The Good and Evil Serpent (131 page)

This noun is the generic name for “snake” or “serpent” in Greek. It is the fifth and final word in our list that appears in the New Testament, and it is the word for snake or serpent that is most frequently used by New Testament authors.
⁴⁸
The word
can also denote serpent jewelry, notably the silver and gold bracelets, rings, and earrings that were so popular in the Greek and Roman world. The word also denotes the constellation “Serpent.”
⁴⁹
The noun may be onomatopoeic since
ophis
sounds like the hissing of a snake. Some Greeks may have associated
with
, as the animal from “a hole.”
⁵⁰

The “four-striped adder” is the reddish-brown snake that was sacred to Asclepius.
⁵¹
The search for the etymology of this noun appears too speculative.

The noun that now appears in the Egyptian and Greek book on poison is not listed in LSJM and other similar lexicons. Is
the name of an unknown snake? We have not offered a name for the present snake since it may be another means of pronouncing
, discussed in the previous entry.

This noun also is not listed in the major lexicons. Perhaps the “new” word may have developed from perceiving the red coloring of the skin when one is bitten since
denotes the discoloration of the body “by extravasated blood.”
⁵²
The new noun is not to be confused with the similar sounding
or “fruit-pigeon.”
⁵³

This noun denotes some genus of poisonous snake.
⁵⁴
It derives its name probably from the burning caused when one is bitten, a pain somehow associated with lightning, since
means “to burn up as with lightning.”