Howard quoted Guy Blanchet
>"I have been reading comments from people asking questions about death in
>the beginning of Adam and Eve's stay in the garden of Eden. The various
>comments reflect an apparent difficulty in linking sin with death.
>Maybe it's just that the concept of sin has become fuzzy over the
>years."
>
Then wrote
>No, it is because the paleontological record--the ordered array of fossils
>embedded in the earth's crust--says loudly and clearly that the cycle of
>life and death in the plant and animal world operated for billions of years
>before the presence of humans capable of sinning.
The idea that physical death of animals is a consequence of Adam's sin is
not easy to support logically, and I just came across some Scripture that
also (to my mind) throws some doubt on that interpretation: 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 men, because all sinned...
It's clearly talking about death for humans, and it clearly ties that death
to sin.
There is no clear connection here with the death of animals.
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
Staff Research Engineer
Electrical and Controls Integration MC 480-106-390
GM R&D Center
30500 Mound Road
Warren, MI
hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com / whamilto@mich.com (home)