Ah, to finally know why we die, it makes so much sense!
(Bold added)
(1925) The Way to Paradise pp. 74-76 As [Adam] daily exercised, particles of [his body] would be thrown off, and new atoms would be needed to replace them. There was abundant supply of perfect material in the food and water and air in the garden. As long as he could partake of them, his body could easily maintain itself in perfect condition. When expelled from the garden, he could obtain only imperfect food with which to rebuild the body. Therefore in the very first meal which he had outside the garden, he put imperfect material into his body; and there it began to weaken, to die. At the end of nine hundred and thirty years, the body was in such a weak condition that it could stand the strain no longer. It collapsed; and Adam was dead. ? Why did Adam die? Because he disobeyed God?s commandment. It was not because he was human and lived on the earth, nor because he had been imperfectly created, nor placed in imperfect conditions, nor supplied with imperfect food, nor because God intended to change him later to some other place or nature. When he disobeyed, God expelled him from his perfect surroundings; and his death followed because he could not obtain perfect food.
The WTS continued with this idea for 3 decades:
*** w53 6/1 p. 349 Foreknowledge Compatible with Free Will *** 22 When Jehovah pronounced his earthly creation, including man, ?very good? it meant perfect: ?His work is perfect.? (Deut. 32:4) Yet some say, If Adam and Eve had been perfect they would not have wrongly used their freedom of will and choice. But not necessarily so. A machine may be well designed, of flawless materials, of excellent workmanship, and accompanied by clear instructions as to the kind of fuel that will suitably run it, and warnings against using inferior fuels. Now, if the wrong fuel is deliberately used in defiance of the manufacturer?s careful instructions and the machine is fouled up and ruined, can the maker be blamed for producing an inferior machine? Not rightly so. It was the same with Adam and Eve. Their minds were perfect. Their bodies were perfect. Their provided food for mind and body was perfect. They were clearly and perfectly instructed as to what fuel to take in and what to reject. Then Satan through the serpent suggested a change in fuel, saying it would give them more power, give them a lift, make them like gods. So Eve took in the wrong fuel and got fouled up. She gave some to Adam and he was fouled up. Both were beyond repair; they were deliberate in their disobedience to instructions.
3 years later they offer a watered-down concoction:
w56 3/1 p. 159 Questions from Readers Did Adam die as a result of being ousted from the garden of Eden and having to eat the imperfect food that grew outside? It was not the eating of food outside the garden that Adam was warned against, but the partaking of certain fruit growing inside the garden, namely, the tree of the knowledge of good and bad ? It was this rebellious disobedience that brought upon them Jehovah?s sentence of death. They were ousted from the garden and in the sweat of their brows had to eke their existence from the soil, but it was not the eating of this food that killed them. It was disobedience that brought death, not food. But food was partly Jehovah?s means of execution, now that man was sentenced to death and imperfect. Food was not the total factor. Jesus when a man on earth was perfect, had the right to life, and could have lived forever on earth as a perfect man. Some challenge this, saying he would have become imperfect and died by reason of eating of our present food supply. But if food would do this, the process must have started during the thirty-three and a half years that he lived, and if this was so then Jesus was no longer perfect at the time he died, and therefore not Adam?s equal and not a qualified ransomer. But we know that Jesus was a perfect man, Adam?s equal, when he died and that he is the qualified ransomer. His perfection was not marred by the food he ate. Food is not the total factor. It is not what you eat or refrain from eating that governs, but whether you obey or disobey Jehovah. So it was also in Adam?s case.
So, it's the food, I tell ya...it's the food!
Craig
PS: I wasn't able to immediately find any pertinent Russell-era comments on this, nor any remarks by the WTS about it since 1956.