That depends what you mean.
If the question is, “Did humans die before the fall?” the answer is obviously no. In Genesis 2:17, God tells Adam that if he eats of the fruit of the garden, that day he will surely die. Paul affirms this in Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—”
So, any theory of the Genesis account that allows the death of man before the Fall contradicts scripture.
But notice what these texts do NOT say. Neither Genesis 2:17 nor Romans 5:12 speak of death as it applies to plants, animals, or other living organisms. Romans 5:12 defines the death that entered the world as the death that “spread to all men.” The death of Romans 5:12 is a death that applies to sinful men as a consequence of their sinful nature. Therefore it cannot be applied to the rest of creation, because the rest of creation isn’t sinful in the sense that it rebelled against God, nor does the rest of creation fall under the category of “all men”. Furthermore, God says to Adam in Genesis 2:17 – “In the day you eat of it, YOU shall surely die.” God never threatens Adam with the death of anything but himself and his descendants, and it might even be asked, “If Adam had never witnessed death, what would this warning mean to Adam?”
Finally, notice God’s pre-fall command to Adam: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.” This means Adam had permission to end the life-cycle of living organisms in order to nourish his body, and God said that it was good. So if “death” is defined as “ending the live cycle of any living organism” then the answer is yes – there was death before the fall. But if death is defined as the punishment for humanity due to our sinful nature, the answer is no – there was no death.
So what about animals? While the Bible doesn’t specifically say anything about animal death before the fall, it certainly leaves the possibility. It doesn’t seem logical to conclude that God would allow the “death” of vegetation, but not other non-human living organisms. It’s certainly possible – but it’s also not clear.
Let’s recap: Was there death before the Fall? No. Yes. Maybe so.
godstory.wordpress.com 
I don’t know. While I don’t make Young Earth Creationism a matter of division among brothers, this line of thinking doesn’t seem to take the whole of Scripture’s teaching into mind.
Paul, when setting up an argument to encourage the Roman Christians to endure suffering because their (and our) suffering is not arbitrary but has a purpose and will be complete some day, says in Romans 8 that all Creation is suffering now, and has been suffering since the beginning, directly because God cursed it in until the end when the children of God are fully revealed (it seems that Paul is looking at our future resurrection into glorified bodies).
If animal death (natural disasters, droughts, etc), aren’t part of this curse that God put on the Creation then what is? What was the “good” thing (from God’s pronouncement at the end of the Creation week) taken out, taken away, or hindered – which is what is implied by calling it a “curse” – in the created world where it itself longs for the Second Coming of Christ to set things right? If death is not in view, then what is it looking forward to? If only the realm of humanity,as such, is touched by Christ’s redemption then it becomes difficult to justify a Christian theology toward the environment, the arts, scientific investigation and any other realm that’s not strictly human-only.
It’s assumed, and I think with a lot of Biblical reasoning behind it, that with Adam’s fall God subjected the physical world to the same sort of limitations that its former steward now had. The OT History books demonstrate and the wisdom books talk about how the character of a kingdom is a reflection of its king. Israel was strong and righteous under David, superficially righteous under Solomon and then things got horribly worse. The Kingdom of God is marked by how the loving, stately, creative and holy character of the King is reflected in its citizens. Adam was given rulership over the Earth, so when he sinned and God sentenced him and all in him with death, his kingdom and all that he ruled over was cursed as well.
I’m of the opinion that, strictly speaking, scientific biological death and Biblical death aren’t exactly the same concepts. It seems that in the Bible only things that have “breath” (a “spirit”) are considered living regardless of their biological makeup. Now as to what “breath” entails…? The bible is fuzzy about that, but I’d say that it’s probably the soul-spirit or the personality. Which is why donkeys and dogs and pigs are considered “alive” where trees and rocks and the sun aren’t.
So yeah, now I’m rambling. But one last point, in the form of a question: Isn’t it a longstanding Christian belief (from the early church and on), that Adam’s fall and the curse included death in the animal world?
Arthur,
We agree on the curse of creation – because of Adam’s sin, all of creation is under a curse as you rightly point out. He was given charge over the world, so when he fell, all of creation became subject to a curse. I think the question is – is biological death part of the curse, or part of the way God created the world?
If the view that animal death came into the world with the fall of Adam is historically the viewpoint of the church…I guess I’d need some resources to back it up.
Thanks for the thoughtful, biblical response.
Nick
Creation Ministries Internaitonal, Answers in Genesis, and others have information on this topic. Try the search features on their websites, which seem to work pretty well.
From memory, I believe the Hebrew uses two different words to describe plant life and animal life, and the word to describe animal life is the same word for human life. Something about having breath, as Arthur mentioned. Therefore, there are two different types of “biological death” even though we use the same word in English. Because of this, Creationists seem to agree that animal death probably did not occur until after the curse even though plant death probably did.
Interestingly, they also talk about how meat was probably not eaten until after the flood, and how the environment was probably very different before that world-changing event. The larger variety of plant life may have been sufficient for all the nutrients people/animals needed.
By the way, it’s possible to eat from a tree without killing it!
Hey Jeremy,
Clearly the Bible distinguishes between animal life and human life, right? Even if animals do have “breath”, does that mean they didn’t experience death before the fall? Who says?
On tree-killing – Obviously the tree doesn’t die when the fruit is eaten. But the fruit would cease its life-cycle as a fruit and become part of a different organism, a process that could be described as biological death.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Oh, I don’t think they’re dogmatic about it because Scripture doesn’t clearly say that animals did not die. It just seems to be a likely possibility given the implications.
Genesis 1 talks about how plants were given to animals to eat but says nothing of animals eating animals. Isaiah 3 describes a restored paradise in which animals will not eat each other. Of course, this isn’t necessarily incompatible with other forms of animal death. Any form of death would have to be “very good,” though, because that’s how God described his creation.
I agree that plants probably did die because eating does seem to imply this. Again, however, Scripture doesn’t make this absolutely clear as far as I can tell. Fruit eating doesn’t necessarily end the cycle because if the seeds/pits aren’t eaten (yuck) they can still grow.
So, yeah, we seem to agree that it’s not absolutely clear.
“Was there death before the Fall? No. Yes. Maybe so.”
Hey Nick, what’s the opposite of dogmatic?
😉
Tim
Easy. Catmatic.
Conversation between two theologians:
“Woof.”
“Meow.”
“Woof.”
“Meow.”
LOL.
I’m gonna get really deep with this answer: “No.”
The very fact that man and beasts would have to EAT clearly means they were mortal. This is why in his Incarnatione Verbe Dei, Athanasius views Adam’s immortality as not part of his nature but a superadded grace which he could only retain while he was obedient. But even that view fails the reality test – if he had to eat, he was mortal.