RE: The Curse - Upon All Creation or Just Mankind?

Hello Charles,

I'm somewhat late in jumping in as I've been extremely busy. I have enjoyed
reading your comments as most of your ideas are in line with my own. I did
want to make a couple of quick comments, though.

You wrote: "By looking at other writings of ancient Hebrews over the
centuries, it seems as though the idea of life after death didn't exist
early on in their thinking. David wrote in Psalm 6 - "No one remembers You
when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave?"

I don't believe the verse you quoted is evidence that the idea of life after
death didn't exist early on in the thinking of Hebrews. There are several
verses that describe the patriarchs being "gathered unto their people" after
their death. This seems to indicate the concept of a spiritual life after
death.

Also, you gave the following example: "At the begining of this semester, I
started teaching my first large college class. I told my students (~100 in
the class) that if anyone missed an exam with an unexcused absence, they
would receive a zero for that exam. It just so happened that a very good
student happened to oversleep his alarm on exam day. I hadn't thought about
the policy very much before I made it. Now I had a chance to really think
this through. A zero on an exam is twice as bad as a 50% failure. I
decided that was too harsh of a penalty, as it amounted to a student failing
two of 5 exams. I know he didn't intentionally oversleep, and I know I've
done exactly what he did in the past. So I changed my mind about the
student's punishment for his wrong actions, and decided to be more merciful.
Is it so obsurd that God could have also decided He really didnt' want them
to die that day, and instead gave a different, less severe punishment!"

I don't believe God ever gives a command or a warning without having fully
thought it through. I would go so far as to say that would be an
impossibility. In fact, in His omniscience, I believe He already knew that
Adam and Eve would disobey His command before He gave it. So no, I don't
think He changed His mind. I have no doubt that Adam and Eve immediately
experienced spiritual death and separation from God the day they disobeyed
Him, but I believe that physical death was also an eventual result.

In Christ,

Mike

________________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Charles Carrigan

Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 10:44 PM

To: asa@calvin.edu

Subject: Re: The Curse - Upon All Creation or Just Mankind?

<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><

Charles W. Carrigan

Olivet Nazarene University

Natural Sciences Division

One University Ave.

Bourbonnais, IL 60914

PH: (815) 939-5346

FX: (815) 939-5071>>> "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> 9/25/2004
3:01:35 PM >>>

On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:14:39 -0500 "Charles Carrigan" <CCarriga@olivet.edu>
writes:

I am not so convinced that when we read "death" in Gen. 2-4 that it must be
interpreted as spiritual death. Many people seem to want to remove physical
death as part of the curse for various reasons. One is that clearly there
is death in the fossil record and therefore pre-human and presumably
pre-fall, and there are other reasons as well given on occasion. But I am
not convinced that we should try to integrate every detail of this story
with other sources of historical information to make a coherent picture -
rather, it is sometimes better to let the story simply say what it wants to
say. It seems to me especially dangerous to try and integrate a story that
has a walking talking serpent as a main character with all of what we
currently know about natural and anthropological history. Remember also
that two of the other main characters are named 'Dust' and 'Mother of All
the Living'. That being said, I'm not convined tha! ! t the ancients who
wrote this story were really separating spiritual and physical death the way
many people today seem to do. Death is the end of life as we know it, and
although today we might say "no it isn't because of eternal spiritual life",
there doesn't appear to have been a concept of life after death in the
ancient hebrew culture. Some of the wisdom writings illustrate this. Even
in Christ's day, there was debate between the leaders of Judaism as to
whether there was a resurrection of the dead. So in the story, Adam ate the
fruit, and he didn't immediately die physically. There are other
possibilities besides "this means that 'death' meant spiritual". Perhaps
God simply changed His mind, and let them contiue to live! He has certainly
been known to and is free to do that.

Whether the ancients recognized spiritual death as we do I cannot say. I
wasn't there. But Genesis 2:17 declares that the _day_ of eating he dies.
This is explicit in the Hebrew text however it is translated. But Adam's
physical life continued for centuries. Seems to me that equating the death
on eating to losing physical life makes the passage nonsense.

Dave

I clearly wasn't around at the time either, but I wasn't around when
dinosaurs walked the earth. That doesn't mean we can't know anything about
what was going on at the time. By looking at other writings of ancient
Hebrews over the centuries, it seems as though the idea of life after death
didn't exist early on in their thinking. David wrote in Psalm 6 - "No one
remembers You when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave?"

Gen. 2:17 says that "for when you eat of it you will surely die." (NIV).
Most translations are a little more emphatic about it, saying 'on that day'
and such. Yes, this is pretty explicit. This was a warning to Adam (Eve
wasn't around yet). However, Adam and Eve didn't die (physically) on the
day they ate the fruit. Is it so nonsensical that God could have simply
changed His mind about the punishment He would inflict upon them?

At the begining of this semester, I started teaching my first large college
class. I told my students (~100 in the class) that if anyone missed an exam
with an unexcused absence, they would receive a zero for that exam. It just
so happened that a very good student happened to oversleep his alarm on exam
day. I hadn't thought about the policy very much before I made it. Now I
had a chance to really think this through. A zero on an exam is twice as
bad as a 50% failure. I decided that was too harsh of a penalty, as it
amounted to a student failing two of 5 exams. I know he didn't
intentionally oversleep, and I know I've done exactly what he did in the
past. So I changed my mind about the student's punishment for his wrong
actions, and decided to be more merciful. Is it so obsurd that God could
have also decided He really didnt' want them to die that day, and instead
gave a different, less severe punishment?&n! bsp;

Best,

Charles
Received on Sat Oct 2 12:15:40 2004