Jack the Bodiless

This, of course, did not happen: A&E went on to live very long lives indeed.

So God lied.

The common excuse of inerrantists is that A&E suffered a "spiritual death". But does Genesis say, or even imply, that "something inside them withered and died" when they ate the fruit?
...Nope. This is the opposite of death: this is awakening.

In a recent thread, Magus55 accused someone of ignorance for not knowing about the "spiritual death", apparently due to a "lack of Biblical scholarship". However, no amount of "Biblical scholarship" will ever reveal the "spiritual death" interpretation, because it's not in the Bible (or not in Genesis, at least: if some later Biblical author introduced the concept, I'd like to see the verse).

The actual story is perfectly straightforward. God didn't want them to eat the fruit, so he lied about its effects. Why? Well, he could hardly warn them off by telling them the truth, could he?

"Guys, don't eat that fruit, or you'll develop wonderful powers and find out how to become gods, like me".

Not exactly a disincentive, is it?

When God's lie failed and they DID eat the fruit, he was forced to fall back on more direct methods to stop them gaining additional superpowers:
There are obvious parallels with the Prometheus myth. Zeus never intended humans to have fire, but Prometheus gave it to us anyhow. Both God and Zeus apparently lack the power to undo what was done, to take back the power we shouldn't have.

It's a perfectly straightforward story. There is no need to pretend that it contains elements which are plainly not there, and which the author plainly did not intend to be there: "spiritual death", original sin, or divine omniscience (and no sign of "Satan" either). Just a fallible God struggling to stop his creations becoming powerful enough to challenge him.

I find it ironic that some people still refer to themselves as "Biblical inerrantists" when they reject the Bible on issues like this, and assert the authority of non-Biblical (or at least non-Genesis) authorities OVER that of the Bible itself.

judge

No...the phrase "on the day thou eat thou shalt surely die" is an hebrew idiom.
It means on the day you eat you will come under the sentence of death.

This very same idiom is used this very same way in 1 Kings 36-46 Solomon tells Shimei that on the day he leaves town he will surely die.
Shimei leaves town and on that day he does not die but comes under the sentence of death and dies much later.

We use many idioms in everyday speech that are not meant to be taken literally. In this case we can see elsewhere in the bible how this idiom is meant to be understood.



This is the way that this has been understood historically.

Augusti9ne in Merits and forgiveness of sins book 1, 21 wrote...


______By a certain disease which was conceived in men from a suddenly infected and pestillential corruption, it was brought about that they lost that stability of life in which they were created, and by reason of the changes which they experienced during the stages of life the disease issued at last in death. However, many were the years they lived in their subsequent life, yet they began to die in the day when they received the law of death, because they kept verging towards old age.

Dean Anderson

Are you talking about this thread where he said that in reply to my OP (which was very similar reasoning to this OP except that I concentrated on the fact that Adam & Eve didn't know that disobeying God was 'wrong' until after they had eaten the fruit - so couldn't be held responsible for their actions)?

Especially since they do not know good/right from evil/wrong at this stage so they don't know that trusting the snake's truth and disobeying God's command is wrong (even though the snake has pointed out that God is lying).

A common (but also unbiblical) claim from 'Inerrantists' is that Adam and Eve had already been eating the Fruit of Life and already had eternal life. This claim says that when God threw them out it was so that they could no longer eat the fruit of life (and would therefore start to age and die), not so that they would not eat it in the first place.

The political reason for this claim seems to be so that death and suffering can be blamed on Adam and Eve (because they were immortal before 'the fall') rather than blamed on God for creating mortals who would suffer and die from the start (which is the biblical position).

Don't forget that we weren't made out of his eternal love or because he was lonely. We were made as slaves to do his manual work for him...

...and once we had gotten ourselves edumicated (damn those uppity slaves!) the last thing that the God wanted was for us to become as he and his friends were...

...Note the 'one of us' implying polytheism.

Of course, as well as the Prometheus-like elements, there is a strong echo here of the Enuma Elish where the gods create man as a slave to work for them - although the goddess Nin.Ti (whose name means 'lifegiver' or 'rib') has been relegeted to a secondary role as the first woman made for man rather than her original role as the mother goddess who is man's ancestor.

I have been thinking about the irony of this a lot recently. 'Inerrantists' also usually seem to have some very un-biblical views on hell and what happens when people die. The concept that people go to hell when they die is not in the bible. Still, the biblical position on hell versus the Christian position on hell is enough for a separate topic by itself.

Dean Anderson

A 'sentence' that Adam was already under since he was created mortal.

Leaving us three choices

1) Solomon invoked the least scary curse in history - "Ha! If you leave then at some indeterminate point in the future you will die!" - I bet that had Shimei quaking in his boots in fear.

2) Shimei was going to be immortal and never die until Solomon cursed him - and then he lost his immortality and eventually died.

3) Solomon meant that Shimei would die that day - but Shimei called his bluff and the curse turned out to be just empty words. Shimei didn't die that day but died later instead.

Can you truthfully answer that what you think happened was 1 or 2, rather than 3?

Or are you just twisting the words to make them mean what you want them to mean?

It certainly doesn't appear to be meant to be understood the way you interpret it.

So he and you are going for option 2 then - Adam and Eve were immortal (despite Genesis saying that they weren't) until they were cursed - and so was Shimei, presumably...

Steven Carr

1 Kings 2
41 When Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned, 42 the king summoned Shimei and said to him, "Did I not make you swear by the LORD and warn you, 'On the day you leave to go anywhere else, you can be sure you will die'? At that time you said to me, 'What you say is good. I will obey.' 43 Why then did you not keep your oath to the LORD and obey the command I gave you?"
44 The king also said to Shimei, "You know in your heart all the wrong you did to my father David. Now the LORD will repay you for your wrongdoing. 45 But King Solomon will be blessed, and David's throne will remain secure before the LORD forever."
46 Then the king gave the order to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and he went out and struck Shimei down and killed him.

Where exactly does it say that he 'dies much later.'?

He died as soon as Solomon found out about this trip.

He would have died the same day as his trip if Solomon had known about it.

So there is no Hebrew idiom meaning death will come much later.

The only postponement was because Solomon was ignorant of the trip, or else he would have killed him on the same day.

There is NO postponement because Solomon delayed in executing the order, because he was using Hebrew idioms.

God, of course. was not ignorant of which day Adam and Eve sinned.

Jack the Bodiless

Judge:

Solomon, however, is not a god: he lacks the power to kill Shimei the moment he sets foot outside the town.

I am also wondering if this was indeed a Hebrew idiom when Genesis was written, or whether this was an apologetic excuse which may have become a Hebrew idiom.

Nevertheless, it is quite clear from Genesis that this explanation is not correct. A&E do NOT die as a result of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, either immediately OR later.

They (eventually) die from NOT eating from the Tree of Life: immortality is another superpower that God doesn't want them to have, and the whole point of the expulsion from Eden is to PREVENT them taking it.

Not because of any "spiritual death".

Yes, it has been suggested that A&E were already eating from the Tree of Life (even though the Bible doesn't say so), and God didn't mind because it's only the combination of the two fruits that leads to godlike power. This might be consistent with a delayed death sentence imposed by God, but still contradicts the Christian doctrine of the act of "sinning" directly causing the failure of their immortality. In effect, God would be saying "on the day you do this, I will cut off your immortality-support and you will be doomed to die".

Still no "spiritual death" as such: the act of sinning doesn't cause something to "wither and die" within them.

And this interpretation is also contradicted by how eating from the Tree of Life is described: as something they WILL do (unless prevented) that will BESTOW immortality.

Jack the Bodiless

Yes, this is the Christian doctrine that the Bible does not support.

Ironically, it's Augustine who preaches against a literal interpretation of Genesis in the following (albeit for different reasons):
...Not exactly a friend of inerrantists, then.

judge

To all who had the gall to oppose my interpretation of this verse

Think about it whoever wrote these words was entirely aware that Adam did not in fact die that very day.

It's kinda obvious really

Jack the Bodiless

Yes, it is. That's why this isn't like the usual sort of "Biblical contradiction": it has to be deliberate.

And it seems that it's a deliberate lie, for the reasons given above.

Calzaer

Ah, but according to Magus, man was NOT mortal before the fall. There was no death in Eden. Odd, then, that God would worry about them eating from the Tree of Life since they were already immortal, but hey, when you're going to make stuff up that's not in the Bible, who says you have to do it logically?

Oh, but bitch at the Catholics for making up stuff that's not in the Bible and being internally consistent about it. That'll make you a TRUE Christian.