Genesis: The Tree of Life vs the Tree of Death?

In the book of Genesis, is the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" actually a "Tree of Death?" This idea has occurred to me in my reading (and appreciating) theologian Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers, in which he compares the Genesis creation story with the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish. In that story, the male god Marduk imposes order on a scarily disordered universe by slaughtering the primordial female “Sea-Dragon of Chaos” Tiamat, creating the world we know from parts of her body. Humans are created from the blood of another murdered god, to be servants to the ruling god Marduk. 

Wink points out that the authors of Genesis had to have been acutely aware of the then-prevailing Babylonian story of a world (and humans) created by acts of cosmic violence, establishing a world-view Wink calls the myth of redemptive violence – life seen as a perpetual violent struggle of absolute Good versus absolute Evil The Babylonians held an annual celebration of their story, featuring a re-enactment with the King playing the role of Marduk. And most scholars agree that the book of Genesis reached its final form not long after the Israelites’ Babylonian captivity. 

Amazingly, the authors of Genesis chose to tell a diametrically opposite creation story, rejecting the Babylonian story and judging every part of Creation (including humans) to be, simply, "good." Or, “very good!” Nothing in the initial Creation about violence or murder. My idea takes Wink's insight a little farther, considering those two special trees in Eden. Having a Tree of Life seems entirely compatible with that all-good, peaceable Creation, with “good order” simply baked-in. Its counterpart Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is, however, another Story. 

My thought is that the commandment not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil would have been understood Back Then as a veiled warning of the consequences of adopting the Babylonian myth of redemptive violence. Saying, in effect, “that way lie destruction and death.” 

One matter of translation that I think lends support to my interpretation (according to at least one supposedly scholarly source) is that “The primary Hebrew term for knowledge, yada, means to know by lived experience, not simply to have theoretical knowledge.” Based on this understanding, “gaining knowledge of . . .” can easily be seen as including the meaning “choosing to live by . . .” See: https://www.dbu.edu/naugle/summer-institute/_documents/handouts/general/what-is-knowledge-biblical-hebraic-epistemology.pdf 

Thus we see in the opposition of those two special trees a rejection of the Babylonian myth of redemptive violence in favor of a nonviolent way of Life. What we hear later in plainer language from Moses in Deuteronomy 30:19 – I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live. This theme, especially in the imagery of the vine & fig tree, comes up variously in later scriptures (yes, alongside even supposedly divine sanctions of violence) and reaches full fruition (sic) in the teaching of the Israelite Yeshua – a new/old commandment I think best summed up as You shall have no enemies! 

As Walter Wink persuasively argues, the myth of redemptive violence, not Christianity or Judaism or Islam, has become the dominant religion of our time. Just scan the morning news . . . . Here I want to call attention to two fairly recent occurrences, in both cases making me wonder, “How in the world could this possibly be?” But in opposite ways, one showing a supposedly Christian congregation under the spell of the violence myth, and the other explaining how a seemingly inevitable bloody war was avoided by a leader, Nelson Mandela, who chose to have no enemies. 

Armed church security fails to prevent three deaths 

See the details (and a photo from the church security camera) here: https://slowdowndirtytruth.blogspot.com/2019/12/armed-church-security-fails-to-prevent.html 

Serving tea to Nazis https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/serving-tea-to-nazis 

Note: In this essay I am focused only on the initial Creation and the two special trees, not attempting to explain or interpret anything else in the book of Genesis. Obviously, the authors (editors? compilers?) of Genesis were not concerned with consistency, and so included whatever at the time struck them as possibly relevant? So I think we are licensed to pick and choose which parts we think most significant. 

I have to ask of anyone reading this far, does my idea about the two trees seem plausible to you? And I also ask, if so, does it matter? I am happy to come across any evidence that humans anywhere have seriously imagined the possibility of a nonviolent way of life. And perhaps understanding this Story at the very origin of the Judeo-Christian tradition might help modern believers cast off the spell of the myth of redemptive violence?