An innocent woman is tempted to eat a forbidden piece of fruit from a tree, but instead of being instructed not to take from the tree in the garden, she is encouraged to indulge. Eating the fruit, the woman begins to experience the many emotions that come with being in a relationship.

This mixing of biblical mythology and feminism is what Tori Amos built her eighth studio album, “The Beekeeper,” around. Amos says she researched Elaine Pagel’s “The Gnostic Gospels” in order to understand the beginnings of Christianity. She also studied Simon Buxton’s “The Shamanic Way of the Bee: Ancient Wisdom and Healing Practices of the Bee Masters” to gain knowledge of the age-old process of beekeeping and to better understand the natural cycle of life.

“The Beekeeper” is organized around six gardens, which reflect the hexagon shape of a beehive. The theme of six is also related to the Book of Genesis and the six days it took God to create the world, Amos says.

She says the main character of her story, the woman, is coming to terms with her femininity.

“I think that I was really inspired by the idea of creating sort of a virtual garden for people to step into,” Amos said in a conference call on Feb. 25, “but not a garden where a woman was blamed for the Fall, but a different garden — a garden where we’re encouraged to find knowledge and we’re encouraged to look inside ourselves.”

The role of the beekeeper in Amos’ story is to guide the woman through the six gardens.

“I needed a backstage pass and entry point that was not something that had been assimilated by Christianity, Judaism or Islam,” Amos says. “I needed something that stayed autonomous through the changes of these religious beliefs and, of course, the bee tradition kind of really just fit the bill. It’s part of the ancient feminine mysteries naturally, because of the sacred sexuality that is explored through the worker bees themselves.”

Feminism plays a key role in “The Beekeeper,” and Amos says she thinks there is a profanity in sexuality among women who were brought up in the Christian church.

“You either walk into being vulgar or puritanical — that was my experience, anyway,” she says. “How do you find sacred sexiness within your own being?”

Amos also says today pop culture is full of women who are constantly taking off their clothes in order to sell a product.

“There seems to be a need to sexualize everything,” she says. “It’s fascinating me right now that Christianity has become something that I don’t think Jesus would recognize, frankly.”

Having read the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Amos says she came to realize Mary was a prophet, and not only was she a sexual being, but a spiritual being. This encouraged her to search for what she calls the “missing piece of the feminine.”

“I don’t know a lot of women that have a real healthy sexuality and spirituality,” she says. “And that’s something that, once I became a mom, sort of came together. The part of me that was brought up in the Christian church — although I’m not part of it anymore — needed to heal and needed to make this shift in my being.”

Amos’ understanding of Christianity, sexuality, the balance between male and female and the understanding of her own self all fused together to make the final result.

“‘The Beekeeper’ is an allegory, a sonic installation of short stories where this woman [is] looking at all her relationships and each one is a piece of this mosaic that she needs to pull together to find completeness.”