Abraham was long before the Torah. It seems problematic to me to skip over the Covenant to the Law. The Abrahamic covenant is definitely God engaging with humanity.
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I donāt have a scripture reference for it. I was just attempting to identify what it is about death that we donāt like. Why is death so disdained? In the Bible specifically, everyone post-Adam is very aware that their lives could have been better if they had only been more constant to God, until Jesus, who lives fully committed to God his whole life. Death loses its sting.
If I had, I didnāt remember. Thanks for the detail.
Abraham was long before the Torah. It seems problematic to me to skip over the Covenant to the Law. The Abrahamic covenant is definitely God engaging with humanity.
Well, maybe I didnāt use the right words. At least according to Romans 5:13, we were not held accountable to sin before the Law.
Romans 5:13: For sin was in the world before the Law was given; but sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
Thoughts? Agreements? Disagreements? This is the first time I even thought about this question. Iām more of a history buff than a theology guy.
You said āsin first entered the world when the Torah was given to Moses.ā We know that things that are seen as sins today (such as murder, stealing, etc.) existed before Moses (who himself was guilty of the sin of manslaughter, Ex 2:12), so I can only assume from what you said that these things were not considered sins until after the Torah was given. If I have misunderstood this, please correct me.
I agree with @Christy here. The Torah was not the first law God imposed on mankind. Even going beyond Abraham, God made a Law/Covenant (Ge 9) with Noah over 800 years before the Torah was given, and God gave Adam a Law at the very beginning of human history.
Youāre welcome 
A couple of brief points (the subject matter is truly vast):
Godās law is immutable and sin is breaking, or acting contrary to the Law. However, if people are unaware of the Law, even though they may break it, this is not held against them at a personal level. Adam was the first to know what God commanded, so intentional sin entered the world as a result of his action.
We also need to understand that sin is not a thing, but is act and intentionality at a personal level and also at a social (or communal) level; the Law is universally valid. Thus the outcomes of unlawful acts is universally so, while accountability is at a personal level (God considers every act by us).
Moses articulated the law to Israel as part of the covenant and all of Israel agreed with that - thus they are accountable in a specific manner.
Law in the NT has several senses and is a tricky interpretation issue. It can mean the Mosaic law, but it can sometimes mean a more general ārevealed will of God.ā It can also refer to the written Hebrew Scriptures. (the Law and the Prophets)
1 John 3:4 says everyone who sins breaks the law and the definition of sin is lawlessness, so I agree with the idea of tying sin to a violation of Godās will, not just something that could be identified as unethical or immoral or hurtful to another.
But clearly, God held people accountable for sin before the Mosiac law was given. Maybe some people rule out Noah and Babel as not āhistorical,ā but it would be hard to argue they donāt teach the principle that sin incurs judgment. That is a main point of those narratives. But most Christians are going to see Abraham as historical in some sense and pretty essential to redemption history. In the narratives of Abrahamās life, sin is present, and people are held accountable to God for it. Abimelech asks Abraham how he could make him guilty of the sin of taking Sarah as his wife by lying to him about Sarah being his sister. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their sinfulness (Genesis 18:20).
Nah youāre right thatās what I said. Iām at fault since I miswrote. Sin did exist. It just wasnāt held accountable until after the Law, at least thatās my reading of Romans 5:13.
EDIT: Christy has shown that sin was in fact held accountable by God before the Law. So I guess Iām in a state of interpretational flux right now. What does Romans 5:13 mean?
You seem to be right, sin was accounted for before the Law. What is your interpretation of Romans 5:13 then?
Something I have just considered is perhaps its relation to post-mortem judgement. Could Romans 5:13 simply say God wonāt judge you in the afterworld, heaven or hell, before the Law? But you can still be punished on Earth for what you do on Earth. Thatās just something I thought up of right now. What do you think?
If you have already commented on a related point, please correct me.
Do you confirm and agree that what was to give Adam and Eve their immortality was eating the fruit from the Tree of Life. Yahweh himself affirms this when he discusses why Adam and Eve have to be expelled from Eden. It couldnāt get any more explicit.
So the question then is, do you think all the animals of Eden were also supposed to eat from that Tree? You arenāt proposing that all animal life was immortal ā¦ even without the Tree of Life are you?
If you are, then you are saying that Adam wiped immortality from the genetic nature of all these animals by sinning?
Ev, you do understand, donāt you, that there are millions of Eastern Orthdox Christians who, for 20 centuries, did not, and do not, think Adam passed any sin from generation to generation. Their position has been, all along, that the inclination to sin is inherent to the human body and mind ā¦ and that all Adam had to do was pass on the mortal nature of the human brain and body in order for sin to repeat itself in each generation.
Iām with Peter on Paul: āHis letters contain some things that are hard to understand.ā (1 Peter 3:16)
A surefire way to screw things up is to try to take one verse out of Paulās complicated argument and try to figure out what it means in isolation, so I wonāt try.
Iāve found some of the New Perspective on Paul stuff helpful in trying to approach Romans. From that perspective, the arguments are not about personal salvation (where the law is a failed vehicle of salvation and grace is a successful vehicle) but they are about what constitutes membership in the community of Godās redeemed people. Everything is kind of taken in light of the huge Jew/Gentile unification project that was the early church. Iām not totally sold on all of it, but I think there is something to the idea that Paul was much more concerned about preaching the resurrected Jesusā lordship and new rules for being counted part of Godās people (the Holy Spirit not Torah observance) than he was concerned about preaching the steps to go to heaven when we die.
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Hard to understand? Peterās got that right. I think Iāll revisit Richard Hays book on how Paul uses the OT in Romans to see if I can dig anything up tomorrow. Meanwhile its past midnight where I am right now so goodnight!
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I believe that Adam and Eveās immortality came from the fact they were created prefect and physical death did not yet exist. The Tree of Life gave them nourishment, yes, but was not the initial source of immortality. If they had eaten from it in their fallen state, I think they would have regained their immortality, that is way God exiled them from the garden, so they would not eat the fruit of life and live forever in their sinful state. It is not āexplicitlyā stated that their initial immortality came the Tree, only that eating from it in their fallen state would cause them to live forever in sin.
Since I donāt believe physical death of animals and humans existed before the Fall, yes I believe all animals were immortal. The Bible does not say whether or not Adam and Eve or the animals ate from the Tree of Life. Since God said they could eat from āevery treeā except the Tree of Knowledge, the animals could have eaten from it, but the text doesnāt say. As I said above, the Tree of Life was not the initial source of immortality, but became one after the Fall. Maybe the Cherubs that kept humans out of the garden after the Fall also drove away the animals. I donāt know.
I would say that after Adam sinned, physical death entered the world, including unto the animals. Whether or not that had a genetic component I cannot say, though since sin is a spiritual phenomenon, I doubt genetics was involved.
Adam passed on his sinful nature, ie. the inability to refrain from sinning, to all his descendants (ie. everybody who has ever lived). How that nature is passed onto the next generation I do not know. Let me know if someone discovers a āsin geneā 
But if older people are simply translated to the next life to make room for new people, they are still gone, right?
In a sense yes, but I imagine such a passing would be much different than the physical death we currently must experience to get to the next realm. In this hypothetical, old age would have nothing to do with it, since immortal people would be forever young (ie. Adam and Eve would look the same on the day they āpassed onā as they did on the day God created them). This āpassing onā would be something that could truly be celebrated, not grieved like the physical death of a loved one today. Also, in the pre-Fall world there would be no doubt that the loved one would be going to be with God. That would be quite a comfort.
Like I said, this is merely a āwhat if,ā purely hypothetical. Scripture does not give us enough data to be dogmatic about it, though it is a fascinating thought experiment.
And how on earth do you know this? Where does it say that Adam and Eve were immortal?
I frequently want to see how a poster treats an obvious biblical fact ā¦ before I spend any more time with him/her.
If you are going to make stuff up just to carry a point, I hardly think its worth my time (or the time of my colleagues) to try to steer you into a more credible position.
If you are discussing Adamās āinclination to sināā¦ then you are talking about his animal-based body, right?
He passed this onto his descendants via his DNA.
If you think he also passed on his actual Sin (the so-called Original Sin), thatās where the errors in theology are hidden.
Sin enters the world by people sinning. Seems like a pretty straightforward solution.
Romans 3: "23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. "
John 8: ā[6] This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. [7] So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.ā
I would think that Adam would only matter if you think you have never sinned in your entire lifetime. Otherwise, the source of sin is you.
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If you accept that physical death did not exist before the Fall (as many Christians believe), logically Adam and Eve would have been immortal (incapable of physically dying). The Tree of Life can give them something they already have. Since God do not want them eating from the Tree after the Fall, it follows that the Tree could return the immortality taken from them because of their sin.
I did not make up the idea that Adam and Eve were immortal or that physical death did not exist before the Fall. These ideas have been a part of Christianity since it was founded in the 1st century AD.
I donāt believe Adam had an āanimal-basedā body. He was a unique creation made in the image of God, not an animal modified by God after the fact.
While it is true that the sinful nature is most likely passed through the male line ā this is why Jesus had to be born of a virgin ā There is nothing in scripture or science to indicate it has a genetic component. If there was a genetic component, wouldnāt it theoretically be possible to remove our sinfulness from our genome and become sinless?
So naturally, you can provide a citation of the first mention of this?
Paul, writing c. 58 AD, states in Romans 5:12 that āTherefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.ā Man did not experience death (both physically and spiritually) until Adam sinned, therefore it would logically follow that Adam and Eve were immortal (incapable of physically dying) before the Fall.
You will probably claim I am misinterpreting Paul, but you canāt get a better āfirst mentionā then a Biblical author.
Of course you are misinterpreting Paul.
It is the body of flesh that dies. Adam had a body of flesh. And through DNA he passed this body onto all future generations.
āDeathā came through sin, because when Adam sinned, God wouldnāt let him stay near the Tree of Life. Itās right there in Genesis.
And what Paul says about death does not contravene any of that.