Yes, I’ve always assumed that’s what made him immortal. Any guesses we can come up with on the “hows” of that are just speculation – I’m content to just say it was a supernatural tree, and God placed it there for that purpose (and possibly other purposes I don’t know about).
This is also why, to me, the YEC claim that no form of death existed yet doesn’t make a lot of sense… if that was true, I don’t see the need for the Tree of Life.
How fruitful before their ejection from Eden would be the question …
I assume Adam and Eve were homosapien sapiens ,
So in " replenishing " were they refilling the gap of prior homindae ?
Overlapping neanderthal’s dwindling numbers ?
It does bring to mind some interesting questions …
Thank you for the intriguing thoughts your question has inspired
If memory serves , it is hypothesized ,early females of our species " cycled" less frequently than women now , that it originally was more seasonal …
If this is the case , they may have naturally mated less frequently than we as a species tend to now …
( I hope I’m not being offensive with this delicate subject )
A worthwhile read is about the Rabbits of Australia for anyone who isn’t familiar with the extreme overpopulation without predation. Not exactly directly related to an eternal human being but it is not a very healthy ecosystem.
Here is some copy paste on it , but I’m looking for the original study I read a few years ago :
“Let’s get back into the hot tub time machine (why not soak in a hot tub while traveling back in time?) and see what was going on in prehistoric times. Not surprisingly, things were very different then. First of all, women lived much shorter lives than we do today. Additionally, women started menses later than we do, and they spent much of their short lives pregnant and nursing. It’s also likely they menstruated less than modern women because they were subject to high levels of stress and food scarcity. Historians say the prehistoric woman probably menstruated just 50 times in her life, compared to 450 times for you and me”
…I’m still looking for it
Replenish originally meant “to fill up,” without the ‘again’ that the word implies today. It seems that this has come up here on BioLogos before. I suppose this is some sort of lexical accident, like however inflammable and flammable have the same meaning.
I consider this a “plot hole” in the story. How is your objection resolved by God’s thoughts about ejecting Adam and Eve so they do not have access to the tree?
If Adam & Eve never sinned, they would be in Eden and they would have access to the Tree of Life.
Something has to “give” here… and I think a better solution is that Adam and Eve were told to multiply … but not without limitations. All they had to do was replace themselves in Eden… or perhaps to a “goal” population of 50 – and once the total population reached 50 (or 100?), no more multiplying would be needed.
Was neanderthal also in the garden ? I have often wondered about this , more so in light if our carrying Neanderthal DNA only from females . It is suggested that we hybridized with neander outside of Africa , so did Adam know of neanderthal? Did he name them as beasts or were they exempt ?
If Adam had ,as you suggest ,been left in the garden to breed , would his children have stayed or ventured out of the garden ?
One question leads to another …lol
Further , if it is allegory , and the trees figurative , then how do we explain the extreme ages of Adam’s lineage ?
For a long time I have wondered if the effects of the " tree of life " effected adam’s lineage …
Just as the effect of mercury can be passed through generations ( note: mercury is a negative effect not positive )
This is where my train of thought has circled for some time .
Was Adam created a living soul or did he " become " a living soul ?
Is the " breath of life " separate from base " life " ?
And man BECAME a living soul …how much emphasis do we put on " became " ?
