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  • From: "Scott McAliley" <scottanderin1 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Dying, you will die Gen 2:17
  • Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:33:41 -0500

Harold,
Thanks for getting a quick response out!
You said that they had no other command, and it is true that they had no other negative command, but were they not positively commanded to eat of every tree in the garden? When they were told to eat of every tree in the garden(which includes the tree of life), most translations seem to render it something like, "Of any of the trees, you may freely eat", but if the two tenses of die are an emphatic statement about death, are the two "eat"s not an emphatic command to eat from ALL of the trees, not simply a license to eat from ANY? And if so, by violating the negative command of not eating from the more enticing tree of knowledge, did they not jeopardize their ability to follow the positive command to eat from every other tree, including the one that, according to Scripture, would have given them eternal life? Can you clarify the Hebrew for me, as it regards the phrase containing the two "eat"s? I apologize for my ignorance, and that my only knowledge of Hebrew comes from the Strong's, what I've gained from and e-sword, but it seems from what I've been told about two tenses of the same verb increasing the intensity of the verb, and from the Strong's definition of ko&#770;l, which is "every" and "all", that they disobeyed two commands, the positive and the negative.

Thanks for your help,
Scott McAliley


From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dying, you will die Gen 2:17
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:09:41 -0500
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Scott McAliley wrote:
> But from a theological (or at least logical) standpoint, I'm not sure
> that my theory that Adam and Eve were already dying before sin doesn't
> still have a little life in it, even if the "dying,die" phrase doesn't
> add anything to it. If eating from the tree of life after rebelling
> would have caused them to go on living forever, then eating of it
> before sin would have as well. But it seems apparent that they had
> not eaten of it, since barring them from it was part of their
> punishment for sin, and we are told specifically that this was done so
> they would not reach out their hands, take, eat, and live forever.
> And what is something that will not live forever, but something that
> is dying?

HH: The logic does not sway me. Adam and Eve were created very good.
They were not immortal, but neither were they dying. They were simply
alive and would continue that way unless they sinned. If they ate from
the forbidden fruit, they would die. If they didn't eat the forbidden
fruit, there might be other ways that they could sin and die, but there
was no other direct commandment given to them. So that command about the
fruit was their point of testing. As long as they obeyed it, presumably
they would live, yet with no guarantee of immortality. Apparently they
needed to seek out immortality through the tree of life, something they
never did. Perhaps God did not even explain to them the function of the
tree of life to prior to their disobedience. So they were alive and not
dying until they broke the commandment, but they could die and so were
not immortal.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard
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