Fall of Man: Literal or Metaphorical?

How can a Christian believe in an old Earth (more than 6,000-10,000 years) since this would imply that there was death before the fall of man and Paul says in Romans 5:12 that death came after the Fall?

The “one man” Paul speaks of is clearly Adam, so to know whether Paul is speaking of physical death or spiritual death we need to look back at the creation story (the one beginning with Gen 2:4). I think it’s abundantly obvious that this story is heavily metaphorical. First consider all the clear metaphor in the passage:

"the LORD God had planted a garden"
"the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"
"he took one of the man's ribs"
"the serpent said to the woman..."
"the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day"


Then there’s this:
25 "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
6 "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye"
7 "Then the eyes of both of them were opened"



Clearly the “sight” they got was not literal physical eyesight it was *spiritual* sight. In the presence of so much metaphorical language the context compels us to take the “death” of which Paul speaks as not *physical* death, but spiritual death.

Note also that the extensive curse does not explicitly mention death as part of the curse (though it mentions that they will die because it says they will toil until they die) nor is there any mention of the incurrence of physical death elsewhere. The role of the tree of life is speculation.

Of course, even if it were interpreted—contrary to context—as physical death, it could only be that physical death of *human beings* was a consequence of the Fall and that there was death of other plants and animals prior to this. I say this to re-emphasize that—from the point of view of logic alone—old earthers are not compelled to hold that there was human death before the human fall and thus not *logically committed* to reading these passages metaphorically as I do. I don’t know why someone wouldn’t, but logical points are important to me so I made it.