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Now if evolution is correct, then death must be good. And yet, the serpent told Eve that she would most certainly not die if she eats of the fruit. If death was not part of creation, then it is logically inconsistent to suppose that it was the mechanism through which God created man (or even the rest of the animal kingdom).

Without death there would be no Resurrection. "Unless a seed falls to the ground..."

Death is good, because Jesus made it so.

You confuse bodily death with spiritual death. Animals don't have spiritual eternal life, so it really does not matter if their bodies live or die.

Humans are important. And Adam and Eve did have eternal spiritual life. When they fell, they lost fellowship with God, they lost eternal spiritual life. It's not about their bodies and it's not about whether animals lived or died before Adam and Eve.

(P.S The serpent was lying.)

What you said is absolute utter farcical nonsense.

First off, man has both a physical and spiritual body. The latter being the soul. The soul lives eternally. Spiritual death is that of eternal and infinite separation from God. This occured immediately at the fall. That is the greatest distance in all of the universe and heavens: between man and God. That physical death did not occur immediately is immaterial.

If I understand you correctly, you seem to be making some argument about soul annihilation. That's heretical poppycock. Secondly, that animals don't have souls is immaterial if not irrelevent and whether or not their bodies live or die is not even germane. What is at issue is whether or not physical death existed prior to the fall.

In Gen 2:17 the Lord spelled out the rules. He stipulated that this means death. The Hebrew word used is Müth. According to Zhodiates, this word means

to die, to kill, slay, bring to death, have one executed. Scriptures present death as being unnatural as something which God did not to happen, but which is very necessary. God takes no pleasure in it (Ez 18:342). But it is [emph. mine] a result of sin (Gen 3:3). A holy God must separate Himself from anything which is not in harmony with His character.

Strongs #04191 (müwth, mooth) a primitive root: to die (literally or figuratively); causatively, to kill:--X at all, X crying, (be) dead (body, man, one), (put to, worthy of) death, destroy(-er), (cause to, be like to, must) die, kill, necro(-mancer), X must needs, slay, X surely, X very suddenly, X in (no) wise.

According to Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, by Vine, Unger & White:

This verb occurs in all Semitic languages (including biblical Aramaic) from the earliest times, and in Egyptian. The verb occurs about 850 times in the biblical Hebrew and in all periods.
Essentially, müwlt means "to lose one's life." The word is used of physical [emph. mine] death, with reference to both man and animal. Gen 5:5 records that Adam lived "nine hundred and thirty years; and he died." Jacob explains to Easu that were his livestock to be driven to hard (fast), the young among them would die. In Job 14:8 it is used of a stump of a plant.. Occasionally müwlt is used figuratively of land (Gen 33:13), or of wisdom (Job 12:2). Then too, is the hyperbolic expression that Nabal's heart had died within him (I Sam 25:37).
In an intensive stem, this root is used of the last act inflcted upon one who is already near death (Judge 9:54). In the usual causative stem, this verb can mean "to cause to die" or "to kill"; God is the one who "puts to death" and gives life (Dt. 32:39)...This word means putting to death in the broadest sense, including war and judicial sentances of execution (Josh. 10:26).

There is absolutely no hermeneutical basis for your assertion, except for that's what you want it to mean so as to reconcile your belief in evolution. The rest of your argument that death is good because without it there'd be no Resurrection, or because Jesus made it so is worse than specious.

You did get one thing right: the serpent did lie.