Did Death Exist Before the Fall (Romans 5:12)?

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[zachdavenport]

The point Paul was making in saying death reigned from Adam to Moses is that death as a consequence to sin was in place before the mosaic law was given. Your interpretation that it meant death stopped reigning (whether spiritually or physically) is foreign to the text. Plus, if you take that view and say it means spiritual death, you have to say that spiritual death stopped with Moses. That is clearly not the case as Jesus' mission was to rescue the world from spiritual death. He wouldn't have needed to if Moses fixed it.

[ProHunter_invencivel]

Human giving permission to kill and eat animal in Genesis one? That’s a stretch.
Dominion is harsh also a stretch. God has dominion over us all, is he harsh? A husband has dominion over his entire household, is he harsh with his household? Smh

[mwdiers]

An often overlooked argument for death before the fall is the matter of the Tree of Life. This tree is described after the fall as having the ability to preserve the life of man indefinitely. This tree was never forbidden to man before the fall. That begs the question: If the purpose of this tree was to maintain the life of man, and before the fall man could not die, but after the fall the tree was forbidden, why does the tree exist at all? It serves no purpose. The only rational conclusion is that the tree was there to maintain the life of man before the fall, which necessarily means that physical death existed before the fall. This, by the way was Luther's understanding of the Tree of Life.

[offlineterminated]

Doesn’t Paul also state that the creation was subjected to futility? If there was death before the fall why would god need to make animals vegetarians in the millennial kingdom as described in Isaiah if there were no problems with them eating meat and having death in the beginning?

[Pancakes]

Great concise video man. A couple kind hearted critiques: Your main argument on Romans 5:14 isn't super strong. It isn't like spiritual death ended after Moses either. You might also have to argue that Adam, Seth, and any other member of the "seed of the woman" didn't receive salvation. Romans 5:14 takes far more than a minute to exegete, so I totally understand. Van Ee is a prof of mine, so props for using his paper. He's arguing for animal death before the fall though, and it seems like you're arguing for animal and human death.

[somethinggood]

I have to disagree. When Adam and Eve sinned, they went and hid and clothed themselves in fig leaves. God was the one who made animal skins for them to wear to cover their nakedness. I believe that God could have killed the first animals for this purpose, to cover the nakedness of these Adam and Eve. I believe this is possibly a symbolic foreshadowing of the way that the Israelites would have to deal with their sins with animal sacrifices. We also know that Jesus came to fulfill and do away with the practice of animal sacrifices as He himself was the perfect sacrifice. Therefore, I believe that God making the animal skins in Genesis for Adam and Eve to wear, is a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Christ. He would be killed for the covering of His people's sins. I also believe that if Adam and Eve were eating animals in the garden, they would have had an abundance of animal skins to choose from, to hurriedly clothe themselves. The fact that they didn't do so leads me to believe they didn't have any excess animal skins lying around. Also, in the Bible it says that a fool is harsh to his animal, so I do not think that the Bible condones harsh dominion over animals. I believe we are to treat them as God's creation, and live alongside of them as best as we can. I believe that we can eat them for meat, but we should be aiming to treat animals as humanely as possible and as kindly as possible.

[jakethewhale]

I am not convinced by this argument. To be fair, this is a complicated topic that cannot be settled in the span of a youtube short.

[mecky]

Cool Video! But didn't Adam also lived after the fall? So "from Adam to Moses" could also refer to from Adam after the fall to Moses.

[viravirakti]

Genesis 1:28 does not say anything neither about allowance for eating animals, nor about the implications of the word "dominion", and it is actually clarified in the next verse gen 1:29, when God gave us all the plants, fruits and seeds for food, not the animals.
That's why this is later mentioned in gen.9:3, that "as I gave you the plants", now, after the flood, "I gave you everything". But this is not about whether death, particularly animal death, existed before the flood, only about what we were allowed to eat. Because plants are living creatures too (even according to gen 9:3: "everything that moves and has life is for food"), and eating them (like the roots and the herbs) would cause them death.
So that's why eating plants and not animals is what we are supposed to and can do as humans, although it is harder after the fall in a state of sin and separation from God, but not at all impossible, proved by the growing number of tens or hundreds of millions of vegetarians and vegans in the world.
Also, Paul, in Romans 5:12, clearly refers only to human death, through the sin of man; not to the death of all living creatures in the world. So he speaks about how the humans became mortal, or spiritually dead, not about how all creatures became mortal, because they most probably were already mortal, as we are not told the contrary, and animals and plants don't have the same ontological status as humans, they weren't made in the same way as humans were, although they were also living creatures.

[justanotherbaptistjew]

Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.
— Genesis 1:29-30

This is stated differently post-Flood, where meat is added.

[Lilia.....]

So what's the difference between the universe before the fall and after? If death was already existed

[jonascyvas]

very weak arguments. So if death existed before the fall, then Christ's sacrifice was pointless?..

[toonnaobi-okoye]

Humans weren't allowed to kill and eat animals in Genesis 1, the text clearly shows that

[stevie]

Sin results in both physical and spiritual death. Humans have a sinful nature cause of what Adam did. There was no death before Adam.

[ReverseUnicorn]

If you read genesis, Adam and Eve were kicked out so they didn't eat from the Tree of Life, thus implying they only would have become immortal if they had eaten the fruit. Which only makes sense if they were mortal in the first place.

[thedoctorfez]

This is like my one sticking point and you explained it very well (I struggle to understand death before the fall). Do you have a longer video on this topic?

[BaniLogrono]

i read this intriguing reddit theory where sin corrupted creation so much that it caused both the deaths before and after the fall occurred.

[varun]

Apostle Paul very likely believed that the first physical death on Earth was after the fall. These twisting of Paul's words helps no one.

[moosechuckle]

Your channel very informative and educational. The more and more I dig into my faith and the word, the more and more I discover that these modern translations don’t do the Bible justice. Although you can read the Bible as is, if you want a deeper relationship with Christ, it’s absolutely vital to learn from other Christian’s that have a background in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and have a basic understanding of eastern history.

[bigkick]

No meat eating until AFTER the flood. Thats when God put the fear of man in every beast.