Well, it happened again as it has so very many times and will continue happening. During the Q&A time of the Sye Ten Bruggencate versus Matt Dillahunty debate (titled Refining Reason), a member of the audience stated that YHVH lied by stating that if Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would die “in the day that thou eatest thereof,” here is the text:
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Genesis 2:16-17).
Seems clear enough; in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die .
There are no people who take the Bible more literally than Atheists. And yet, literalism seems to be generally misunderstood. Let us put it this way; the Bible should be taken as it is intended.
Taking a text out of context to make a pretext for a prooftext is faulty. There are cultural contexts, historical context, literary contexts (in terms of genre, etc.) and others such as the one upon which we will focus; grammatical context (both immediate context and greater context).
The Bible expresses an originally prefect, all “good” and “very good,” creation wherein death had no part but life was eternal. Proverbs 8:36 states, “all they that hate me love death” and biblically, death is a curse.
Note that “therefore you shalt surely die” is a dynamic translation of a repetition of the Hebrew word muwth (Strong’s H4191) so that, at this point, the Hebrew reads, “muwth muwth.” The word muwth is a very common word for common death which, for example, occurs 835 times in 694 verses in the Hebrew concordance of the KJV.
When we consider the immediate context of Genesis 1 and 2 we understand that death was not a part of life and that therefore, it was being introduced as an option, in a manner of speaking, in Genesis 2:16-17.
The myopic view is that since YHVH stated in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die this means that once they bit the fruit, they would bite the big one within that 24 hour period. However, muwth muwth has been described as denoting something to the likes of dying you will die in terms of meaning that from that very day you will be changed into the sort of beings who will, eventually, die.
This marks a crucial turning point in creation and is called “the fall.” Romans 5:12-17 elucidates this in detail:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law). Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.
The claim is not that by one man sin entered into the world, and he died on the day he sinned. Rather, it is that the sin of that day brought about death in general, death came into creation on that day as part of the furniture of the universe, as it were.
When not engaging the text as is, Atheists, and anyone else, succeed only in discrediting themselves whilst leaning the Bible unscathed.