Did God issue the death penalty for eating an apple?

Adam and Eve sinned because they were given 1 rule that they knew about and were informed about the consequences if they ever decided to eat: “In the day you eat of it you will surely die”. So with full knowledge of the consequences Adam and Eve, used their freedom to “transgress”/disobey the one rule God gave and test whether God was a liar.

Knowledge of good and evil by itself is not bad. In fact, after God created everything including the tree of knowledge, God said it was all “very good”. It is the creative ways we use knowledge that makes any act good or evil. And it is action that incurs consequences. Death was actually a secondary consequence of their disobedience.

In life there are some rules we break that have a lasting impact beyond what seems reasonable. Example. I hit the streets when I was 12 and by the time I was 14 I got pregnant. I “repented” and stopped doing drugs and sleeping around but I could not reverse the fact that I had a life in my womb that I was now responsible for. Or take the example of people living recklessly who contract a incurable disease, or commit a serious crime and are then sentenced to prison for life.

The direct punishment of God on Adam and Eve for their sin was,

• to Eve: pain in child birth and desire for men who will rule over her,
• to Adam: by the sweat of his brow was he to get food and nature would produce obstacles to make Adam work harder.

That was the only punishment God gave to them for their sin! “Death” came, because there was a second tree in the garden. The tree of Life. At the end of Genesis chapter 3 God explains that because man now has the knowledge of good and evil in them, that God could not allow them to continue to have access to The Tree of LIFE and live forever!

I encourage you to read Genesis chapter 2 & 3 over with this lens. God cut access to the tree of life in order to put a time limit on evil. Death was a secondary consequence that was both necessary and good or else God would be permitting evil to live forever.

"Original sin" is a doctrine created from a manipulative paraphrased view of the "fall of humanity" story. The wrath of God on babies due to Original sin is NOT and was NEVER affirmed in scripture.