I’d like to ask Andrew about his post on Romans 5:12-14, but the Fall is necessary background for Paul’s discourse on sin and death, so I thought I’d start here.

In Genesis 2:17 Yahweh issues a command to Adam, coupled with a dire warning: 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. After awhile the Serpent comes along: You surely will not die, he tells Eve, for God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:4-5). As it turns out the Serpent is right about the second half of his claim: when Adam and Eve at the fruit the eyes of both of them were opened (Gen. 3:7), and Yahweh acknowledges that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:22).

What about the dying bit: was Yahweh right, or was the Serpent? Clearly Adam did not drop dead on the day he ate from the tree, otherwise Yahweh wouldn’t have kicked him and Eve out of the Garden, they would never have had children, and so on. Genesis 5:5 says that Adam lived 930 years, mostly after his expulsion from the Garden, and then he died.

Maybe Adam became mortal when he ate the forbidden fruit? But God tells Adam he will die on that day. Adam’s eyes were opened on that day, just as the Serpent predicted. Maybe Adam died spiritually, being thrown out of the Garden and separated from God. But why didn’t Yahweh just say "in the day you eat the fruit I will kick you out of the Garden"? And Genesis 5 says that Adam died — same word — hundreds of years later.

What interpretation makes the most sense of Yahweh’s warning to Adam that "in that day you will surely die"?