The Good and Evil Serpent (73 page)

Yet this claim is not without some precedence in critical research. For example, C. Meyers indicates this “little-noticed feature” of Genesis 3. Meyers points out that the woman has a prominent role in this chapter. The woman, not the man, “perceives the desirability of procuring wisdom.” She is the first human to represent language, the divine attribute in humanity, and she does not speak to Satan, despite later misinterpretations by Jewish and Christian scholars.
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The anonymous woman talks to God’s creature who also can speak and who is wisely discerning.
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She alone is the “articulate member of the first pair who engages in dialogue even before the benefits of the wisdom tree have been procured.” As Meyers indicates: “The woman’s dialogue with the prudent reptile should be considered not a blot on her character but rather a comment on her intellect.”
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In Israelite and Jewish literature, including the document
Dame Wisdom and Lady Folly
found at Qumran, the woman is the spokesperson for Wisdom. In Proverbs and in the Wisdom of Solomon the portrayal of woman takes on a dominant role as the source of Wisdom; in the latter document Wisdom becomes a feminine personification (see esp. 6:1–7:30). The woman, like the serpent, has a close connection with Wisdom in the Bible.

It is now abundantly clear that the Eden Story became garbled and the serpent was misrepresented. As MacCulloch stated:

The talking serpent of Gn 3 represents a primitive stage of thought…. It is doubtful whether the serpent was intended in the original story to be evil. More likely he was a divine being, with superior knowledge and a kindly desire to help man to knowledge denied him by other divinities. A later recension made his act have evil consequences, and therefore he himself had evil intentions. The story doubtless arose with a people to whom the serpent was sacred, and who were impressed with its wisdom.
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It is clear that the serpent was misrepresented by interpretation; it is less likely that the Yahwist’s account was marred by a later redactor. The serpent as a symbol of Wisdom (Pos. 18)
¹³⁴
appears, for over one thousand years, in biblical and parabiblical works. In the Christian Bible, the serpent’s role in pointing the direction toward Wisdom, or in symbolizing it, begins with Genesis 3 and culminates in Jesus’ injunction to his disciples to be wise as serpents.

The evidence from the ancient Hebrew and Greek texts of Genesis 3 indicates what we would expect from a careful analysis of ancient serpent symbology. The author of Genesis 3 is reporting that the serpent was created by God. The Nachash is associated with that other world. He was the wisest of all the beasts on the earth. With these newly acquired insights, let us return to
‘rwm
of Genesis 3:1.

To what extent has the narrator intimated that the serpent was Dliy, not in
sensu bono
but really a sinister character, and not only finally but also originally? Long ago, J. Skinner, a professor at Cambridge, overstressed the demonic features of the serpent, according to Genesis 3. For Skinner, the serpent was a beast with demonic wisdom. The Yahwist clarifies the serpent’s connection with the beasts and concludes the story by cursing the serpent. The developing image of the serpent in Genesis 3 indicates that Nachash cannot be placarded as always good (Pos. 5). There are sinister features of the Nachash; it is the serpent who initiates the process that led to the banishment of Adam and all related and descended from him from Eden. The serpent as the symbol of the Death-Giver (Neg. 1),
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Destroyer (Neg. 2), and Bearer of Corruptible Knowledge (Neg. 4) has left its mark on the Eden Story.

Once again we should recall the complicated multivalence of serpent symbolism and the fact that in the selfsame narrative—and at the same time—the serpent may represent good and evil (double entendre).
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Skinner offers additional advice regarding serpent symbolism in Genesis 3, and this time his comments are more representative of the narrative. He suggested that probably “behind the sober description of the serpent as a mere creature of Yahweh, there was an earlier form of the legend in which he figured as a god or a demon.”
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Skinner meant that the serpent may represent a good demon. Reminiscent of our previous reflections on Agathadaimon are Skinner’s words: “In the sphere of religion the serpent was usually worshipped as a
good
demon. Traces of this conception can be detected in the narrative before us.”
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These words, added to the previous reflections, help fill out the complex symbolic dimensions of the serpent in Genesis 3.

The serpent symbolism of Genesis 3 has evolved within the development of the story. The Yahwist inherited diverse and conflicted meanings of serpent symbolism, and he sought to answer issues not directly related to serpent symbology. He inherited over one thousand years of finely developed images of the serpent. As Moberly states, Genesis 3 “gives the impression of standing at the end point of a long and diverse history of reflection upon the issues and motifs that are central to it.”
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The long history reflected in Genesis 3 takes us back into Egyptian mythology and into Assyrian and Babylonian symbolism; we are also transported to ancient Canaan in which these, and other traditions, were inherited and formed to make the epitome of Canaanite mythology. When we look at Genesis 3, we might be reminded of the many images of serpents that have been found in controlled excavations in Israel today: the numerous pots with serpents crawling up and near the rim, the serpents on incense burners, the gold and silver serpents found in cultic settings, and the serpent jewelry. When we let these images speak, we are allowed to hear, in a purer form, the world of the Yahwist. It was a world in which symphonies were created around the symbology of the serpent. The Yahwist knew his readers would appreciate the mystery and complex symbolic world evoked by a serpent in a narrative about creation (cf. Pos. 7).

Again, we return to Speiser’s commentary on Genesis because it represents some of the best work in the field. However, an immersion into serpent symbology reveals that Speiser has not always heard the images speak. There is no reason to assume, with Speiser, that the woman “interrupted the serpent” (3:2); that again suggests a negative view of the serpent. No one should think that the woman would interrupt God Yahweh, for example. The second address to the woman by the serpent in Genesis 3:4 may be translated more idiomatically: “You are certainly not going to die! No, the celestial beings well know that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be the same as the celestial beings in knowing good from bad.” This translation might make it easier to see the serpent as one of “the celestial beings” since he knows “good from bad.” The woman thus does not consider the serpent a lower being who could be interrupted.

The examination of Speiser’s commentary on Genesis—a superb accomplishment that shows a master Semitist at work
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—highlights how commentators simply assume that the serpent in Genesis must be totally a negative symbol, and that translations must be slanted, or skewed, to bring out only negative meanings regarding the serpent in the Eden Story. We have seen that both an attentive focus on the Hebrew and Greek primary texts and an appreciation of serpent symbology reveal many areas in which the standard commentaries on Genesis may be improved.

Yet one should not seek to portray the serpent only in a positive light. He does represent the primordial chaos (Neg. 3). The well-chosen words of Joines are now apposite: “The Yahwist has used the figure of the serpent to
objectify
chaos,
but not to personify it.”
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That is, the image of the primordial serpent as the beast of chaos that must be slain for order and creation—which we analyzed in
Chapter 5
—is present in the “serpent” of Genesis 3, but the serpent was not chosen by the Yahwist to personify or symbolize chaos.

The serpent serves the Yahwist to elucidate the danger in Eden and the problems with any commandment. The serpent begins the process that results in the humans’ loss of innocence, happiness, and life (not necessarily immortality). The Nachash embodies the beginnings of pain, labor, danger, and death (see Ps 58:4–5, Prov 23:31–32, Amos 5:19, 9:3). Again, we see, as was demonstrated in the preceding chapter, that serpent symbolism is multivalent, and sometimes a good and evil meaning may be present at the same time in one symbol or word.

The Eden Story elicits many questions. The narrative seems surprisingly contradictory. For example, is Paradise situated in the East, as stated in Genesis 2:8, or in the North, as implied in the following verses (Gen 2:10–14)?
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Why does the story seem so crude and poorly composed? The most likely answer is that the author was a compiler of diverse and contradictory mythological traditions and different symbolic worlds; most of these developed outside Yahwism or Israelite religion, and certainly prior to and foreign from “Old Testament theology.” Some of the influence on the Yah-wist certainly came from Mesopotamian traditions
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and from Egypt. But now we know that Mesopotamian and Egyptian influences had helped shape Palestinian culture before the arrival of the Israelites. For example, as previously intimated, a copy of Gilgamesh has been identified in the ruins at Megiddo, and an abundance of serpent imagery from Egypt and Mesopotamia has been found in the strata of ancient Palestine. In fundamental ways, the Yahwist’s symbols, especially his serpent symbolism, came from waning Canaanite culture. No one should doubt that the Eden Story began as lore that was shaped by orality.
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Immersing oneself in the context of the Eden Story and the myths that shaped the cultures contiguous with that of the Yahwist, and certainly impacted his own, helps one distinguish between exegesis that is philologi-cally, historically, and symbolically formed from a spiritualization of the story. One can avoid sweeping generalizations and myopic spiritualiza-tions of Genesis 3 and protect the uninformed reader from such misleading claims as the following: the temptation induced by the bad appeared
sub specie boni
, and sin is “un rifiuto del bene.”
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Moralizing sermons are not to masquerade as critical scholarship.

The abundant questions generated by reading and and rereading of Genesis 2 and 3 should not lead to a failure to appreciate the artistry of the first biblical narrator: the Yahwist. There are many attractive features of the story. It is memorable and keeps one’s interest. The Hebrew contains wonderful subtleties. For example, the Yahwist cleverly describes how Eve
(hawwàh)
is the mother of all the living
(hài)
. There is most likely much more than assonance here.
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The laryngeals, when the Yahwist wrote, were emphasized and the first word echoed in memory and then was heard along with the second. Formerly, the woman
(‘issâh)
was related to the man
(‘is);
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now, she is related to the generations to come, which included those living in the time of the author. The Yahwist seems to underscore the fact that humans originate somewhat mysteriously, and probably more so to him than to us, even though we may need to be present at a birth to realize it is a grand miracle and mystery. All humans are born out of the woman, “the mother of all the living.”

The Hebrew of Genesis 3 abounds with evidence that the Yahwist is a gifted author and has attentively crafted his narrative about the serpent and the humans in Eden. A. Wénin understands the serpent in Genesis 3 to symbolize limit, and he sees the concept reflected in the play on two Hebrew words (both have the same consonants:
‘rm): ‘arôm
, “nude,” and
‘arÛm
, “wise” or “clever”:

Le serpent est donc ce qui fait miroiter la limite. Le narrateur a d’ailleurs prévenu le lecteur, en l’avertissant à l’aide d’un superbe jeu de mots, que le serpent est “le plus nu” (en hébreu
‘arôm)
, “le plus rusé” (en hébreu
‘arûm)
de tous les animaux. On a vu plus haut, à propos de 2,25, que la nudité représente entre autres choses l’exhibition, la mise en évidence de la limite.
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The serpent is then that which mirrors limit. The narrator predisposes the reader to imagine, with the aide of a superb play on words, that the serpent is both the “most naked” (in Heb.
‘arôm)
, and the most crafty (in Heb.
‘arÛm)
of all animals. One sees earlier, in 2:25, that nudity represents more than exhibition, it implies the limit.
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P. Haupt points out the paronomasia in the cursing of the serpent:
sup
means first “to tread down” and then “to snap.” Translating this verb as “will persecute,” he suggests understanding verses 14–15 as two triplets: