I posted this once before, but no one was willing to bite, so I’m posting it again. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Was human immortality conditional in the Garden? If Adam and Eve would not have sinned, would they have lived forever? I presume that they could have done so, but immortality does not seem to be inherent to their nature even in their sinless state. It was conditioned on them eating the fruit of the Tree of Life—not often, but only once. That’s why God was so concerned about getting Adam out of the Garden after he sinned: He didn’t want Adam to become immortal (the fact that Adam never ate the fruit of the Tree of Life argues for a very short period of time between the creation of man and his fall). It seems that even if Adam had not sinned, he still would have died if He never ate of the fruit of the Tree of Life. Immortality did not inhere within his sinless nature.
The reason I find this topic interesting is because of its application to Jesus. Like Adam, Jesus was sinless. That does not mean, however, that Jesus would have lived forever had He not willingly allowed Himself to be killed. He would have died just like the rest of us unless He ate from the Tree. Humanity needs this tree to become immortal. That’s why it will be in the New Jerusalem.
Speaking of the Tree of Life, what do you think about the whole business of trees in Genesis? We have the Tree of Life (TL) and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (TKGE). Were these trees “magical” or symbolic? I would like to take the symbolic interpretation, but it seems inconsistent. It could be said that Adam’s eating of the fruit of the TKGE caused Him to fall—not because of something in the fruit—but because He disobeyed a command of God, thereby coming to know evil. When it comes to the fruit on the TL, however, a symbolic understanding doesn’t seem to work. It appears that there was actually something in that fruit that would have brought Adam immortality. What do you think?
Thinking to Believe 
April 26, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Adam and Eve were mortal before eating of the TKGE, and still mortal afterwards. Death is inherent to man. Thus, Jesus would have died as well.
Adam ate the apple and did not surely die; his eventual death was natural, not a consequence of eating the apple.
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April 26, 2007 at 10:51 pm
It wasn’t the TKGE that would have made them immortal, but the Tree of Life (either by eating it once, or numerous times).
I agree with you that Jesus would have died naturally.
What do you think about the trees in Genesis? Symbolic or “magical”? The Tree of Life seems magical, while the TKGE seems symbolic. But it seems inconsistent to say one is one thing, while the other is another. What do you think?
Jason
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April 26, 2007 at 11:37 pm
I assume you mean TKGE appears symbolic because gaining “knowledge of good and evil” from eating fruit seems implausible, but having a physical characteristic altered seems less so.
I think the story is intended to be taken literally, so they’re both “magical.” Perhaps Adam didn’t gain any actual knowledge, but simply had his mental capacity enhanced to the degree that he could understand right and wrong.
On the other hand, the entire story seems symbolic, and the Tree of Life has a rich symbolic history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Life
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April 27, 2007 at 11:06 am
Arthur,
What physical characteristic are you speaking of? I don’t see the knowledge of good and evil as a physical characteristic, as though there had to be a physical change in Adam to recognize it.
When you say the entire story sounds symbolic, are you suggesting that it is not history, or that certain elements in the historical event were symbolic?
Jason
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April 27, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Jason,
I meant that whether a person ages is a physical characteristic.
I agree that knowledge of good and evil isn’t a physical characteristic. A mental change as a result of eating fruit seems less plausible, and thus more likely to be symbolic.
The entire story “sounds” symbolic, but I believe it was intended to be taken literally by its readers. People have an innate desire to know where things come from, and “how it all started.” Every culture seems to have creation stories. If these stories were not intended to be taken literally, then how did those ancient peoples believe things *really* began, and why didn’t they leave any record of their literal beliefs on how the world/man began?
Of course, something can be literally true as well as symbolic. For example, in December 1995 President Clinton vetoed a budget sent to him from the GOP Congress using the pen that Lyndon Johnson used to sign the Social Security Act amendments of 1965, which created Medicare and Medicaid. The fact that the pen has symbolic significance doesn’t mean that Clinton didn’t literally use the pen.
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April 30, 2007 at 5:42 am
Arthur,
Thanks for the clarification.
As for symbolism, I would only point out that there is a difference between saying a particular element within a historical account has symbolic meaning (as did the Clinton analogy), and saying an entire story is symbolic. The latter seems to deny historicity altogether, and is akin to myth.
Jason
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January 26, 2012 at 3:09 am
I disagree with the two of you on the aspect about Jesus dying. Why would he have to die? Death is a result of sin and if Adam did not eat the fruit, he would not have died. Jesus did not have a sinful nature and Jesus did not sin. If he did not go to the cross, he would have lived forever. That’s the whole point. The only reason he died was for our sins. If he had to die anyhow, his death could not have atoned for our sins–that simply does not make any theological sense.
As for the tree of life and its fruit. Adam may or may not have already eaten from it since it may or may not be something you consume more than once as seems to be implied in Revelation. Even if Adam did not eat of it, it also may not have been required to live forever until after the sin of Adam. There are a lot of different views on this subject and a lot of different logical possibilities.
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January 31, 2012 at 9:19 am
Robert,
I disagree that Adam was incapable of death prior to his sin. There would have been no purpose for the Tree of Life in the pre-fall creation if Adam did not have need of eating it to sustain his life indefinitely. Only glorified humanity is made to be immortal. While Adam was morally innocent, his flesh was regular flesh and he would have died like the rest of us if he did not eat of the Tree of Life. As the last Adam, Jesus’ humanity was like Adam’s, and thus Jesus’ humanity was capable of death as well. What changed with fall was not that death became possible, but that death became inevitable—not because something changed within human nature, but because God cut humanity off from the source of their conditional immortality: the Tree of Life.
I disagree that Adam could have eaten from the Tree of Life prior to his sin. God kicked him out of the Garden and set up angels to protect the Garden from man’s re-entrance to ensure that humanity was unable to eat from fruit of the Tree of Life. Why such an urgency in preventing mankind from eating from the Tree of Life if eating the fruit would only extend their life, say 10 or 100 years? In the end Adam and Eve would still die just like God said and wanted. The only reason for God to be so adamant that they not be able to eat of the Tree of Life is because He knew that had they done so, they would have become immortal…EVEN IN THEIR FALLEN STATE. The fact that they were not immortal testifies to the fact that they never had the chance to eat of the Tree of Life prior to their fall.
Jason
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January 9, 2017 at 1:11 pm
First of all, part of the world going astray is because of mans unfounded teachings. People hear someone say something and then they just regurgitate it as if its gospel. How about we stand on scripture and not the unfounded word of man? We also cannot pick and choose what we believe or disbelieve of the bible. You either believe all of it or none of it, otherwise where do we draw the line? Proverbs 3:5 tells to not “lean on our own understanding.” so lets lean on the scriptures completely.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of Elohim [GOD] is eternal life in Yeshua Ha’mashiach [Jesus Christ] our Lord.
So without sin there is no death. This is why we will have eternal life in the life to come. That life will be without sin, and therefore without death.
We see that is the case of the genesis story as well.. Consider….
Genesis 2:16-17
16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
When Adam and Eve broke gods law they brought sin into their life and death is a byproduct of that sin.
Now we death is because of sin. So would Yeshua [Jesus] have died? Well to put it in its most simple terms…. without the sin of the world we would not have needed Yeshua…. Yeshua came to DIE so that we would not have to die the 2nd death. He was appointed a death before his birth. Just as we all are.
Hebrews 9:27-28
27 Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment,
28 so also Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him
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January 10, 2017 at 10:10 am
M H
The problem I have with your comment is in the first paragraph: “How about we stand on scripture and not the unfounded word of man?”
All scriptures came from man and were written by man and nothing was ever written by anybody except man as he was led by the imagination. You have to remember that at the time of the early scriptures people believed that God spoke in dreams and that some wise men interpreted those God Given Dreams especially for the Kings and Pharaohs. Now we know that dreams are as random as ever and sometimes make no sense whatsoever; just a bunch of neurons firing off as it reboots like our computers need rebooting to readjust the memory that eventually gets cluttered and freezes the computer without the reboot(sleep)and taking tidbits of thoughts, experiences and imaginings that are disjointed in the process.
Jesus came and told the religious community to knock off the supernatural BS and come to terms about the true humanity, not holy days, not sacraments, not even feeding the poor but rather let the guide of Love guide you into all understanding and so Jesus interpreted scriptures perfectly. But sacrifices and offering he did not desire nor did he participate in them; if you note, picking corn on the Sabbath or curing people on appointed Holy Days except when he was supporting his cousin John the Baptist and then beseeched John to allow his baptism event “for all righteousness sake” since there were many people there and watching and thereby supported the good work John was trying to do, symbolically as the cleansing power example of water to the body now water to repent and baptize or “cleanse” your spirit with the same cleansing power that life sustaining water had always provided. Jesus’s principle was that no days are holier than any other day and ritualisms simply cluttered the mind from real and true humanity. Jesus also belittled the religious who used prayer as a pretense for righteousness to be seen of men. No piece of real estate was any more holy than the building we see today demolished by the divided factions of hate in Aleppo, Syria. Not even hospitals of children’ schools were were holy or respected and untouched by man’s madness and murderous mayhem.
Generally we call that sin but when a pause comes the hate remains and the factions continue to build weapons of destruction to kill the neighbors they hate instead the neighbors they are suppose to love by expressing their true humanity but I respectfully submit that time has not yet arrived on this strange planet managed mostly by idiots, conspiracists, liar, fraud and ego maniacs and yet half the world population still assemble in pieces of real estate and go on spirit retreats hoping to appease the gods of their choosing or Messenger who told them the Correct way of killing each other.
Of course the Tree is metaphorical for many things: shelter, longevity, food and even represents spirit concepts: knowledge, wisdom, peace and retreat like the desert, like the mountain with their vast expanse, like the night sky we ponder in awe at and the breeze of summer welcomed for its coolness like the other side of your pillow as you lie in bed musing away until the morning alarm punters you back to reality and as suddenly as day appears, the night has disappeared and your brain returns to its so called normality and you start all over again. That was the life of the ancients and it remains today God does not speak to anybody and never has but man in his ego stance convinces others usually in the old days by magic that he is the Messenger of the Myth Gods he invented,
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April 9, 2017 at 6:31 pm
If you were to see god as a Father , Like Jesús did, ( heavenly Father, who art in heaven)and Also Adam did,
I would asked myself what father wants his son to die, so if Adam and Eve were created perfect, in my opinion, they were to live forever, all they had to do is let God (father) guide them,
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April 10, 2017 at 12:57 pm
IMMORTALITY has been the dream of every man, woman and child, in that death will be the last thing conquered in the DAY OF THE (Son of Man) GENETICIST.
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March 1, 2021 at 1:25 am
Yahshua said I am the way the truth and the LIFE
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