If A causes B, B causes C, and C causes D, then A causes D right?

Adam’s sin caused his expulsion. His expulsion caused him to stop eating from the tree of life (because he lost access). His not eating from the tree of life anymore caused him to die.

But it is also worth noting that the word “die” here is in a continuous, rather than a perfect tense. One way to interpret this is that the death being predicted is a process, not a completed event. As such, one might view the passage as predicting that the process of Adam’s death will begin when he eats the fruit, not that that process will come to completion when he eats the fruit. This ties in with the second inerrantist response above.

Your point that we should be less ready to say that a single author contradicts himself than we are to say that two different authors contradict each other is a fair one, though. That does make me more ready to apply the principle of charity to the text.

But the primary reason I think this argument isn’t due to the strength of any reconciliation, but because the possibility of a mistake doesn’t make any sense. Matthew contradicting Luke makes sense. J contradicting P makes sense. J contradicting J doesn’t. Even if Genesis is a work of man, this isn’t the kind of human error to be expected.

The observation of how wrong a literal interpretation can be is a relevant observation, but this alone does not counter inerrancy.

This doesn’t support the idea that to God Adam died on the same day that he ate the forbidden fruit. At most, it supports the idea that to God it was like Adam died that day. That isn’t enough for us to say that God’s warning was true.