How do those who believe in no death before the fall understand the Tree of Life

JackRT said:

But he didn't. Nor did Eve.

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5 and~he~will~CALL.OUT(Verb) (וַיִּקְרָא / wai'yiq'ra) Elohiym (אֱלֹהִים / e'lo'him) to~LIGHT (לָאוֹר / la'or) DAY (יוֹם / yom) and~to~DARKNESS (וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ / wê'la'hho'shekh) he~did~CALL.OUT(Verb) (קָרָא / qa'ra) NIGHT (לָיְלָה / lai'lah) and~he~will~EXIST(Verb) (וַיְהִי / wai'hi) EVENING (עֶרֶב / e'rev) and~he~will~EXIST(Verb) (וַיְהִי / wai'hi) MORNING (בֹקֶר / vo'qer) DAY (יוֹם / yom) UNIT (אֶחָד / e'hhad)

and Elohiym called out to the light, day, and to the darkness he called out, night, and evening existed and morning existed, a day unit,

17 and~from~TREE (וּמֵעֵץ / u'mey'eyts) the~DISCERNMENT (הַדַּעַת / ha'da'at) FUNCTIONAL (טוֹב / tov) and~DYSFUNCTIONAL (וָרָע / wa'ra) NOT (לֹא / lo) you(ms)~will~EAT(Verb) (תֹאכַל / to'khal) FROM~him (מִמֶּנּוּ / mi'me'nu) GIVEN.THAT (כִּי / ki) in~DAY (בְּיוֹם / bê'yom) you(ms)~>~EAT(Verb) (אֲכָלְךָ / a'khal'kha) FROM~him (מִמֶּנּוּ / mi'me'nu) >~DIE(Verb) (מוֹת / mot) you(ms)~will~DIE(Verb) (תָּמוּת / ta'mut)

but from the tree of discernment of function and dysfunction you will not eat from him, given that in the day you eat from him you will surely die,
The Torah: Genesis 2

The word for day in Gen. 1 is written differently in the original Hebrew than the word day used in Gwen. 2

(בְּיוֹם / bê'yom)
(יוֹם / yom)

Yom is a 24 hr day---dark and light
beyom is an age or eon, season


The Hebrew word for day is yom and this word appears in Scriptures over 1400 times. And without exception this word, when written in the singular sense, means day. And that's it. Never anything else. Eons are indicated with the plural form: days, as in the days of such and such. The most popular counter argument is that the meaning of our word is fiercely restricted to 'day' for about a thousand times in the sequential Scriptures, but in the secluded chapter of Genesis 1 means something completely different! But honestly, if in Genesis 1 our word should have meant 'long time' it would have said 'long time'. There are words available in Hebrew that mean just that. None of which occur in Genesis 1.
The word as used in Genesis 1 means day and day alone. There's no way around it
The yom problem in addressing Genesis 1

Rubiks said:

What purpose does it serve?

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The death that God created is regeneration. Cells die when they multiply which enables zygotes to become babies, then children, then adults. The Death that is our enemy is the regenerative process failing. If sin never occurred, once a child matured into an adult all the cells would perfectly regenerate with no aging. The Tree Of Life would have sealed that process so it could never fail. The process of regeneration was restored in Christ, but is currently only in place with our created spirits. When our bodies die, and we receive our glorified bodies, perfect regeneration will be permanently sealed granting us immortality.

As material beings we are fortunate to have death because it provided us a means of salvation. Angelic beings do not die. So for all the angels that followed Lucifer in his rebellion, there is no salvation for them. This is why the Lake of Fire was prepared for Satan and his demons, not mankind. But if people reject the salvation of Christ, then they are siding with Satan, which is why they will join him in the Lake of Fire after the White Throne Judgment. They will know that they deserve the damnation they receive because it was their choice when they reject the Gospel.

I believe it was the food Jesus said the disciples didn't know about at the well in Samaria.

Rubiks said:

What purpose does it serve?

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It represents human potential and experiences as a communal member of God. The life and knowledge that would be enjoyed living with God in harmony for eternity.

mmksparbud said:

Baloney.

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Yep.

Rubiks said:

Actually JackRT, is right. Judaism didn't become adamantly monotheistic until after Babylonian exile.

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No. Where did you get that idea from?

Rubiks said:

What purpose does it serve?

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The Tree of Life is Jesus Christ.

Rubiks said:

Actually JackRT, is right. Judaism didn't become adamantly monotheistic until after Babylonian exile. I did however hold YHWH is the only being worthy of worship.

Exodus 15:11 (NRSV) “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, doing wonders?

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They still keep digging up those little statues of gods all over Israel. They kept falling away. That is not what I meant. I simply meant among the true Jews of which there always was a remnant.

I believe that Jews were unfaithful until after the Exile. I don't believe that Yahweh originated as a pantheon god, and I am surprised a Christian can believe that kind of stuff.

Well if you believe what the Bible says...

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. - 1 Corinthians 15:21

Rubiks said:

What purpose does it serve?

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God commanded Adam to eat of any tree other than the free of knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of life was permitted.

The sting of death is sin. Originally in the garden of eden there was no death. But then death entered the world through Adam and eve disobedience (sin)

JackRT said:

Well, first the Bible does not say "the LORD God", it says "Elohim" which refers to the pantheon of Middle Eastern gods of which the Hebrews regarded El as the chief God. They did not want Adam to live forever so they threw him out lest he eat of the Tree of Life.So, like every other living thing, Adam was born to die. It also suggests that to be a god all that was needed to know good from evil and to live forever. It is a very poetic and metaphorical story.

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This story seems to be popular on skeptic sites and the History channel. But refuted JEDP theory seems to reside in dusty libraries.

And in Genesis chapter 2 in fact the HaShem or the Name is used:
Genesis 2: LEB
15 And Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it. 16 And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From every tree of the garden you may freely eat, 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eatfrom it you shall surely die.”

18 Then Yahweh God said, “it is not good that the man is alone. I will make for him a helper as his counterpart.” 19 And out of the ground Yahweh God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and he brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called that living creature was its name. 20 And the man gave names to every domesticated animal and to the birds of heaven and to all the wild animals. But for the man there was not found a helper as his counterpart. 21 And Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. While he slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh where it had been. 22 And Yahweh God fashioned the rib which he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 And the mansaid,

The Lexham English Bible from Logos is the modern word for word translation to the English language.

Bolded in codex below:
בראשית 2:4 Hebrew OT: Westminster Leningrad Codex
אֵ֣לֶּה תֹולְדֹ֧ות הַשָּׁמַ֛יִם וְהָאָ֖רֶץ בְּהִבָּֽרְאָ֑ם בְּיֹ֗ום עֲשֹׂ֛ות יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶ֥רֶץ וְשָׁמָֽיִם

Hebrew Concordance: Yah·weh -- 6218 Occurrences

wonderkins said:

Well if you believe what the Bible says...

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. - 1 Corinthians 15:21

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Yah--and??
by the sin of Adam came death, buy the death of Jesus, came life which we will get back when Jesus returns and the saved are resurrected into eternal life--we get the tree back then.

Rubiks said:

What purpose does it serve?

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In Eden Adam and Eve were created perfect as to their natures, and yet they were still neutral, so to speak, in their relation to God. Being rational creatures with free will they were morally responsible for their actions: they had choices to make; they could do right and they could do wrong. And their primary and most immediate choice to make was to choose God, in a sense, by choosing obedience to Him. The gift of immortality was theirs, but would remain theirs only as they chose to be subjugated to the One who held the power of life over death and who, alone, deserved their full love and devotion, a truth which they hadn't yet come to appreciate.

IMO, to eat of the Tree of Life would be to leave their neutral state and step more positively towards righteousness, towards goodness, towards justice. It would be to move towards or nearer to God, to feed off of Him, recognizing their unceasing and total need for and dependency on Him. This would only mean, and could only authentically result from, loving Him with their whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is the true definition of justice for man, that which makes him just.

Instead Adam and Eve did otherwise, by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they denied their dependency on and need for God; they made their bid for autonomy; they became their own "gods" by denying His godhood. This was essentially an act of unbelief, which is why faith is the first step back to God for man. And they died, by spiritually separating themselves from the source of their lives, and of their love and full happiness. And physical death entered their world as well, paralleling experientially, viscerally, what had happened spiritually inside. Anyway, here's a teaching I've come to appreciate:

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

All physical bodies are mortal, therefore I believe that the tree of life was something that would transform them into spiritual beings (like our bodies will be spiritual after the resurrection).

In a more general sense, it symbolized Jesus Christ, a faith in Him.

Perhaps I'm interpreting scripture wrong but don't we become immortal when we are given our new Sinless bodies when Jesus returns? So the tree of life is not required for immortality because we won't be able to eat from the tree of life until AFTER the 1,000 years are over and the heavens and the Earth are recreated.

What the purpose of the Tree of life is I don't know but, I don't think it's required to eat from to maintain our immortality. I could be wrong.

Rubiks said:

What purpose does it serve?

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I'm pretty sure that they ate from the tree of life before the fall.

Then, after they sinned, God said that they better get them out of the garden before they ate from the tree of life....This was not forbidden.

The only forbidden food was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

So, whether they ate the fruit of the tree of life before... is of no consequence. They were immortal.

After they sinned, however, God did not want them to eat this fruit.. So...



Genesis 3:1-24
Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"-- therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

JacksBratt said:

I'm pretty sure that they ate from the tree of life before the fall.

Then, after they sinned, God said that they better get them out of the garden before they ate from the tree of life

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You contradict yourself.