Thank you for the comment linking the dead with prayers for the dead and the fact that the dead aren't really dead.
When Jesus says, in Luke, that 'some of you will be killed', but then promises that not a hair on their head will be harmed and they'll all keep their lives, it seems like a direct contradiction.
But of course it isn't. Jesus is talking about life, not just physical life. The body dies, but the soul goes on.
I always say that Jesus is the prism by which the whole rest of the Bible must be interpreted. It didn't dawn on me until your comment last night to apply that directly to the eating of the fruit and the curse of Adam and death.
Read through Jesus, the death in Genesis makes sense, and Genesis need not then be read to mean, perforce, that nothing physically died before Adam. Dinosaurs, for instance. They may have physically died, but to the extent than at animal has a soul, it didn't die. To the extent they don't, it didn't die either, because it was never "alive" in the first place, in the spiritual sense.
Of course there is still the problem that Genesis pretends that all (land) animals (it is silent about the fish) were vegetarians before The Fall, but dinosaurs weren't. "My, my, Grandma T-Rex, what BIG TEETH you have!" So I still cannot take Genesis literally as to natural science, but an important spiritual lesson about death, specifically human death (the Bible isn't the gospel to the animals, so whatever their relationship is with God, we do not know...other than the cryptic line in Genesis in the story of Noah that God will hold animals accountable, too, for the human blood they share. NDE experiencers report animals and plants in the place they go to, and there's no reason to disbelieve that, considering God proclaimed those things good and obviously took delight in making them. Anyway, Fido's relationship with the Almighty is none of our business - the Bible is about man's relationship to God).
So, thanks again for making the connection. It was fruitful.
You're welcome.
Where Adam & Eve once knew only good...
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
See it now? Adam & Eve were the parents of all who "live", they were the parents of God's "chosen people". When you look at the sixth day again, you may see men & women were created on that day, plural. Notice how "adam" (man, men, mankind) is used in Genesis 1, while "Adam" is used in Genesis 2.
The Bible tells the story of God's "chosen people", yet it offers us clues about the exsistance of other people. Cain went to live in the land of Nod, "away from the face of earth", away from the face of God & he married. Where'd his wife come from?
Anyway, there's a purpose to all of the "begets", knowing how to identify the children of Adam's line. He was the father of all who live. Mary's lineage is given in Luke.