Hi Bart,
Hi Adamah, after your post at the top of page 2 Tammy does make a good point as she says that you were requesting answers which had to fall in line with your assumptions. In relation to the age of Adam when he die age 930 your argument assumes that the use of the die in relation to the eating of the fruit was a physical death. The Hebrew verb used here can mean a number of things, but always in conection with loss and ruin, which in some instances means loss of physical life but also loss of spirtual life, and as the context of the whole narrative is dependant on the actions of the spirit (breath) of god it is fair to define die in this case as the loss of spiritual life not physical. Therefore Adam did die on the day that he ate the friutin a spiritual sense by being cut off from God and removed from Eden, and physically died 930 years later. This is also made clear by the actions of God in producing coverings for him as this was a necessity of spiritual release for the Jews but I'll have to check up on that.
Thanks for contributing.
I'm familiar with the Xian (although not Jewish) apolegetic that Adam experienced only a 'spiritual death', not a 'physical death': JWs have relied on that one to explain the delay in Adam's death.
That strikes me as a bit of a stretch, likely resulting from Xian eisegesis by reading anachronistic elements into the account which weren't in existence at the time the Yahwist wrote/redacted the earlier oral tradition(s). It just wasn't needed for Jewish theology, since they didn't see any conflict, in the first place.
The Xian concept of 'spiritual death' seems somewhat loosely-based on Hebraic beliefs reflected throughout the Torah, where mortals were said to be 'in God's presence', or to 'walk with God', etc, but sometimes were driven away as a result of some offense (eg Adam ate the fruit and was driven out from the Garden where God maintained a presence, or Cain was driven away from God's presence after killing Abel; or Lot was hidden from the face of God when living in a cave, etc).
However, the 'Adam experienced a spiritual death' explanation is inconsistent with the later Xian concept of being saved at any time in a believer's life, if only they accept Jesus as their personal savior. If it were the case that redemption was provided ONLY in the form of Jesus' blood, than ANY human (including righteous Enoch, Noah, who is said to have walked with God, Abraham, Moses, etc) would be spiritually-dead until AFTER Jesus' redemption. The OT clearly doesn't indicate that, since as I said, even Cain was driven from God's presence, which meant he was IN God's presence, at some point, and hence spiritually-alive WITHOUT Jesus' redemption. Another inconsistency in the plot shift from OT to NT theology.
Instead, I suspect the actual answer lies in looking at the Hebrew language roots of the words themselves, as the phrase ("in the day") is an idiomatic phrase in use at the time of writing, and also appears in later writings of the Takakh, as the word 'days' has various meanings in Hebrew which are nebulous and ill-defined.
As stated here:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=797
For Genesis 2:17 to represent a legitimate contradiction, one first would have to assume that the phrase “in the day…you shall surely die” must refer to an immediate death occurring on the very day a certain transgression has taken place. The available evidence shows, however, that the Hebrew idiom bªyôm (“in the day”) means the certainty of death, and not the immediacy of it.
However, the author of that article forgets to mention that the Bible also uses the same word ( bə·yō·wm ) eg to refer to 24-hour FIXED period Sabbath days. The Hebrew word is thus used in many different ways, since it allows flexibility or plasticity in meaning (AKA moving goalposts), depending on context (and hence why some translations simply drop the problematic reference to 'in the day' altogether in Genesis 2).
Here's the various uses of 'day' in Hebrew:
http://biblesuite.com/hebrew/beyom_3117.htm
That example highlights the problems of modern-day readers unconsciously inserting THEIR modern world views (eg the modern concept of a 24-hour day) onto the Yahwist, largely out of their own ignorance and unfamilarity with ancient beliefs, since it's incredibly difficult to avoid doing so without studying ancient cultures and Hebraic beliefs, or becoming an Bible scholar who spends YEARS studying ancient Hebrew, Greek, etc, and the likely history of beliefs.
And even if you did all of that, there's no way to ensure that you're STILL not projecting your concepts anachronistically (at least, until we invent a time machine that violates Einstein's physics by allowing us to travel BACKWARDS in time, not forwards).
Bottom line is, the more you know, the more you can see the 'guesswork' involved in relying on the Hebrew Takakh as a reliable source of information, based on nothing but 'faith'.
Adam
