It's not irrelevant as it shows where sin came from and what it caused -death.
If sin caused death then death was not simply a by product of life going on for millions of years of evolution either. It shows death as a foreigner, an enemy that came in due to sin.
It is also reaffirmed by scripture that it was one man that caused it not all of mankind.
Romans 5:12 ►Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
So is death just a normal by product of life or is it the direct result of sin? This is an important distinction.
And don't say it simply means spiritual death, Adam and Eve were told they would literally die as well.
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
This happened because he listen to his wife and was disobedient to God.
This post assumes that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are an accurate account of historic events—an assumption that has been proven incorrect! However, a few notes on Romans 5:12-14 are in order.
5:12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—
13. sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law.
14. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. (NRSV)
Having written in chapter three that we have all sinned, Paul here deals with the handful of Jews, who like him, were blameless under the law,
Philippians 3:4. even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:
5. circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
6. as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
To these Jews, Paul argues from Genesis that they sinned in Adam—the proof being that “death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam” even though “sin is not reckoned when there is no law.” However, Paul’s use of Genesis in his argument does in no way prove that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are an accurate account of historic events. Paul, according to his own testimony, was “circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee. Therefore, he would have mistakenly believed Gen. 1:6-9,
6. And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
7. So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so.
8. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. NRSV)
6. Then God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other.” And so it happened:
7. God made the dome, and it separated the water above the dome from the water below it.
8. God called the dome “the sky.” Evening came, and morning followed-the second day.(NAB)
6 God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters to separate the waters from each other.” 7 God made the dome and separated the waters under the dome from the waters above the dome. And it happened in that way. 8 God named the dome Sky.
There was evening and there was morning: the second day. (CEB)
6. dixit quoque Deus fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum et dividat aquas ab aquis
7. et fecit Deus firmamentum divisitque aquas quae erant sub firmamento ab his quae erant super firmamentum et factum est ita
8. vocavitque Deus firmamentum caelum et factum est vespere et mane dies secundus
(Latin Vulgagte)
6 And God seide, The firmament be maad in the myddis of watris, and departe watrisfro watris.
7And God made the firmament, and departide the watristhat weren vndurthe firmament fro these watris that weren on the firmament; and it was don so.
8 And God clepide the firmament, heuene. And the euentid and morwetid was maad, the secounde dai. (Wycliffe Bible)
Gen. 1:6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. (KJV)
This word firmament comes to us from the Latin word
firmamentum which literally express the concept “that which strengthens or supports”. In Genesis 1:6-8, the word expresses the concept of the strong, solid dome that supported the water above the dome. Few people today correctly understand the word firmament as it is used in the KJV, but mistakenly believe that it means the “atmosphere.”
The ancient Hebrew people believed that the earth was flat and covered with a solid dome with windows or floodgates in it through which the celestial floodwaters fell. (Gen. 7:11), and that incorrect cultural belief appears in the story of Noah’s Ark.
