Barring False Dichotomies: Adam and Eve's Disobedience and Death

James Barr's interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve has become a staple of modern biblical studies. Often it is assumed that he has successfully shown that Genesis 2-3 does not narrate the origin of death in the act of disobedience (in Barr's parlance: "evil") of the primal couple. Here's his own summary:

"So let me put forward at once my basic thesis about that story. My argument is that, taken in itself and for itself, this narrative is not, as it has commonly been understood in our tradition, basically a story of the origins of sin and evil, still less a depiction of absolute evil or total depravity: it is a story of how human immortality was almost gained, but in fact was lost. This was, I need hardly remind you, the reason, and the only reason, why Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden: not because there were unworthy to stay there, or because they were hopelessly alienated from God, but because, if they stayed there, they would soon gain access to the tree of life, and eat of its fruit, and gain immortality: they would 'live for ever' (Genesis 3.22). Immortality was what they had practically achieved." The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality, p 4

This argument only works because Barr has introduced a dichotomy: Either the narrative is about immortality or it is about the origin of human evil. Note Barr: "the only reason[,] why Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden: not because they were unworthy . . . but because . . . they would soon gain access to the tree of life." However, the presence of the two trees in the garden joins the question of obedience/'evil' ("you shall not eat") to the question of life/death ("in that day, you shall die"). If God were only concerned to prevent the couple from attaining immortality, then the tree of life would have (also) been the subject of divine prohibition.

But it was not.

In my view, therefore, the narrative does in fact support the linkage of law and life, or disobedience and death.

What do you think?

* I believe the depiction of Adam and Eve is from a third century fresco, in the catacomb of St. Piretro and St. Marcellino, Rome.