The Good and Evil Serpent (68 page)

The eisegesis not only miscasts Genesis; it fails even to comprehend the symbolism of the serpent in subsequent Christian art. As L. Réau, in
Iconographie de l’art chrétien
, stated: “The serpent … is generally the symbol of a demon, but it may also, as we have seen, symbolize Christ, where it is the attribute of Prudence (wisdom).”
³⁸
This quotation was not chosen to suggest that the serpent is a type of Christ in Genesis 3; the comment only suffices to show that the popular understanding of one of the most famous stories in the Bible fails to represent the complex nature of ophidian symbolism in Christianity. While in the eighteenth century it was still possible to claim that the serpent in Genesis 3 was the embodiment of evil and indeed both Satan
and the devil
,
³⁹
this interpretation is no longer possible in light of our insights obtained from studying serpent symbology. It cannot be said too forcefully or with too much necessary redundancy: the serpent must not be presupposed to symbolize Satan, or evil, in the Eden Story.
⁴⁰

What then is the popular understanding of the Temptation and Fall?
⁴¹
In sermons, popular publications, lore, and even books masquerading as scholarly, the following ten misinterpretations of Genesis 3 seem regnant in Christian lore and teaching, especially in Western culture. I have found the miscasting of the serpent especially fashionable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while the snake appears often with vigorious positive denotation in the second and third centuries
CE
. Here are ten misinterpretations regnant among Christians, and also frequently among Jews, as they interpret Genesis 3.

First, the serpent is simply the Devil, Satan. With all the power of evil, Satan is the serpent who tempts “Eve” (actually the woman).

Second, the serpent lies. Satan is the Liar. In Genesis 3, Satan appears for the first time in biblical literature and lore, and he is the grand antithesis to God. Satan lies. God speaks the truth.

Third, the serpent is the trickster. He beguiles “Eve.” She is tricked into doing what she would never herself think of doing.

Fourth, the serpent—and the serpent alone—is responsible for all the evils in the world. The serpent, Satan, forced the woman to sin.

Fifth, the serpent cannot be one of God’s creatures. He is not mentioned in Genesis 1–2, in which God’s creation of the animals is described. The serpent is not one of God’s creations because he is too evil.

Sixth, the serpent was ugly and a horrible-looking animal. He is imagined to be dark, black, and full of evil.

Seventh, the serpent is a male. He entices the woman, perhaps using some erotic powers to entrap her. When pushed on this point, people often resort to the unexamined and false assumption that the serpent is first and foremost a phallic symbol.

Eighth, the serpent is beastly. He has only male features and is an ugly beast. Here the image of Satan, especially in medieval Christianity, conflates with the image of the serpent in Genesis 3.

Ninth, before the serpent corrupted “Eve,” all was peaceful in Eden. The male and female walked with God, together, in the cool of the evening. There was no tension. All was of one will and harmoniously unified: the human with all animals, all with the earth, and all with the Creator.

Tenth, the serpent alone is responsible for the entrance of sin into creation, the appearance of death. The serpent alone is the cause of punishment, suffering, and ultimately of banishment from Eden.

This understanding of the Story of Eden is so deeply entrenched in Christian (and often Jewish) culture, from the pulpit to the pew and from music to museum, that most would be aghast to hear that each of these ten so-called insightful readings are either false or a distortion of the original story in Genesis 3.

Text and Translation

Before we can reveal, and dismiss, these far too pervasive misinterpretations and misperceptions, we need first to revisit Genesis 2 and 3. Here is E. A. Speiser’s translation from his
Genesis
in the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary (he was also the leading translator of the Torah published under the auspices of the Jewish Publication Society of America):

God Yahweh planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground God Yahweh caused to grow various trees that were a delight to the eye and good for eating, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the Tree of Knowledge of good and bad….

God Yahweh took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden, to till and tend it. And God Yahweh commanded the man, saying, “You are free to eat of any tree of the garden, except only the tree of knowledge of good and bad, of which you are not to eat. For the moment you eat of it, you shall be doomed to death.”

God Yahweh said, “It is not right that man should be alone. I will make him an aid fit for him.” So God Yahweh formed out of the soil various wild beasts and birds of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he called them; whatever the man would call a living creature, that was to be its name…. yet none proved to be the aid that would be fit for man.

Then God Yahweh cast a deep sleep upon the man and, when he was asleep, he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that spot. And God Yahweh fashioned into a woman the rib that he had removed from the man, and he brought her to the man. Said the man,

“This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman
[‘Ishsha]
, for she was taken from Man [’
Ish
].”
⁴²

Thus it is that man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. The two of them were naked, the man and his wife, yet they felt no shame. Now the serpent was the sliest of all the wild creatures that God Yahweh had made. Said he to the woman, “Even though God told you not to eat of any tree in the garden …” The woman interrupted the serpent, “But we may eat of the trees in the garden! It is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God did say, ‘Do not eat of it or so much as touch it, lest you die!’ “ But the serpent said to the woman, “You are not going to die. No, God well knows that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be the same as God in telling good from bad.”

When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eye, and that the tree was attractive as a means to wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave some to her husband and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they discovered that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

They heard the sound of God Yahweh as he was walking in the garden at the breezy time of day; and man and his wife hid from God Yahweh among the trees of the garden.

God Yahweh called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard the sound of you in the garden; but I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you, then, taste of the tree from which I had forbidden you to eat?” The man replied, “The woman whom you put by my side—it was she who gave me of that tree, and I ate.” God Yahweh said to the woman, “How could you do such a thing?” The woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, so I ate.”

God Yahweh said to the serpent:

“Because you did this,

Banned shall you be from all cattle

And all wild creatures!

On your belly shall you crawl

And on dirt shall you feed

All the days of your life.

I will plant enmity between you and the woman,

And between your offspring and hers;

They shall strike at your head,

And you shall strike at their heel.”

To the woman he said:

“I will make intense

Your pangs in childbearing,

In pain shall you bear children;

Yet your urge shall be for your husband,

And he shall be your master.”

To the man he said: “Because you listened to your wife and ate of the tree from which I had forbidden you to eat,

Condemned be the soil on your account!

In anguish shall you eat of it

All the days of your life.

Thorns and thistles

Shall it bring forth for you,

As you feed on the grasses of the field.

By the sweat of your face

Shall you earn your bread,

Until you return to the ground,

For from it you were taken:

For dust you are

And to dust you shall return!”

The man named his wife Eve
[hawwa]
, because she was the mother of all the living
[bay]
. And God Yahweh made shirts of skins for the man and his wife, and clothed them.

God Yahweh said, “Now that the man has become like one of us in discerning good from bad, what if he should put out his hand and taste also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever!” So God Yahweh banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken. Having expelled the man, he stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life. [Gen 2:8–9, 15–23; 3:1–23]
⁴³

Questions

What a story! This is a folktale that must have had a long life in oral traditions before it was compiled from disparate sources by some unknown writer. During its oral stage, the story grew and was enriched by Canaanite culture that was shaped by Mesopotamia and Egypt.
⁴⁴
The influences on the author of Genesis 3 from the creation myths of non-Israelite cultures are certain and not limited to oral traditions. These were often shaped by earlier accounts that reached a literary stage; paramount among these would be the Gilgamesh epic. The Yahwist’s story is indebted to Akkadian, Canaanite, Egyptian, Hittite, North Arabian, and Ugaritic myths.
⁴⁵

The story is thus symbolical. The archetypal symbols are the story, not its embellishment.
⁴⁶
Eliade rightly stressed an important insight: “Myth means a ‘true story.’ “
⁴⁷
Myths are almost always about creation or origins, and these are always hidden from view. If one ignores the orality and metaphorical nature of the story and takes it rather literally, questions (even absurdities) pop out and begin to multiply. Here are some of them:

1. It is clear that “the tree of life” is in the middle of the garden (2:9), but where is “the tree of knowledge,” and why is the relationship between them so ambiguous that some passages imply there is only one tree (2:9)?
   ⁴⁸
   
2. Why did God Yahweh think that man was alone when there was a deep relationship between the human and God, on the one hand, and the animals, on the other, and when the human had not complained of loneliness (2:18)?
   
3. In the whole history of salvation, recorded in the Bible, why are God’s first words to the human a command and a prohibition?
   
4. What does that observation reveal about the relation between the divine and the human, according to the Yahwist?
   
5. Why does the author mention the tree of life only at the beginning and end of the story (Gen 2:9 and 3:22, 24)?
   
6. Why are trees so significant to the narrator, and are they symbolically related to the serpent that often appears in or with a tree (cf. the images of Hercules in the Hesperides)?
   
7. Why does the woman later describe the tree of life as being “in the middle of the garden” (3:3)?
   
8. Is there some confusion between the relations of the two significant trees? Do the words in Genesis 3 tend sometimes to imply that there is only one tree in Eden?
   ⁴⁹
   Did an original story behind Genesis 3 have two trees? Was one the tree of life and the other the tree of death? Did the humans eat from the tree of death and the serpent from the tree of life, as J. G. Frazer suggested?
   ⁵⁰
   
9. From what place did God Yahweh take Adam when he “took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden”?
   ⁵¹
   
10. What kind of knowledge does the man have when God Yahweh commands him not to eat of the tree of knowledge?
    
11. Can the human know that the tree is “the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” and if God has revealed what that means, then what does the serpent disclose (in Gen 3:5)?
    ⁵²
    
12. Why does the narrator not provide explanation for God’s command and prohibition?
    
13. The serpent is a wild beast and appears already named, is he then not one of the “wild beasts” that God Yahweh had made (2:19) and the man named (2:20)?
    
14. Why was a rib taken from the man and not something else?
    
15. Is it because a rib could be taken and no difference would be noted?
    
16. Where on a man is the spot of the flesh that “was closed up”?
    
17. Why does the man refer to, or give two names to, the creature formed from him: “Woman” (2:23) and “Eve” (3:20)?
    
18. Are not two tales or myths being merged here?
    
19. Where does the serpent come from, who named him (or her), and why does the author claim that God Yahweh “made” it (him or her)?
    
20. What is the meaning of the description: “the sliest of all the wild creatures” (3:1), and does the serpent know good from evil, like God?
    
21. Is “sliest” representative of the Hebrew word and context, and since this characteristic defines not only the serpent but also the fox, why was the latter not chosen by the author?
    ⁵³
    
22. Are the serpent’s first words a statement (“God has forbidden”) or a question (“has God forbidden”)?
    
23. Why has the Yahwist avoided his usual way of referring to God, “God Yahweh” (3:1), and placed merely “God” in the mouth of the serpent (3:1)?
    
24. Why are the serpent’s first words inaccurate (3:1)?
    
25. Is the serpent the only creature, beside the human, who can talk?
    
26. Why does the woman speak to the serpent; is he attractive?
    
27. Is the serpent being presented as a male or female?
    
28. How does the woman know of the command God Yahweh gave to the man, and why is she responsible for a command given to another (2:16–17, 3:3)?
    
29. Why does the woman add to the commandment: “or so much as touch it” (3:3)?
    
30. What is meant by the words “Your eyes will be opened” (3:5), and how are they related to the shamelessness of the man and his wife (2:25)?
    
31. What does the author mean by the words “knowing good and evil,” and why does he place them in the serpent’s speech (3:5)?
    
32. Is “knowing good and evil” mere discernment, or does it also involve moral perception?
    
33. Why did the author write the words “like God knowing good and evil” and not “knowing good and evil like God”?
    
34. If the tree of knowledge “was attractive as a means to wisdom” (3:6), then why would desiring it and taking from it be an act against God when wisdom was seen as a means to God, and in Judaism wisdom was equated with Torah, God’s will (cf. viz. Sirach)?
    
35. What is meant by “the eyes of both were opened” (3:7), and how is that related to their physical awareness of being naked?
    
36. Is not their action of making garments from fig leaves (3:7) morally superior to God Yahweh’s actions of making them out of “skins” (3:21)?
    
37. The humans hide “among the trees” (3:8), not behind them; is there some link here with the traditions, albeit later, that the righteous are like trees in the eternal planting or in Paradise?
    ⁵⁴
    
38. God told the man that he must not eat of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil” because “on the day [DTI] that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:17); hence, since they do not die immediately, did God lie?
    
39. Why should one conclude that the serpent lied? Did he not tell the woman that if she eats of the tree she will not die but will have knowledge? And did she not obtain knowledge and does not die immediately on eating the forbidden fruit (3:7)?
    
40. Is not the veracity of the serpent underscored when God knows that the humans know because they ate of the forbidden fruit (3:11)?
    
41. The author portrays God Yahweh calling for the man, which is clearly rhetorical, but is God’s ignorance here related to an apparent lie?
    
42. Who could have told the man he was naked (3:11)?
    
43. What is meant by the woman’s excuse: “The serpent tricked (or deceived) me” (3:13)?
    
44. If the serpent told the truth, what portrayal of woman is being reflected?
    
45. What does the author mean by stating that the serpent is banned from “all cattle” and “all wild creatures” (3:14)?
    
46. If the serpent now must crawl, how did it move before?
    
47. Did the author imagine or presuppose that his readers knew that the
    nachash
    originally had legs, as we know from ancient Near Eastern iconography (see
    Fig. 27
    )?
    
48. What kind of a God is being portrayed when God is the source of “enmity” (3:15)?
    
49. What kind of a God would be the one who is responsible for pains of childbirth and the man’s laborious anguish all his life?
    
50. Is the woman’s urge for her husband not sexual, and why is she to have a master, her husband? Is it because the reader is to assume now that she cannot be trusted (3:16)?
    
51. If God Yahweh made “skirts of skins” for the man and his wife (3:21), then has someone killed one or more animals, and, if so, who?
    
52. To whom does God Yahweh speak, and who is meant by God’s words: “like one of us in discerning good from bad” (3:22)?
    
53. Why were the man and woman banished from the garden? Is it because of God Yahweh’s fear that they would eat of the tree of life and “live forever” (3:22)?
    
54. Does the author or the source not comprehend God’s omnipotence, or is there a residual of ancient myths (esp. regarding the anguipede giants) that God is vulnerable, even from humans, his creatures?
    
55. Why does an author (the same one?) state that only “the man” (3:24) was banished from Eden (3:22–24)?
    
56. Where is the Garden of Eden in the author’s mind, and why does it seem Eden is protected only from the east (3:23)?
    
57. What would “the cherubim” look like to the author and what is the meaning of “the fiery revolving sword” (3:24)?