Well, I'm not looking to ignore what you say, your point is taken, and I realise it is sincerely intended.
However, think of it this way. What if someone has been to war, seen and experienced terrible things, then comes home, returns to civilian life. In such a situation, not everyone is the same, but many experience PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder). Dealing with the after-effects of trauma is not always easy. There are many types of therapy in order to heal the damage and restore a state of well-being - as best one can. There may be physical as well as psychological matters to deal with in that example.
In the case of reincarnation, there is sometimes a similar type of PTSD which needs to be dealt with.
Whether or not your proposed path is suitable in either of these PTSD scenarios is something I'll leave open.
Well my point is that, IMHO, these allegories only make sense if the morality underlying them stays the same. Introducing a god that was so vicious that he would tempt people and then punish them mercilessly if they took the bait, completely hides the moral that you claim is behind this, and leaves me with a picture that resembles a child who catches small animals in a trap, baited with food, and then tortures the poor creatures.
Okay, lets try reframe things:
All that exists is the Void. Formless, it contains the unrealized potential of creation, undifferentiated, implicate. Then something stirs. An all pervading consciousness starts to bring form to, or from, the primal chaos. Out of the Void emerges being, difference, existence. Eventually, there emerges individual consciousness and awareness. This consciousness is not as we now it today: It is pure, direct and integrated with the world around. There is no thought of evil. There is no thought of shame. There is no death. Perhaps this form of existence was entirely in the extended consciousness realm.
But then something happens, a threshold is breached, a terrible process is set in to motion in which awareness becomes self conscious and unsure. Fear enters the picture. Shame enters the picture. This shift of awareness begins to reshape the very firmament of the extended consciousness realm. An unstoppable process of entropy is taking place. Suddenly the once free beings find themselves pulled into an alien form of existence. A shell of matter takes shape about them. They find themselves in a world, a dimension, that is by its nature entropic. Death is baked into the cake at every level. It's hard to remember that it ever was any other way.
The world has fallen. The Void weeps.
That, I reckon, is Genesis and the Fall rejigged in a lingo bearable to modern 'spiritual but not religious' sensibilities. Certainly no worse than any of the other creation stories floating about the place. Maybe better than some. That said, I hope everyone will ignore my creative writing limitations.
Also, why do so many of us carry the feeling that things shouldn't be this way? That things weren't always this way? We all remember paradise somewhere in our beings. Perhaps as a faint intimation of birdsong and love made among wild flowers.
And so we are creatures composed both of bone and blood but also of geometry and light. The spiritual methodologies of the world all seek to increase this light and integrate the individual within the sacred geometry of existence. This is the journey towards enlightenment. The Christian path is not so different to the others and it may even carry an advantage - it encourages the seeker to expect failure, to expect to be unable to do it yourself without some divine intervention. Strangely, many believe this intervention happens more often than one might think.
So there!
P.S. Biblical literalness is a relatively new phenomena. Up until the recent past the allegories which could be teased from the text were far more important than the direct meaning of any OT story. That said, the Bible was also considered to be literally true, it just wasn't the main point.
P.P.S.I can't remember the exact word but the general rule applied to interpreting texts was to take the 'compassionate' meaning as the correct one. This goes way back.
P.P.P.S. David, reading a text allegorically is not a simple process. It involves taking meaning from outside a work and bringing it into conversation with said work. Traditionally there have been three or four separate levels of interpretation.