Was sin necessary for knowledge?

[John V]

Well, for starters, it makes the tree of knowledge of good and evil a redundant narrative prop..

Which it pretty much was. It could have been any command. Don't pet the orange cat would have done the same thing. I don't find this problematic. The issue is whether or not they obey God, not the particular command. I don't find this problematic.

but, recall..it's already one layer deep into something problematic for the narrative.  That in order to sin, one must first have moral knowledge.  The entrence of sin into this world cannot then be laid at the feet of adam (or at the prop of the tree) but at the entity which created adam with such knowledge.

The knowledge isn't the sin. You noted yourself in your first post that God has the knowledge, but is sinless.

Unfortunately, this proceeds through each problematic step and leads to ad hoc rationalizations not made explicit in the narrative (such as your suggestion that adam learned of sin by observing eve).

What's wrong with my reasoning regarding that point?