.
● Gen 2:15-17 . .The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden
of Eden, to till it and tend it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying:
Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of
knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for in the day you eat of
it, you shall die.
That passage is a favorite among critics because the man didn't drop dead
the very day he tasted the forbidden fruit. In point of fact, he continued to
live outside the garden of Eden for another 800 years after the birth of his
son Seth (Gen 5:4). So; is there a reasonable explanation for this apparent
discrepancy?
The first thing to point out is that in order for his maker's warning to
resonate in the man's thinking; it had to be related to death as he
understood death in his own day rather than death as modern Sunday
school classes construe it in their day. In other words: the man's concept of
death was primitive, i.e. normal and natural rather than idiomatic,
allegorical, spiritual, metaphorical, and/or philosophical.
As far as can be known from scripture, mankind is the only specie that God
created in His own image, viz: a creature blessed with perpetual youth. The
animal kingdom was given nothing like it.
That being the case, then I think it's safe to assume that death was common
all around the man by means of vegetation, birds, bugs, and beasts so that
it wasn't a strange new word in his vocabulary; i.e. God didn't have to take a
moment and define death for the man seeing as how it was doubtless a
common occurrence in his everyday life.
So I think we can be reasonably confident that the man was up to speed on
at least the natural aspects of death and fully understood that if he went
ahead and tasted the forbidden fruit that his body would lose its perpetual
youth and end up drying in the sun like road kill; so to speak.
In other words; had the man not eaten of the forbidden tree, he would've
remained in perfect health but the very day that he tasted its fruit, his body
became infected with mortality, i.e. he lost perpetual youth and began to
age; a condition easily remedied by the tree of life but alas, the man was
denied access to it.
As we all know: the aging process is a lingering, walking death rather than
sudden death, i.e. mortality is slow, but very relentless-- it feels neither pain
nor pity, nor remorse nor fear; it cannot be reasoned with nor can it be
bargained with, and it absolutely will not stop-- ever! --until our body is so
broken down that it cannot continue.
"A voice said: Shout! I asked: What should I shout? Shout that people are
like the grass that dies away. Their beauty fades as quickly as the beauty of
flowers in a field. The grass withers, and the flowers fade beneath the breath
of The Lord. And so it is with people." (Isa 40:6-8)
_
● Gen 2:15-17 . .The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden
of Eden, to till it and tend it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying:
Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of
knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for in the day you eat of
it, you shall die.
That passage is a favorite among critics because the man didn't drop dead
the very day he tasted the forbidden fruit. In point of fact, he continued to
live outside the garden of Eden for another 800 years after the birth of his
son Seth (Gen 5:4). So; is there a reasonable explanation for this apparent
discrepancy?
The first thing to point out is that in order for his maker's warning to
resonate in the man's thinking; it had to be related to death as he
understood death in his own day rather than death as modern Sunday
school classes construe it in their day. In other words: the man's concept of
death was primitive, i.e. normal and natural rather than idiomatic,
allegorical, spiritual, metaphorical, and/or philosophical.
As far as can be known from scripture, mankind is the only specie that God
created in His own image, viz: a creature blessed with perpetual youth. The
animal kingdom was given nothing like it.
That being the case, then I think it's safe to assume that death was common
all around the man by means of vegetation, birds, bugs, and beasts so that
it wasn't a strange new word in his vocabulary; i.e. God didn't have to take a
moment and define death for the man seeing as how it was doubtless a
common occurrence in his everyday life.
So I think we can be reasonably confident that the man was up to speed on
at least the natural aspects of death and fully understood that if he went
ahead and tasted the forbidden fruit that his body would lose its perpetual
youth and end up drying in the sun like road kill; so to speak.
In other words; had the man not eaten of the forbidden tree, he would've
remained in perfect health but the very day that he tasted its fruit, his body
became infected with mortality, i.e. he lost perpetual youth and began to
age; a condition easily remedied by the tree of life but alas, the man was
denied access to it.
As we all know: the aging process is a lingering, walking death rather than
sudden death, i.e. mortality is slow, but very relentless-- it feels neither pain
nor pity, nor remorse nor fear; it cannot be reasoned with nor can it be
bargained with, and it absolutely will not stop-- ever! --until our body is so
broken down that it cannot continue.
"A voice said: Shout! I asked: What should I shout? Shout that people are
like the grass that dies away. Their beauty fades as quickly as the beauty of
flowers in a field. The grass withers, and the flowers fade beneath the breath
of The Lord. And so it is with people." (Isa 40:6-8)
_
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