It is a little bit of a stretch to tie those almost identical stories into the Serpent and the Apple from the Bible's Garden of Eden story but I see them as extremely similar. The Tree was Knowledge, which can also mean power in a way (Knowledge is Power is a common axiom today in the Information Age), and God said, "Hands off, that is not for you." Why he would put it right where the only two people in the whole Universe could steal it if he didn't want them to have it, that is up to others to decide. In this case there was no immortal god to do the dirty work and nick it for us, Eve took the fall and women have been pretty much getting the blame for all Man's troubles ever since for those who take that story literally. The Serpent could have been Satan, an immortal, but he was not the one to get most of the blame.

        That leads more easily to Pandora and the Box. It is those darn women spoiling paradise for us innocent men again and generally being literally the cause all the bad things in the world which we have to complain about. Zeus, on a bad day, which was not unusual for him (not that God ever did nasty things in the Old Testament), and like God, thought to tempt Pandora with a pretty box and tell her not to open it. In this case, there was not even a Serpent for her to use as an excuse, she just was curious. Giving someone, anyone male or female, a box of something and saying don't look inside to me is like putting fresh apples right in front of you (for ETERNITY no less!) and saying, just never try eating them. Adam and Eve obviously did not have kids then. 

        Pandora was by some accounts the first woman, kind of like a Greek Eve. Like Eve, she too gets to be the cause of all Man's troubles because the box contained all the diseases, nasty emotions,  and whatever else really horrible Zeus on one of his worst days thought it might be fun to put in the box too. When Pandora opened it, she let all these bad things out in the world and everyone's suffering ever since was all her fault, like Eve, the first Woman. One might say, why blame women for all Man's troubles if these stories, heaven forbid, might be a tad fictional? Because its fun, because we can, come to mind. More likely it is probably because the earlier religions tended to worship goddesses of fertility and harvests. Demonizing women and putting Man on top (literally, Man, not people, human, etc., but Mankind) made the break with older religions easier and gave men the option of having someone else to blame, and logical reasoning behind endless inequality and servitude for women. Well, maybe because it is fun and because we can was not that far off.

        Another thing that this points out was how everything was just dandy once upon a time until some woman did something to mess it all up. Yes, Earth was a paradise, we were ignorant, but fine with that, and everything was just perfect. Many religious groups and some notable modern perversions of them subscribe to this reverse evolution. People were great, now we are shit, and have to work our way back because of something stupid some woman did like saying to eat an apple or opening a box. At least in the Adam and Eve story, we can also thank Eve because they probably never would have got to have children, (or that tree would have had to go) or that garden would be a little crowded with 6 billion people by now. We would not be here if not for the whole apple thing, thus their pain and shame, our gain.

         As you can see, I am not a real big fan of the concept of original sin, nor of holding children responsible for what their parents did, especially after a few thousand generations. I could add a smart ass comment here about Middle Eastern politics but will pass. With Pandora's little mistake of also wrecking paradise for us men, the shortcut back to paradise was there in the box all along. No torment and suffering in trying to win back anyone's graces over thousands of years of history until the Judgment Day. Nope, the solution was right there in the same box as everything else to make our lives miserable. Hope was also in the box. Theoretically, if not just to make all the rest bearable, it could also be a solution if we would just figure out how to put it to use. Not hogging it, bogarting it, selling it, trademarking it as intellectual property, smoking it, snorting it, drinking it, confiscating it, outlawing it, hiding it, book burning it, or limiting it in any way. (Real hope is NOT in "controlled" substances, but real true hope is sometimes scarcer and harder to find for too many too often these days.) But growing it, nurturing it, and giving it to everyone equally, no matter what country they are born to, what status they are born into, or what circumstances they were born under, how they look or how intelligent they are, as an equal birthright of how to survive and grow stronger and richer than any who have lived before in all the ways that really matter.

         It is easy to see that knowledge, fire, power, are not exactly in safe hands at the moment. With that turn of events, fire and knowledge passing into human hands, we separated ourselves from other species in our environment. We cannot turn back the clock, and though some think it possible, we cannot control what everyone will know, nor keep fire from spreading around the world. We need to remember what can quell it. Hope. Fire is change. That fire, the fire of change, cannot be put out. It can be harnessed, used to make our lives better, make us better people and stronger when we know how to guide and direct it to find its highest purpose with hope. Regulated and used properly, we saw fire as our friend, but we forget easily now how awesome its power is, and how easily it spins out of control. Right now people in power mistakenly think fire can be used to contain fire, and that is a gravely mistaken assumption. Hope is all that can manage to bring fire under control and make it serve all of us equally, providing fire does not kill it first.