AH! We have a theological difference. Which, of course, has NOTHING to do with the story, and is really not very important from any perspective.
My understanding of the Genesis story has always been that the life granted by the tree of life required continued eating to maintain.
Nope, that was the original legend, culled from the Sumerians (and those before them, it's believed to be VERY old). See, in the original story the Sumerians and their ancestors told, the Tree of Life was put there by the Gods so they could eat from it daily and live forever.
In the Genesis version, however, it only took ONE instance of consumption - hence the line in Genesis 3:22 - "Then the LORD GOD said, "Behold, the Man has become like One Of Us*, knowing Good and Evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and Eat, and Live Forever --"
Break is in the original text, RSV version. As you can see, once he eats, boom - man lives forever. God decides he doesn't WANT man to live forever, and kicks him out of the Garden in the following verse, placing a cherubim with a flaming sword "that turned every which way" to guard the path to the Tree of Life.
Note the use of the plural term in 3:22, however - it's repeated SEVERAL times in Genesis. Historians agree this is probably inherited from the original legend, where this line was spoken by Sumerian/Mesopotamian/Akkadian Gods in the *Plural*. In the Old Testament, these plural uses that appear in Genesis are the term
Elohim (aleph, lamed, hé,yod, mem), of which one translation is "Gods." Though it is usually interpreted as meaning "God" in this context, the singular for "God" is
Eloah. Theologians, however, disagree on this term - Christian Theologians believe it to be a reference to the Trinity, while Jewish theologians (and others) believe it to be a reference to the Divine Host (I.E. the Court of Heaven, God and his Archangels, etc) or other multiple personifications.
It should also be noted that many historians and some theologians, in explaining the
elohim/eloah situation, believe that early Jewish theology included more than one God (I.E. they were polytheistic), and that the structure of their beliefs was very similar to that of the civilizations around them. Margaret Barker, in her book
The Great Angel, A Study of Israel's Second God (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992) puts forth the case that Yahweh was one of the seventy sons of Elyon, i.e., not the high God, but rather the godling entrusted with Israel as his province, pretty much equivalent to the one like a son of man in Daniel 10:10-21.
As Robert Price notes, "The pattern is much the same as in Canaanite religion, the cognate twin of Israelite religion: El is the elder high God, while Baal is his son, the virile young warrior who succeeds his father as divine king. In Daniel 7 we see not so much a fragment borrowed from El-Baal tradition, but rather a home-grown Jewish version of the same mytheme, picturing Elyon and Yahweh. And just as Baal had his divine consort, Anath, so did Yahweh: the goddess variously known in the Old Testament as Asherah, Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven, Eve, and Wisdom. In all this, Barker draws together much fascinating data discussed in earlier studies including Raphael Patai's
The Hebrew Goddess and Alan Segal's
Two Powers in Heaven."
Conclusion: This part of Genesis is basically a "Snapshot" of earlier beliefs that the Hebrews inherited from civilizations that lived around them. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that the Story of Creation is basically told in Genesis
twice. The first time is Genesis 1:1 through 2:3, then it tells the story again - and
differently - beginning at Genesis 2:4 through 2:24. In the Former, God creates both Man and Woman at the same time. In the latter, God creates Man, but neglects to create Woman. Noting this lack in Genesis 2:18, God anesthetizes the man, removes a rib from his side, and creates a woman for him from his own tissues.
Interestingly, it is this repetition and the sharp differences between the versions (either he made them at the same time in keeping with how he made the animals *or* he made Man, noticed a lack of a companion, then made woman from Man's Rib) which spawns the notion of Lilith being the First Wife of Adam. According to Jewish Legend, she was rejected from the Garden of Eden because she refused to take the submissive position during sex - SHE wanted to be on top.
What happened next varies slightly. One legend says Adam complained to God, and boom - God kicks her out of the Garden. She grew VERY angry at being kicked out of Eden, and went to the desolate plains of Edom, where she started having sex with demons and giving birth to monsters.
Still another legend says that God didn't kick her out, she left of her own accord and (as in the above story) went to Edom and started having sex with Demons and giving birth to demonic monsters. Adam complained because he was alone, and God sent three angels to bring Lilith back (Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, if I remember correctly). Lilith refused to return, and the Angels said that for every day she stayed away, they would kill 100 of her offspring. Lilith retorts that in revenge, she will kill any offspring Adam may have (this despite the fact that at this point, he has no way of having them), and the only way the children can be protected is by the recitation of the names of the three angels sent to fetch her back, who were killing her offspring.
Regardless of which legend you read, Lilith ends up out of the picture. Next thing you know, God's taken a tissue sample from Adam, and Eve enters the picture.
It's this rebellion against Adam that causes many Wiccans to pick Lilith as being a "feminist" model and positive goddess - however, in Jewish Legend, she is hardly positive. She was seen as a predator who slew babies in their sleep (what we would call "crib death", today), and special amulets were required to protect the babies from Lilith. Of course, Wiccans just retort that this is paternalistic bias against her for being a liberated woman, but I digress.
It's true that there is no *specific* prohibition against them eating it mentioned in Genesis. However, God boots them out of the Garden after specifically saying he is doing this is to *prevent* them from eating it in Genesis 3:22. As such, it is assumed by most Theologians that they were also prohibited from eating from the Tree of Life, though no prohibition is mentioned. And as the phrase used is "Lest he put forth his hand and eat", it is assumed they had not eaten it before (otherwise, it is argued, the phrase would be "lest he put forth his hand and CONTINUE to eat", or "lest he put forth his hand and eat AGAIN").
It is important to note also that in the original story that dates to the Sumerians (and earlier), Man WAS prohibited from eating from the Tree of Life, so this omission may be understandable as being part of what once was an "Everybody Knows" story - I.E. it wasn't mentioned in the text because everyone who was being read this story already knew it, and already knew that the prohibition existed.
Similarly, many of Grimm's Fairy Tales lack motivations for the characters. Why does Hansel and Gretel's Stepmother want them gone so badly? Answer: Food was running short in the house. Why is this a reason to get rid of your kids? The answer is not obvious to modern readers - but to people living in the Middle Ages, the answer was stark, harsh, and very real. You can always have another child if you live, but if food is short and you feed the children you have, it's possible that everyone starves, gets too weak to continue working to gather food, then everyone dies. Better the children die than everyone die, because the parents can produce more children later. Making the character a STEPmother rather than their mother makes it even more understandable to our medieval ancestors - Hansel and Gretel weren't even her children, she has far less emotional ties and no physical investment in them. Yes, this is a very cold and harsh reality - but it still exists today. It's why you see pictures of starving babies in Africa, their faces and arms skeletal, their bellies distended in the late stages of starvation, while the mother or father holding them is perfectly healthy. It's a cold, harsh reality, but it's how people sometimes have to live to survive. More to the point, it's something that's an "everyone knows" thing, for both these people in Africa, and our Medieval Ancestors who are the source of the "Hansel and Gretel" tale. Everyone knows why Hansel and Gretel have to be left in the woods - it has to happen so their parents can survive, and possibly have more children later when there's enough food to support them. It's not mentioned or explained in the stories, however, because everyone already knew why at the time the stories were first being told.
In essence, the lack of a prohibition in Genesis against eating from the Tree of Life is assumed by many theologians to be an "Everyone knows" thing - if they weren't prohibited from eating from the tree before, God wouldn't have bothered mentioning it when he kicked them out.
Note, however, that some Theologians DO think that Adam and Eve ate regularly of the Tree of Life, and have argued that this was, in fact, the true source of Adam's longevity, as well as the longevity of the first few generations of his offspring. However, this is very much a minority view, because if you replace the "years" of Adam's Life with the Lunar Months used by earlier civilizations, his lifespan works out to something a lot more reasonable. This particular quirk is used by many as evidence that these stories are really VERY old, likely dating to the Late Stone Age and the Dawn of Civilization.
Lastly, note that in THIS story (For Love of Evil), I tie all the above elements together VERY differently - Adam and Eve's Longevity are explained by a VERY different mechanism. But, I won't spoil the story for you. =)
I am glad you are enjoying the work. Feel free to tell your friends about it. =)