Death

In our modern view we tend to ignore and neglect death, and other than pithy lines like "death and taxes" we tend to hide from death, pretending its ravages will be painless and not worth our time to plan for our final stages of life (between retirement and death there lives years of suffering for most modern people). Ancient views lacked such luxury and were faced with death continuously.

Isaiah 28:18

And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.

Death entered the world at the fall.. A covenant with death was made.

Death and Time -- the very nature of what we call time presupposes death.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0sdPLJO3cE

Death and Evolution

or rather, evolution is the divine response to death -- the two are intractable such that it's fair to categorize them as equivalent, that is, we cannot have evolution without death and vice versa.

fitness for survival

such as Christianity itself, and the fruits of its evolutionary fitness.

To survive over time is to triumph over death.

A world without death

what would that look like?

In ancient cosmology there were three realms: heaven, earth, and the underworld which was the realm of the dead. The scriptures make continual references to heaven and earth and indeed the two are joined quite frequently. And yet rarely is earth joined with the underworld. It is a foreboding place of darkness.

It is joined to earth on the cross, in the Harrowing of Hades.

The realm of the dead is not part of the created order, it is an unnatural realm and its corrupting effect on man, time, and space can hardly be overstated.

The God most high is a living God, not a God of the dead -- the various spirits of the dead are themselves created entities, consequences from the fall.

Genesis 3:14

And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life

Note the symbolism of dust and that the serpent is to eat dust

And Adam's curse, dust to dust,

Genesis 3:19

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Throughout the Bible we have references to dust symbolizing death, as well as the earth swallowing up the living into a pit.

Numbers 16:33

They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation

Death is the domain and power of the devil, Satan -- the seraph who fell -- eating dust all the days of his life.

Hebrews 2:14-16

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

We see similar stories in Pagan mythologies -- Hades, Hel, Thanatos, Abbadon, etc -- and many of these are referenced directly in scripture,

Revelation 9:11

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

2 Peter 2:4-6

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to tartarus and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly

Chinese yanwang ruling over diyu