Concept Of Death In The Garden Of Eden

I'm currently taking a class who's focus is any literature considered to have significantly influenced western culture. The first (and the fourth) reading were from the bible. I had made a decision to take a believers approach for all the readings. This is far easier with The Republic or even Utopia than with The Bible. Keeping in mind that I’m atheist. I attempted to write an essay as a believer in The Bible. The result (shortened but otherwise not modified) is below.

If pressed, I could easily deconstruct the essay below. In this sense, it has little value as an analysis of the concept of death in the Garden of Eden. However, it does proves one thing conclusively; one should not attempt to defend a position in which one has no conviction.




IN THE BEGINNING
THERE WAS THE END

THE BEGINING
Genesis 2:16 “And the LORD GOD commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 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.”

These two passages in Genesis especially drew my attention. Taken literally, and chronologically, immediately after creation GOD gave life to man, planted the Garden of Eden then gave the commandment above to Adam. Woman was created after.

Why is this an issue? First, this means that from the very beginning, death was a part of life and that it does not follow the transgression of Adam. That Adam understood what GOD meant when He said “die”. The Bible therefore suggest that Adam had a precise understanding of death and that somehow, that understanding has not survived the generations that followed down to us.

1. DEATH DEFINING
Any analysis of passages from The Bible is made difficult because of the different methods of interpreting them by different people. Exploring the concept of death at creation is especially difficult since death follows life and each interpretation defines life differently.

Interpreting The Bible literally, the living, and by extension beings that can die, are beings which breathe. Man and beasts. This is illustrated in Genesis 7:22 “All in whose nostrils was the breath of life […] died”. Therefore the simplified definition of death according to Genesis is the cessation of breath in living beings. This is similar, though not as far reaching, as our modern biological definition of death "the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism” (http://www.dictionary.com/).

Interpreting The Bible symbolically, the death of Adam from eating the fruit could be defined as a sort of spiritual death. However, since GOD commanded that Adam should die “the day” of the transgression, that is, at a specific time, I will favor the literal interpretation.


2. DEATH SENTENCE
Was there a time, however brief, where death was not part of The Creation? Some would argue that The Bible itself answer this question in Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” This implies that death is the consequence of sin and did not exist before it.

It is true that chronologically, death is mentioned as what will follow Adam’s disobedience of the commandment (GEN 2:17). Here death is expressed as the punishment for sin. A deterrent for anyone who would disobey GOD’s will. However, in order to be effective, Adam must desire NOT to die. At the time that St. Paul wrote Epistle to the Romans, death and suffering had been either experienced or witnessed by all. This led him to assume that fear of death was inherent. He probably assumed this to be the case in the Garden of Eden also. It is an understandable assumption. If asked, we would all assume that Adam feared fire, although, not having been exposed to fire yet; there would be no reason for Adam to fear it.

In general, we all assume death to be universally fear-inspiring, but I say it was not so in Eden? If we examine the root of the fear of death, we see that it could not have been present. Every one of us as individuals is afraid of death, but it was not always so. Infants exhibit no fear of death whatsoever. Young children seem to fear only excessively dangerous activities. Adolescents are far less risk averse and young adults. And so on. It is clear that our fear of death follows from our exposure to, and grows in proportion to our exposure to it.

Now, some would argue that it is not exposure but rather understanding of death which leads to increased fear of it as one ages. In fact, this argument only reinforces my conclusion as our understanding of death increases with increased exposure. It remains that fear of death is not inherent.

But what of Adam and Eve, who could never have witnessed human suffering or death? If fear of death can only be the result of exposure to death, what is the source of fear for Adam? Or the fear exhibited by Eve in Gen 3:3 where she clearly considers death as a deterrent from eating the forbidden fruit? The only conclusion possible is that they somehow had an understanding of death so clear and so profound that they need not have been exposed to it in order to fear it. Fear it enough to consider it a deterrent.

THE MEANING LOST
Whatever Adam and Eve knew about death and/or the after-life, it has not been transmitted down to us. Perhaps the knowledge was lost during the great flood. It may have been meant for man as he was before sin, when man was more in the image of GOD, as understood from Gen 6:3 “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh[...]”.

THE END