Jayhawker Soule

Again, I believe that at issue is not whether X would happen "on that day" but, rather, whether X should be taken as idiom or rendered literally. In the former case, we have something akin to: on the day you violate my terms, "on that day" your fate is sealed! In the latter case we have one, and quite possibly two, glaring, indeed preposterous, discrepancies that no one found worthy of redaction.

If one agrees that 1 Kings parallels Genesis 2, would it not be remarkable to find two identical instances of "juggling different strands of tradition and having trouble getting them all tied up together" in the initial two usages of the construction in question? The alternate suggestion of idiomatic usage seems to me a supportable abduction.

spin

All you need to do is to show a solid example of the idiom elsewhere. Assuming an idiom still appears to be eisegesis.

Jayhawker Soule

In much the same way as today's Italian-American might be expected to have some insight into the 1212 AD Golden Bull of Sicily.

Amaleq13

I understand your point but, as I've already said, you are ignoring the most relevant factor (ie the authority/power of the one threatening).

No, it is worse than lying. He didn't keep his word.

If he didn't kill him immediately, he clearly didn't fulfill his vow because that is exactly what he threatened.

I "agree" with you. It is more correct to say that God failed to fulfill a vow rather than to say God lied.

Amaleq13

I dismiss it as an absurd concept that has no relevance to the text.

By your own words this can be dismissed as immediate but it also has no relevance to the text since God doesn't say "on that day you will begin a process of hundreds of years that will end in your death".

This also has no relevance to the text.

And I am now calling it "failure to fulfill a vow", if that helps.

It is a fable that depicts God a bit more human than most Christians prefer.

Jack the Bodiless

dzim77:
How is it a "big big stretch"? The Sumerian origin of much of Genesis is well-known (the Flood story is another example). The story of "Adapa and the South Wind" (with its magical food that confers immortality, and a god who commands "Adam" not to eat) makes it all quite clear.
No, it isn't "read into" the text: it's IN the text. "And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever - therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken". This is, quite specifically, the reason for the expulsion from Eden. No other reason for the expulsion is stated.
You don't seem to be able to keep your story straight here. If it's your belief that Adam became "doomed to die" because of God blocking access to the Tree of Life: then what's this talk of "spiritual death as an immediate consequence"? There is no support whatsoever for the notion that Adam's immortality (even if we assume that he originally HAD immortality) was somehow independent of the Tree of Life, or that eating from the Tree of Knowledge somehow "killed it".
As WishboneDawn pointed out, you're using the NT to interpret the OT. And I'd like to add that the ancient Hebrews had a very different concept of the afterlife than the Christians did.

GakuseiDon

I think we'll have to agree to disagree. If it is an idiom, then it would make no sense to take it literally. If it was meant to be taken literally, then God is lying or didn't keep his word. I think that the context itself, as well as the context of 1 Kings, suggests it was an idiom. But it would be good to see other examples.

spin

On what linguistic evidence would suggest that the phraseology is idiomatic? The reader must be able to see that they are dealing with an idiom, because they know the linguistic cues. What are the cues that indicate that we are dealing with such a device? How would you know?

What suggests that we must deal with the lexical items in this phrase so that they mean something different together from what they mean singly? This is what an idiom is: the meaning cannot be formed from the sum of the relations between the words. ("Turn the other cheek" is an idiom now. There is no way to get the meaning from the separate words.)

I gather the idiom must be lurking in this: MWT TMWT, "die a death"? How do you get it to work linguistically? Through the sort of eisegesis performed by ConsequentAtheist on 1 K 2:36-42? You'll need to do better.


spin

Amaleq13

The only thing I'm taking "literally" is the threat of immediate punishment because removing that renders the vow utterly meaningless. I do not agree to disagree. I consider your reading to be fundamentally flawed and supported by nothing but apologetic concerns.

The author of the Genesis fable was apparently not only unconcerned about God keeping his vow of immediate consequences but, in fact, needed to depict God making such a vow precisely so that the serpent could get the couple to disobey. Whether this need was a constraint resulting from adaption of an earlier fable or the author's personal preference is, of course, a separate issue.

Bereft of a threat of immediate punishment, the vow is rendered meaningless.

This fable is nothing but a literary construct written by an individual who did not share the same beliefs in God as modern Christians such as yourself. He simply (re)wrote an origins fable featuring a talking snake and a very anthropomorphic deity.

I don't disagree that it was a specifically characteristic phrase but the context of 1 Kings and Genesis 3 suggest that it was one placed in the mouth of authority and intended to convey the seriousness of the offense of disobedience with a threat of immediate death. Removing the immediacy of the consequences undermines the entire point of the vow.

I can agree with that.

dzim77

The "big stretch" I referred to is suggesting the author of the Genesis account didn't intend to say that Adam had free access to the tree of life... that he completely overlooked the fact that God expressly gives Adam permission to eat from ANY tree except the tree of knowledge...(this means he can eat from the tree of life.) Given the fact that the tree of life is described a few lines earlier, this would be a HUGE oversight by the author.

What is stated in the account is that God desires to prevent the man from living forever. What you have read into the text are God's motives in doing so. You claim his motives are to "prevent him from becoming more powerful" or to prevent him from becoming "more like us".

First off, I never meant to imply that Adam's immortality was independent from the Tree of Life as presented in the account. In fact, my argument depends on the idea that his immortality in the garden is linked to the tree of life. Please remember... My point was that God intended Adam for eternal life in the garden, but, as a consequence of disobedience, Adam was subject to mortality... he was doomed to die. This whole line of discussion has been concerning whether God intended Adam for immortality and therefore a threat of imposed mortality is significant for Adam. We have not directly touched the topic of whether God 'lied' in Gen 2:17.

Secondly, I never argued that eating from the tree of knowledge immediately "killed" his immortality. When I say "spiritual death as an immediate consequence", I mean that Adam was separated from the intimate friendship that he enjoyed with God in the garden... this was a consequence that he experienced after eating the fruit (when God expelled him from the garden). Being doomed to die physically and experiencing immediate spiritual separation from God are not mutually exclusive. I'm suggesting that both were consequences of Adam's disobedience.