dzim77

Nor does the text say that they were not already eating from the tree of life. Nor does it say exactly how long they were in the garden before they were expelled.

How does this suggest God didn't originally intend Adam for eternal life?

Here's what we have...

1. Eating from the Tree of Life, whether 'once for all time' or by continuous sustenance, enables a man to live forever
2. God gives Adam free access to the Tree of Life with no restrictions
3. God only restricts access to the Tree of Life after Adam sins - as a consequence of his sin
this is also suggested in Gen 3:19 in the context of God proclaiming the consequences of Adam's sin...
The account clearly suggests that A&E were originally intended for eternal life, but as a consequence of disobeying God they were prevented from living forever. This means that mortality was indeed a consequence of eating the forbidden fruit.

Amaleq13

And that means God lied/was wrong/misspoke when the threat of immediate death was made because "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" simply does not mean "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou will cease being immortal and will eventually die of old age".

Jack the Bodiless

Regardless of whether or not he intended Adam to eat it and gain immortality eventually, it strongly suggests that Adam didn't have immortality yet. He wasn't born immortal. And eating the other fruit didn't "kill his immortality", as some Christians suggest.
OK so far (though it does appear to be "once for all time").
Maybe, maybe not. This is apparently contradicted by God's subsequent actions, and may be clumsiness in the adaptation from the Sumerian original, in which there was only one sort of "magical food" in the story.
Or, rather, an attempt to stop him becoming even more powerful: more "like one of us". It isn't described as part of the punishment for disobedience: that's the weeds in fields and pain in childbirth stuff. The expulsion from Eden is, apparently, specifically to prevent A&E becoming more "like one of us" by eating from the other magic tree.

From here:

GakuseiDon

I agree, but I don't think you quite understand my point. To go back to my "Soprano" example: "On the day you sleep with my wife, you are a dead man". We wouldn't be surprised at all if Soprano kills the guy on that day -- in fact, we would expect it (as you've pointed out above). OTOH the idiom (at least in English) does allow that Soprano may kill the guy the next day, the next week or sometime in the future, without literally lying. But the guy knows that his days are numbered, since that is the consequence of his action. On that day, his fate is sealed.

If I am correct in the above (again I emphasize I have no knowledge of ancient Hebrew) it makes sense of the surrounding passages. The serpent was "subtle", and was going for a literal meaning to the idiom, whereas the reader knows that the result will be a withdrawal of the Tree of Life, and the consequence is mortality and (eventual) death.

It all depends on whether the idiom had that meaning or not, but I think that 1 Kings supports this. We wouldn't be surprised if the king in 1 Kings killed Shimei the same day Shimei skipped town, but OTOH I doubt that anyone (except maybe SAB) would claim that the king was lying or didn't fulfil his vow if he didn't.

dzim77

The text discribes the location of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. It proceeds to make clear that Adam can eat from ANY tree in the garden other than the tree of knowledge. Seems pretty clear.

God made Adam subject to mortality as a consequence of his disobedience. How is this a contradiction?

If this is so (hypothetically), you'd think the author of the Genesis account or at least the supposed editors would have caught that there were TWO 'special' trees and God only specifically commands not to eat from ONE of them, calling it by name. It's beyond clumsy. That's a HUGE miss.

This idea is a big big stretch IMO.

AND the "dust to dust" stuff, which you haven't responded to.

Your idea of God preventing Adam from "becoming more powerful" is read into the text, and makes assumptions on God's motives - which aren't directly stated. Perhaps God wanted to prevent Adam from "doing more damage" to himself?

Another idea you have read into the text. The expulsion seems, more likely given the context, to be a consequence of Adam's disobedience.

Perhaps God knew that it would be detremental to Adam himself to have both knowledge of good and evil AND eternal life at the same time... afterall, God seems to be taking care of A&E by making them new clothes.

dzim77

Only if you dismiss the possibilities of

1. A spiritual death as an immediate consequence.

2. Adam being doomed to die, or beginning the slow process of dying as an immediate consequence.

3. God acting graciously by lessening the punishment as he seems to do elsewhere in the OT. You call it 'lying'... others call it 'grace'.

Of course all these possibilities have been mentioned in the thread.

NoGreaterLove

Here is my take on it.

In order to understand this passage we have to examine several things. Most importantly we must understand the meaning of the word "death" in the Bible.

Here is the verse in question:

Genesis 2:17

"But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

If God meant death in the way that most of us see it "the end of physical life" he indeed would be lying.

Let’s examine some other passages from the Bible that contain the word "death". This way we can derive a better meaning of it.

Romans 6:23
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

John 11:25
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live."

Ephesians 2:1,5
1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

1 Timothy 5:6
"But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives."

Galatians 2:19
"For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God."

So what exactly is the meaning of "death"? If we read these verses including the one in question with the general meaning of death some of them would contradict themselves. Many claim that God meant spiritual death when he said "you will surely die" Is this correct? If it is how are we to know what kind of death is being mentioned when it is used?

After examining these verses and more I started to get the feeling that death did not mean what we generally think it means. If it did most of those verses wouldn't make any sense. I did some online searching and I read that "death" was defined by early Christians as a "separation". If you apply this meaning to the above verses and then use context to determine the type of separation (or death) it starts to make a lot more sense.

Examples:

Romans 6:23
"For the wages of sin is death,but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

If we replace the word death with separation we are left asking "separation from what?". The answer is God. Sin causes a "separation" between man and God (or spiritual death). Then it says that through Jesus Christ we are able to mend this separation.

1 Timothy 5:6
"But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives."

This verse may leave you thinking... What the @#$%!? If we assume that death means separation we must intern reason that life means "unity". Pleasure can be interpreted as sin so this must be spiritual death. So "she will be spiritually dead (or separated from God) while she physically lives (he soul and body are united).

Here are some examples of "deaths" in the Bible:

Physical Death - Separation of soul and body.

Spiritual Death - Separation of man and God.

Death to Sin - Separation of man (Christian) and sin.

Death of Marriage - Separation of man and wife.

So let’s examine the verse in question again:

Genesis 2:17
"but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Let’s replace the word die with "be separated"

So know the question is "what were Adam and Eve immediately separated from after eating from the tree?"

Genesis 3
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

Adam and Eve knew they were naked not because the tree had some special power but because they had disobeyed God and knew sin for the first time. It is said that God is good and that all things good come from Him if this is true the feeling of shame that caused Adam and Eve to cover themselves did not come from God. Nor did the feeling of fear that they had when they heard God coming.

The death that God meant was spiritual death. Immediately after sinning Adam and Eve experienced its (sins) evils which caused them to be scared and ashamed this is a result of a separation between them and God.

WishboneDawn

That doesn't work for me at all. You're using NT verses to give meaning to something much older and not of the christian tradition. It would be like me defining what my greatgrandmother meant by the word 'gay' in her journals by how I used 'gay' in my journal.

Jayhawker Soule

Yes.

Gamera

Not really. The Christian scriptures were written, at least in part, by Jews. First or second century Jews, but Jews nonetheless. Presumably that provides some insight into the hermeneutical tradition of Judaism. Indeed, it's the oldest insights we really have, along with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So while you can take them with a grain of salt, the Christian Scriptures provide some of the oldest interpretations of Hebrew Scriptures we have. It certainly can be argued that they even take priority over younger Rabbinical writings, since Judaism changed so radically during after the destruction of Jerusalem. In many ways post-dispora Judaism is as different from 1st century Judaism as Christiantiy is.