Hermeneutics is the study of the methodological interpretation of scriptures. One of the principles of hermeneutics is called The Law of First Mention. It involves going into the very first place that the subject is mentioned.
It all began in the arboretum whose geographical location and bearing is eastward of Eden, otherwise called the Garden of Eden. An arboretum is a place where many varieties of trees are grown for research, educational, and ornamental purposes.
In the garden of Eden, God gave a codified instruction to Adam, with the direct consequence of disobedience being death. By mining the heart of this instruction, we will discover certain things about God.
God is a programmer and a highly skilled cryptologist. He coded the whole universe. When He told Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it's because He knew the kind of programme that was embedded in the fruit.
He also knew the genetic make-up and chromosomal configuration of Adam. And by extension, his crypotological understanding made Him know the possibility of their combination, the future history.
God knew it would result into a disconnection from a Spiritual Life Holding Service. This was what God meant by, "...you will surely die." [It's like a rolling fan disconnected from power supply.]
Adam and his Madam were however ignorant. They ate and it turned them to a bipolar entity capable of doing what's wise and otherwise, noble and ignoble at equal measures.
It is however surprising that they did not fall down and die instantly. It is because the fruit was a spiritual virus not something poisonous to their viscera.
It was a coded viral capsule that reconfigured their genetic make-up and placed a limit on their existential longevity. They could not live up to a thousand years, the equivalent of a day in God's calendric agenda. And since then, we have been experiencing varying length of days.