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Did God not see this as a strong enough possibility (or a certainty if He is omniscient) before they ate from the tree of knowledge?
I don’t know. A case could be made that God acted like an irresponsible parent, telling Adam not to do something but doing nothing to safe guard him from doing it.
Maybe, and if God had told Adam the whole truth, that as a result of eating his eyes would be opened, he would be like God knowing good and evil, he would live for more than 900 years, and billions of his descendants would continue to live on earth thousands of years later, he might have chosen to eat earlier.
Perhaps, but it might be that, lacking knowledge of good and bad, he would not have been able to make that evaluation.
It could be argued that God was genuinely sure that Adam would die in the day he ate the forbidden fruit at the time the commandment was issued, and that His plans for the world changed after this (requiring Adam to procreate with Eve, acquire the knowledge necessary to do this, and remain alive long enough to do this), so that God wasn't really deceitful at the time, just honestly mistaken, but this would imply that God was not omniscient of infallible.
I see no problem with the idea of God being fallible. It seems pretty clear to me that the God of Genesis makes mistakes and acknowledges them, as we see with the Flood. I agree that God’s plan did change, in so far as they could no longer live in the garden and had to work to feed themselves, but death remained a consequence. As I see it, death is still a consequence for having eaten, and the only way that death would not have been a consequence is if they had been able to eat of the tree of life. But they were barred from eating of the tree of life because they had eaten of the tree of knowledge.
The same could be said regarding any food. If they did not eat any food, they would die.
But there was no food they could have eaten that would have prevented them from dying. The garden provided all the food they needed:
And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food … (2:9)
This may have not been what God wanted, but perhaps this is what God needed?
Needed in what way? In Genesis 1 man, who is made in God’s image (and in that sense already like God) is given dominion over the earth. So, here man does play a role by helping, although it is not clear that God needed man to do this. Further, we might say that man required knowledge if he is to rule and rule well. But there is no indication in Genesis 1 that man is not already suited for the task. Genesis 2 and 3 tell a different story.
Why would God not want man (whom He created in His image) to be like Him?
That is a good question. I think the answer can be found in the story of the tower of Babel:
And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. (11:6)
The prospect of man doing whatever he sets out to do is troubling and made even more troubling if men lived forever. The problem is that of knowledge without wisdom, the ability to do without the wisdom to discern what should and should not be done. As the overarching story develops, man, with God’s help, seeks to become wise.
This can be a way to try to resolve the apparent contradiction between what God said would happen and what actually happened, although being condemned to die is quite different from actually dying.
On the day they ate the were condemned to die, and they did die, just not on the same day they were condemned.
Another way to try to resolve this is to suggest that it was the death of their innocence - the death of who they were before they ate - like vampires and zombies who are no longer like what they were before?
I agree that it does represent the death of innocence, but this is compatible with what I have said. They were no longer innocent and so capable of doing good and bad, of ruling and dominating, of being ruled and being dominated. Death acts as a kind of safeguard against eternal subjugation and oppression at the hands of another.
Translations vary. According to some versions like International Standard Version (ISV), the serpent said, "You certainly will not die!". According to other versions like New International Version (NIV), the serpent said, "You will not certainly die". One expresses certainty, the other expresses lack of certainty. Is the meaning clearer one way or the other in Hebrew?
First, it should be noted that the serpent’s words are close to those of God. Robert Sack’s says of God’s words at 2:17:
The words thou mayest surely eat and thou shalt surely die could more literally be translated eating, you will eat and dying you will die.
Young’s Literal Translation has:
for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.
Word for word we have: Kî ,כִּ֗י (for) bə-yō-wm בְּי֛וֹם (in the day) ’ă-ḵā-lə-ḵā אֲכָלְךָ֥ (that you eat) mim-men-nū מִמֶּ֖נּוּ (thereof) mō-wṯ מ֖וֹת(dying) tā-mūṯ.תָּמֽוּת׃ (you will die)
Young’s translates the serpents words as:
Dying, ye do not die
Word for word: ‘lō-’ לֹֽא־(not) ‘mō-wṯ’ מ֖וֹת(dying) tə-mu-ṯūn.תְּמֻתֽוּן׃ (you shall die)
As far as I can see there is no tentativeness on either God’s or the serpent’s part.
Dying you will die. Dying you will not die. What does this mean? Without getting into too much detail, Sacks points to the grammatical form - the cognate accusative, roughly it means something like being the kind of thing that dies (mortal/dying) you will die versus being the kind of thing that dies (mortal/dying) you will not die at the moment you eat. If man had remained in the garden and had eaten of the tree of life he would not be the kind of thing that dies. By eating he seals his fate and becomes the kind of thing that dies.
If God was freely able to choose to allow them to eat of the tree of life and live forever, how could He really be sure at the time He issued the commandment that He would not freely choose to do that later?
Man can become like a god either through immortality or knowledge. It is clear from the beginning that God did not want man to have both. He provided for immortality on the condition that they not gain knowledge. When that condition was violated he made sure they could not become immortal. He could have changed his mind, but that would mean changing his mind about whether it was good for men to be gods. The story of Genesis shows that this would not have been good.
Not specifying that any other tree is in the midst of the garden does not imply that no other tree is in the midst of the garden.
Here is the passage:
and Jehovah God causeth to sprout from the ground every tree desirable for appearance, and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (2:9)
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Does any translation suggest that the tree of life was the only tree in the midst of the garden?
Most set it off as the only tree mentioned that is in the midst of the garden and are clearer than (NIV), but none say explicitly that this is the only tree in the midst of the garden.
Young’s Literal Translation (YLT):
and Jehovah God causeth to sprout from the ground every tree desirable for appearance, and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB):
And out of the adamah made Hashem Elohim to spring up kol etz (every tree) that is pleasing to the sight, and tov for food; the Etz HaChayyim (Tree of Life) also in the midst of the gan (garden), and the Etz HaDa’as Tov v’Rah
Complete Jewish Bible (CJB):
Out of the ground Adonai, God, caused to grow every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Darby Translation (DARBY):
And out of the ground Jehovah Elohim made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; and the tree of life, in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
What we need to consider is which tree Eve is talking about when she says:
but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, and ye shall not touch it, lest ye die. (3:3)
We know that God said not to eat of the tree of knowledge, we also know that the tree of life is the tree identified as the tree in the midst of the garden. Eve is the first one to say anything about touching the tree, God did not say anything about touching any tree, just not to eat of the tree of knowledge. Both descriptions use the singular “the tree in the midst of the garden”.