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Author | Topic: Death before the 'Fall'? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
Brian,
I feel the evidence is overwhelming. To start, you have to realize that biblically there is a difference between human, animal and plant life. The latter not technically alive in biblical terms (that is a subject that could warrant another topic all to itself). I mention this because inevitably someone will speak up and say that plants had to have died if the animals weren't eating each other. The quick answer is that the breath of life was not breathed into plants by God. To start with, the finished creation was described by God as "very good" (Gen 1:31). A system that requires animals to kill other animals for survival doesn't seem very good....effective maybe, but not very good. Next, Romans tells us that sin and death entered the world as a result of Adam's rebellion (Romans 5:12 ff., 8:20-22; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22). Also, in 1 Corinthians 15:26 Paul calls death the "last enemy". This wording suggests an agent that is running counter to the design of the initial system. Also, Revelations mentions a future day when there is no death: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:4). This means that before sin the inhabitants of the Garden of Eden were all vegetarians. This makes sense since Adam was actually living among these animals, at least during the time that he was naming each of them. There is biblical documentation for this fact as well. Genesis 1:29-30 states: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: and it was so." That makes it pretty clear that animals were to only eat plants in the initial scheme of things. After the fall ocurred, when God was laying out the curse, he first gave permission for animals to eat other animals for survival. This truly is a foundational concept to the proper understanding of the gospel message. Because of Adam, a curse of death and suffering was brought into anotherwise perfect world. Because of God's loving sacrifice, in the form of Jesus, we can be justified to the old way of things and enjoy eternal life free from death and suffering in the world yet to come.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
To point number 1...I guess you'd have to ask each individual animal. They didn't have permission to until that point, so any transgression would be just that. From the fact that we were given free will, I couldn't rule anything out.
The second point only has conflict if understood in the terms you lay out. Animal sacrifice is the process layed out by God, in the Old Testament system, to justify yourself to God and resolve sin. It can be inferred that God had instructed Adam and Eve of this process prior to this event. My guess would be that this occurred immediatly after the sin/curse incedent wherein the first animal had to literally be killed in order to hide the new shameful nature of man (ie. to cloth their nakedness). Therefore man knew what was necessary in God's eyes to remedy the situation, so to speak. Viewed from that perspective, it is apparant that Cain thought his offering was good enough because it was the "fruits" of his labour. Problem is, our actions and labors aren't sufficient. I'm not sure which incident of raising sheep you are referring to, but my guess is it's post-fall.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
There is no contradiction.
Firstly, I've seen no evidence that would suggest Abel was eating the sheep you reference. He is simply raising them for other means such as wool for clothing. Animals, after all, were put under our dominion. And since his parents had just been banished and discovered their nakedness...I'm thinking the textile industry was probably thriving. Interesting that the animals he was raising were the ones which were easiest to fabricate clothes from without harming in the process. In one sense, a sacrifice does mean giving up something that we hold dear. However, it has a very specific meaning in this context. The reason that Christ's sacrifice was sufficient to reconcile believers back to God is not because his life was important to him. It's because of the biblical concept that 'without shedding of blood is no forgiveness’ (Hebrews 9:22). This concept, in turn, has it's origins in Leviticus 17:11, ”For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement". I think God was basically cementing this concept into our minds by refusing Abel's offering. And I don't think this made an unfair example out of him, because his heart wasn't in the right place with his offering to begin with. He was coming from the perspective that it pleased him to offer God these things which are important to him, rather than it pleased God that he would offer up these things which were important to God.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
I don't view this as a lie. Any truth can have one interpretation that is false. That just means the interpretation is false, not the truth. I'd agree with interpretation that holds that text to mean essentially "Once you eat that fruit, you'll surely die". Meaning, there is no escape, the enemy has entered the building. Do you believe weathermen are lying when they tell you what time sunset is on a given day? After all, we know the sun doesn't actually move around the Earth.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
I disagree with your interpretation of Genesis 2:17. To say that God lied is to know 100% that there is only 1 correct interpretation of the text and that you have it. Just for fun I'll quote it once more:
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Think of it this way. The day before they ate the fruit, they surely weren't going to die (future tense), ever. The day they did eat the fruit, they surely were going to die (still future tense), no matter what. Your thinking in terms of someone who always has known that they will die eventually. Adam and Eve didn't have that understanding. God is here conveying the concept that once this act has been committed, the death is inescapable....regardless of when the eventuality takes place.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
The word escape was mine, not the Bible's. I use the word because I come from the perspective of not knowing anything other than death, so to me...not dying would be an escape. This is semantics.
The question is was there death before the fall...according to a straight-forward reading of Genesis the answer is no. I don't believe the Tree of Life literally needed to be eaten to attain immortality as you suggest. Rather it was symbolic of the fact that God was the provider of eternal life. It sat in the middle of the Garden, just as God was to be in the middle of A & E's existence. When they were seperated from God, they also were seperated from the Tree. While in the Garden, A & E actually had a personal relationship with God...the tree sybolizes the benefits of that close connection. I disagree that death is a natural part of existence. To state this as fact you would have to have been there at the beginning to know it was always there. The Bible asserts that it wasn't. My feeling is that most people have an uncouncious understanding that death is an enemy. Think of the fruitless efforts people undertake to avoid it. As to procreation...the purpose was to multiply and fill the earth, as the verse you quote implies. The earth would be a pretty drab place if there were only the original created animals running around...the extra real estate needed to be filled. Not to mention, being omnipotent God knew what the future would bring and needed a system that would work pre-Fall and post-Fall. I understand your problems with how the laws of science operated before death. There is a seeming contradiction to how things work now. However, not being a uniformitarian myself, I'm not bound by the belief that the way things work now is the way they've always worked. From a bibilical perspective, God has directly intervened at several points in history to alter the physical order of things. This would be one of those cases.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
You have to understand that in a literal translation there is still symbolism. I guess a better term would be a "normal" translation.
I think the Tree of Life, although it did physically exist, was mainly symbolic of the fact that while they remained with God, they would be immortal. Notice that when they were seperated from God, the Tree of Life was taken away and guarding by flaming swords. Seems pretty simple.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
Please see Message 146 for some of the biblical evidence that there was no death before the fall.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
I have a hard time believing that you can't see more than one interpretation of what that phrase literally means.
If there is one interpretation that doesn't falsify the statement, then the statement isn't false...plain and simple.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
Duh...of course I meant Cain.
I look forward to future discussions.
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Garrett Member (Idle past 6197 days) Posts: 111 From: Dallas, TX Joined: |
Christ about 11 since he actually defines what is moral...me about 2 on a good day. :-)
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