How can we take God’s threat that “you will die” very seriously, when in fact, all their livestock and pets - - every single one of them - - dies before they even showing signs of dementia:
Adam to Eve: “Hey, have I seen you around here before?”
Eve to Adam: “Yeah I think so… but would you mind leaving my house this instant?”
That’s not much of a prognostication.
In fact, it’s a terrible one… one of the reasons Eve probably thought she misunderstood God’s instructions probably came when the Serpent touched the fruit. She held her breath. She waited. He was still alive … alive, and kicking! Which is ironic considering how soon he would lose those legs and those snake skin boots!
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.
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The last test? Well, taking a bite, right? She bites… no searing burning in the back of her throat. She swallows… she pauses for the stabbing cramps of the “deadening” ! Nothing. She is still breathing. There’s a sigh of relief! She eagerly tells Adam the whole story! And he’s looking pretty skeptical. But there she is … Holding the fruit … and she isn’t dead. Maybe, just maybe he misunderstood what God had said. He’s just about to shake off the doubt and re-state the precise words of God, when he sees she is chewing even more of that puzzling fruit … and she lives still!
I guess that settles it … God must have mumbled… or maybe one of the goats scream at just the wrong time. He clearly didn’t hear God’s warning correctly.
He wondered if what God meant was they would “become mortal”… but that didn’t make any sense either! Why? Because they were mortal! They weren’t angels. The Tree of Life was there to keep their mortality from killing them.
So… what a lot of worrying for nothing!
@LT_15, Augustine’s belabored working out in great detail about just how awful humans are … I’m pretty sure he was wrong about that. Milliions of Greeks think so … and they have for more than 15 centuries!