Well when you consider that there was at least 1650 years between the expulsion from the garden and the Flood, there is more than ample time for people of their longevity and advanced knowledge to invent rocketry and nuclear weaponry, let alone gold casting and the other artifacts found in the seams of coal.
A pre-flood environment would have held ample carbon-based critters and plants to account for all the fossil fuel deposits that exist on earth today. There is no need to inject any death, decay or disease before Genesis 3 in order to reconcile the natural record with the Bible (the Bible doesn't need to be reconciled with anything).
|