When Adam and Eve were told "do not eat the fruit or you will die" they had no frame of reference for death. They didn't know what death was as they had never experienced it and had not yet eaten from the tree of knowledge.  It's like telling a child who has never been burnt and doesn't know what burnt is "don't touch this or you will get burnt." For all the child knows "burnt" might be another word for chocolate! This undermines the basic principle of Gods love and mercy and sets the concept of an all loving/merciful God off to a very shaky start. Why would God, who loves us infinitely, threaten us with a punishment that we had no frame of reference for?

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I have asked several Christians how we know The Bible is a reliable source and they said "because God wouldn't let anything go in it that wasn't his word. Doesn't this contradict the whole free will deal? The Bible was written by humans hearing the word of God, but they are not reliable interpreters for the very reason that they have free will. As Salman Rushdie points out in The Satanic Verses, a man could easily mistake a word here or there, or worse, could deliberately change it to test God. So, how can we trust The Bible and believe in free will?
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