolish LDS members.
So, yes, it can be forgiven if some LDS don’t want to engage with you. Even if your intentions are noble. 

1.  I have (twice) asked what you think God intended for humankind after the fall, and your answer focuses on what He intended before the fall.  Fortunately, you finally sort of get around to answering my question 1 in your latest response to question 2.
2.  When you say “They experience happiness in their life but
also experience misery due to consequences which began with the Fall”—I agree with this.  And that’s what changed between Gen 3:16 and Moses 5:10-11:  experience.  That’s why Eve came to understand that the fall was not an unmitigated disaster.  
It is interesting to me that you ask @person0 what “the curse of Adam” in Moroni 8:8 refers to, and then—without waiting for a response, and in your very next post, carry on as if you know exactly what it means.  Your question to person0 is especially interesting when you have proven in the past to be so industriously resourceful at finding obscure LDS pedagogical materials—but are somehow ignorant of the church-published youth seminary manuals that define this term as the separation between man and God that was a result of the fall.
What I am concerned about in this particular thread, is that even though Mormonism pretty clearly describes the Fall as a mixed blessing you seem heck-bent on straw-manning the Mormon teaching as pronouncing the Fall as being either all good or all bad—and then you try to play “gotcha” by confronting us with LDS scriptures, sermons, and teaching materials that don’t line up with the caricature of us that you’ve created using hyper-technical semantic interpretations of a language (English) that is neither the original language of the most of the source documents, nor (as I believe you’ve freely acknowledged) is even your own first language.  It all comes across as deeply disingenuous.

So, let me try to put this as clearly as I can:
The fall of Adam had both positive and negative effects.
Positive and necessary long-term effects included:  enabling procreation, permitting spiritual growth by introducing an element of opposition, and heightening humankind’s ability to enjoy the good by making it possible to actually experience the bad.
Negative short-term effects included allowing humankind to experience pain, despair, and sin; wresting humankind from their innocent state, and bringing about an alienation from God that—if one does not repent and turn to Christ—can become permanent.
Different scriptures, sermons, and church instructional materials will focus on different aspects of the fall, whether positive or negative; depending on the attitudes, priorities, and praxis that a particular speaker is trying to elicit within a particular audience at a particular moment in time; and may be influenced additionally by whatever secular/literary traditions (whether accurate or errant) that the speaker’s particular culture may have ascribed to the story of the fall.  

Romans8 I am glad you are here.  I'm glad that you are asking questions.  As long as they remain sincere and courteous then there is no problem.  Just keep in mind that this particular forum section "LDS Gospel Discussion" is to discuss what we as LDS believe.  It's not the forum to debate our beliefs.  

It seems to me that verses 4-9 are a characterization or description, indicating that it was set up, at least in “in spirit,” from the very beginning of Adam’s civilization, and has fought against God and His people (the saints) ever since. Verse 10 picks up an actual “historical” timeline and goes back and forth in history through the rest of the chapter (“And the time cometh that he shall manifest himself unto all nations…).
 
Verse 26, as part of the historical timeline, shows that this church of the devil intensified its activity against the Church of the Lamb sometime after the twelve disciples carried out the great commission. Verse 28 indicates the church of the devil had some control over the books (which I take to be literal books as well as figurative in terms of proper record or witness, which is the role of the apostles). This could only have been accomplished by force per the description in verses 4-9, by destroying the saints.

Adam and Eve experienced a good deal of physical and mental change and development by the time they said those things in Moses 5: 10 -11, they had become far more advanced than in the days leading up to the Fall. I believe Adam and Eve’s experience in physical bodies began with very basic sensations, perceptions and understanding and grew from there, and continued after they fell.
Subjectively speaking, sweetness and bitterness can be equally enticing, especially when we are exposed to one in excess (I’m thinking of the principle used in culinary pairings), and together they interact at the right time, place and other conditions to create a full experience. Perfumes are another example – they often contain small, imperceptible amounts of foul-smelling ingredients to enhance the overall result). So, one fruit being sweet and the other being bitter allows both fruits to be subjectively enticing.
God commanded them to eat all but one fruit, and the serpent invited them to eat that one fruit (ignoring the others), but the actual enticement came from the interplay between the couple, these other persons and their environment. God told them they would die (whatever that might mean to beings who knew nothing but immortality), which is more of a dissuasion than an enticement, and the serpent told them they would not die but have knowledge (whatever that could mean to submissive, childlike beings), and subtly prompted their need for independence, but these came from the persons, not the fruit itself. Fruit is an object and does not act, so the enticement is in the eye of the subjective beholders who act for themselves.

We have no record of Adam and/or Eve ever partaking of the fruit of the tree of life.  To the contrary, we are told that cherubim and a flaming sword were sent specifically to create a physical barrier to Adam and Eve’s doing so.
The “tree of life” is a common ancient near eastern motif; and while Nephi was familiar with the Israelite creation narrative, the tree Nephi calls the “tree of life” is first and foremost a symbol of the love of God, to be eventually embodied in the form of Jesus Christ.  I wouldn’t necessarily “retcon” Nephi’s vision to try to extrapolate notions about the tree of life we read of in Genesis.
I have some private concerns about the way Moses 5:10-11 is phrased.  In general my notion of the decision to partake is that it was the right thing, done at the wrong time and (from Eve’s standpoint, at least) for the wrong reason.  The most handy modern-life analogue I can think of is a couple who breaks the law of chastity and, on learning that the woman has become pregnant, marry and keep the child; over the years finding joy and rejoicing in their child and in parenthood generally.  The Lord turned a bad decision into something that served His purpose and, in His mercy, offered forgiveness and redemption to the sinners.  But His mercy does not mean that the sin was not sin or that, were the sinners given the chance to go back in time to repeat or avoid their sin, they would not be expected to chose a more directly-righteous course. 

Certainly, something very like what we would call a “church” comes up very early in Nephite society; with “synagogues” and houses of worship being established in the promised land during Nephi’s own lifetime.
But again, the question is whether whatever term got translated for “church” among a highly idiosyncratic group of Hebrews writing in the Reformed Egyptian script as of the sixth century BC, exclusively (or even primarily) meant a religious organization (as we modernists would understand the term) at the time Nephi had his dream.

See Posted July 17 and Quahal.
2 Nephi 28:3 ("not unto the Lord") seems to refer to contending denominations within Christendom; :12 seems to refer to secular and materialistic philosophies; and :18 to the church of the devil. Mosiah 25 refers to congregations or assemblies of believers under the same covenant Mosiah established under his priest-king authority.

Did the persons mentioned in the Book of Mormon have different concepts as to what "church" represented, for
example 2 Nephi 28:3,12,18 and Mosiah 25:19,21?

You may not be able to find such revelations, but rest assured, they are there, available to all sincere seekers who covenant with God to hold sacred the teachings they receive.

Some of these ideas come up in various LDS liturgies that we don’t specifically cite to outside of the temple but which we believe were given by revelation.

I'm inclined to think of the fig leaves as figurative. "Covering our nakedness with fig leaves" is symbolic of our common, human tendency to try to hide, cover, ignore, deny, etc our sins and shortcomings.

The printer’s manuscript of the Book of a Mormon has it capitalized.  As you probably already know, at that time both spelling and capitalization were largely subjective.
I would *guess* that the 1981 edition renders the term capitalized due to sheer inertia.  At least in modern LDS writing, a capitalized “God” typically refers specifically to God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost; whereas a lower-case “god” is typically used when we are taking about either a human’s ability to attain exaltation or when folks are hypothesizing about other universes run by other exalted beings.  The online version seems to reflect this stylistic usage and also comports better with KJV Genesis 3:5, which the “as gods” verbiage seems to deliberately echo and which also uses the lower case.

I believe you are getting into some very deep stuff - and shows critical thinking.  There are some posts before this one that are very good - I will try to add some thoughts.
Death is not a singular thing - The scriptures mention a "second" death and this makes death plural and not singular.  Anciently the term Hell meant death so in essence death is synonymous with hell.  We can assume then that when individual no longer to evolve (which is synonymous with change and repentance) they suffer a death and become bound.  The scientific definition of intelligence is the ability to learn and modify behavior.  Which is another view into being dead or no longer learning.
Obviously we did not have "knowledge" of good or evil prior to the fall.  We gain knowledge of evil through death - both the physical death (separated from the physical) and a spiritual death (which is being separated from G-d).  We gain knowledge of Good through the resurrection - both the physical resurrection (reinstated to the physical) and a spiritual resurrection where we are brought back to G-d for what is called the final judgement.
I would also say something about choice.  We cannot make a "True" choice unless we have knowledge of the possibilities.  If we are given a choice for what is behind door "A" or door "B" or door "C" - that is not a true choice but rather a guess.  I would also point out that a "change of mind" means that the initial choice was not a true choice and with the additional information our mind is changed.  I have attempted to explain this concept with agency - that if we do not know what we are doing or choosing - it cannot be and expression of agency.  Under such circumstance it is both merciful and just that we somehow be forgiven.    But if we choose in the full light of truth there can be no forgiveness - in LDS theology this is what happens with a "son of perdition". 
I personally believe that because man fell without the knowledge of good and evil that it became possible that man could repent and be forgiven.  This makes sense to me and as I understand - Jesus Christ being our proctor in the fall became the means by which we could repent - be forgiven and through his resurrection - death was overcome.
For me the LDS understanding and doctrine of a pre-existence, agency, the fall, and atonement, repentance, covenants and resurrection are the only religious understanding and doctrine that makes sense as I consider all that mortal life offers.  Without all the pieces - too much is missing and such becomes illogical to me.  This is a primary reason I have remained a covenant member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
 
The Traveler
 

#1 Adam and Eve did not come into being when they were placed in the Garden of Eden. They lived, along with all of us, with God in the spirit world where opposition did exist. When they were placed in the Garden their environment, for a time, was pretty sterile. So I guess we could say that the environment was potentially "as dead" in that initially progress was restricted. Whether it was completely dead or just mostly dead (shoutout to Princess Bride fans) we may not know as I will talk about in my answer to question 2.
#2 While Satan was definitely a catalyst to make things happen in the Garden that doesn't necessarily mean there was no temptation before his involvement. Moses 4:12 tells us "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it became pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make her wise, she took of the fruit thereof..." While Satan definitely enticed Eve to partake of the fruit it is still possible that there was some enticement taking place before that, just apparently not enough to get Eve to partake of the fruit. Perhaps though Adam and Eve were sufficiently ignorant as to not find the fruit appealing at all prior to Satan. But it's very presence in the Garden makes me think that out of curiosity if nothing else Adam and Eve had to have experienced some enticement to partake of it. But that's just a guess.
#3 Adam and Eve's act is labeled a transgression and not a sin. A law was broken but in ignorance, meaning their childlike state did not allow them to fully understand the consequences of their choice. Once they experienced the consequences they started to gain the knowledge that would allow them to make informed decisions. Man cannot be condemned or saved in ignorance. They must know what they are choosing between and the breaking of any law further drives home that point.
#4 I think it's a true statement either way. I'm guessing they were only trying to get back to the original with that change but that's only a guess. Generally the capital G version refers to the Godhead whereas the lower case version refers to man's potential to become like them. 

This is surprisingly fresh coming from you. It is a very insightful question.  The answer comes from 
Explanation: To the ancient Jews (of which Nephi was one) the word attributed to "living" human beings referred to animated things (not vegetation, for example).  And the fact that Adam and Eve were able to move around, they were living. 
But Nephi is trying to emphasize that such life has no meaning if there isn't an ability to do something meaningful (duh).  If the only choices they can make are things that don't make a difference, they aren't really alive in the spiritual sense.  So, they simply "exist" as a rock or a tree does.
So, the fundamental difference between Christ's teachings and mainstream Christianity is that of choice.  Christ taught that we can choose between Liberty and Eternal Life or captivity and death.  The ultimate death is to have no choices at all (Hell).
You're asking about an inherent ability vs the realization of that ability.  I have the ability to play the piano.  But if I can't find a piano, I can't actually play.
In the case of Adam and Eve, they could have always chosen to disobey God.  But they simply had no motivation to do so.  It was only after Satan put certain thoughts into their hearts that they discovered a motivation to do so.
You're misleading now.  Just because something happened after does not mean it was a direct result of (causation vs correlation).
The thing that made them "as gods" (see below) was the fact that they now had the ability to understand the nature of choice between good and evil.  But they only began to understand it after having experienced a real choice between good and evil.
What separates us from lower life forms?  Are we any different than apes?  Why?  Think about it.
The Church of Jesus Christ teaches that we were made "a little lower than angels" (Heb 2:9) and that He created man in His OWN IMAGE (Gen 1:27).  So, we share characteristics of divinity.  And one thing we share is our ability to choose between good and evil.
Adam and Eve were as little children.  Do children understand good and evil?  Only on an extremely rudimentary level.  But as we grow and become exposed to the differences, we begin to understand the real nature of good/evil and ability to choose between them. 
Whatever the forbidden fruit was (literal or figurative, doesn't matter) it represents our loss of innocence.  It represents our very real choice between what we know and understand to be good and evil.  Once Adam and Eve went through that process, they had real choices.  And they chose the good over the bad the remainder of their days.

I am reading the first part of this chapter and have some difficulty understanding its meaning.  
Rather than break it up into separate threads, it might be easier to group the questions into 
the same thread.
 
#1 - Opposition.
"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born 
in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither 
holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound 
in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life 
neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor 
insensibility".
Were Adam and Eve considered dead because they had neither happiness/joy nor misery before 
the Fall?  

#2 - The timing of their ability to act for themselves.
"Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could 
not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other".
Were Adam and Eve able to act for themselves and perform anything God had tasked them with 
and to eat from any of the permitted trees *before* Satan enticed Eve to eat from the forbidden 
tree?  Or could they only act for themselves after being enticed by Satan?

#3 - The timing of their ability to act for themselves is again mentioned in Alma 12:31.
"Wherefore, he gave commandments unto men, they having first transgressed the first commandments 
as to things which were temporal, and becoming as gods, knowing good from evil, placing 
themselves in a state to act, or being placed in a state to act according to their wills and 
pleasures, whether to do evil or to do good"
Did they place themselves in a state to act after they ate from the forbidden fruit or were 
they already in a God-given state to act to obey or disobey before the Fall?
What commandments (plural) did they transgress to become as gods?

#4 - Becoming as gods.
Is there a difference in doctrine by translating it "as Gods" in Alma 12:31 (1981 Book 
of Mormon which I have) versus the current "as gods" (in the online version)?

Adam and Eve knew and partook of the tree of life first, so knowledge of just how good it is was not attained or appreciated until they partook of the tree of knowledge.
I was saying that the fuller knowledge of just how good the tree of life was did not not come to them until after they partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, even by definition according to the names of the trees.
I think they understandably felt a measure of trepidation and guilt at first, and that this escalated to a spiritually unhealthy level of fear and shame at the behest of the serpent. I take this from Genesis 3 where Adam does not answer the question of who told him he was naked (verse 11), but given that the serpent beguiled Eve, I believe he also coached them both to hide from the Lord by telling them it was shameful to be naked (which was also a lie in contrast to Genesis 2:25).
Eventually their fear and shame after partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was replaced with the hope of the Savior and the joy of repentance through His merits.

As I understand the symbolism is as follows:
4 faces:  The ability to see all things in all places (directions) and that nothing can be hidden from their view and understanding.
4 wings:  Power over all things both seen and unseen.
hands:  The ability to accomplish and do work.
This symbolism is consistent with most all ancient religions that connect to current religious of the world - including Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism and others.
 
The Traveler