The Good and Evil Serpent (74 page)

The observations by Wénin and Haupt help emphasize the many uses of paronomasia in Genesis 3. Note the following examples of careful composition by the Yahwist:

1. The serpent is clever
   (‘rwm)
   in Genesis 3:1, and the man and woman are nude
   (‘rwmym)
   in Gen 2:25.
   ¹⁵¹
   The wisdom and cleverness of the serpent help the human couple to see their nudeness.
   
2. The serpent’s cleverness
   (‘rwm)
   echoes in the curse
   (‘rwr)
   .
   
3. The sound of the word tree
   (‘s)
   is heard again in the pain (
   ^c
   sb in Gen 3:16 and
   ‘sbwn
   in Gen 3:16, 17) the humans will suffer.
   ¹⁵²
   
4. The double use of the verb “bruise” tends to unite the fate of the serpent and humans.
   
5. The woman eats
   (t’kl)
   of the forbidden fruit so the serpent must forever eat
   (t’kl)
   dust.
   
6. The serpent is condemned to eat dust
   (‘pr)
   and the human to return to dust
   Cpr)
   . Perhaps the Yahwist is intimating that when humans return to dust they will be eaten by the one who eats dust and—in terms of serpent symbology—never seems to die, or turn to dust.
   
7. Adam
   (‘dm)
   “shall return to the ground
   [‘dmh],”
   according to Genesis 3:19.
   

The careful use of words and repetitions sews the narrative together attractively (each of these words is a
Stichwort)
. Notice that the author of Genesis 3 knew how to bring out the echoing memory of previous sounds by repeating words that begin with a laryngeal
(‘rwm)
, which is often followed by a re-echoing plosive consonant (‘sb and
‘sbwn)
. The central idea of “tree” may have been highlighted for verbal and narrative effect, since it begins with both a laryngeal and a plosive
(‘s)
. In Preexilic Hebrew, the consonants had more distinct and distinguishing sounds than can be heard today, especially the sounds demanding effort, like the laryngeals and plosives (as can be still heard today among some Bedouins in the Arabah).

The linguistic “genius” of the Yahwist seems implied in more subtle ways. First, the serpent does not use the familiar name of God: Yahweh God (as the Hebrew order has it). He is permitted only to refer to “God.” Thus, he is placed outside the framework in which a caring relation with Yahweh God is experienced. Second, since the serpent and the woman cannot quote Yahweh God accurately, they are thus portrayed as adding to or subtracting from God’s word (cf. Deut 4:2 and Prov 30:6).
¹⁵³

The Eden Story elicits so many questions, was written so early, and absorbs so many earlier symbols and ideas. Yet the later writers did not rewrite or appreciably edit it, although the Priestly Writer added Genesis 1:1–2:4a and so framed the prefatory comments. That means the Eden Story had achieved an attractive status by the end of the tenth century
BCE
(most likely). The beauty of the Eden Story comes into focus again when we hear the words of Gunkel that are directed to the “stories in Genesis”:

We certainly … are of the opinion that whoever passes over these stories without attention to their artistic form is not only deprived of a great pleasure, but is also unable to carry out properly the scholarly duty of understanding Genesis. Indeed, scholarship is fully justified in asking the question; of what does the specific beauty of these stories consist? The answer penetrates deeply into their content and religion.
¹⁵⁴

We have seen how an attention to ancient Near Eastern serpent symbology has increased our appreciation of the artistic form achieved by the Yah-wist in Genesis 3; he was a rare and gifted linguist. We have also skirted a misleading dichotomy; we did not ponder whether the Eden Story was the result of popular tradition or the creation of an individual poet. Genesis 3 is not only reflective of both, but it is also “ultimately a creation of the people in common,” as Gunkel ascertained.
¹⁵⁵
Using language shared with me by S. Talmon, we can perceive that the People of the Book have given us the Book of the People. That is, the Yahwist represented the emergence of Israel and the people united around a common story as Israelite religion took the shape we now find at the beginnings of the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 3 is not only at the beginning of the Hebrew Bible, it appeared at the beginning of Israelite narrative history.

More examples of the careful use of language by the Yahwist could be given. These would help us appreciate more deeply the beauty of the Eden Story, but that is not our chosen purpose. Our present task is to keep in focus the central question: What is the symbolic meaning of the serpent in Genesis 3? Let us now isolate the issues that pertain to the serpent.

First, the Nachash is one of the beasts of the field that “God Yahweh had made” (3:1; cf. 2:19). This information raises doubts whether the Nachash is adequately represented by “serpent” in Genesis 3:1. The author introduces the serpent the way it appears naturally; the serpent arrives unexpectedly and spontaneously. While the author does not clarify who named the serpent (2:20), he makes it clear that the serpent is one of God’s creatures.

Second, we are not told from where the serpent has come. That is a part of the attractiveness of the narrative. The serpent simply appears. The author does clarify, in contrast to much of Near Eastern lore and symbolism, that the serpent is not a god and that he was “made” by God Yahweh. To what extent is the serpent in Genesis 3 presented as if he were a messenger from another world?

Third, we are not told where the serpent is located in the narrative. Most artists place him (her) on or around the tree. Far more likely, in light of serpent iconography, he is standing, on two or more feet.
¹⁵⁶
Did the Yahwist imagine that the serpent stood face-to-face with the anonymous woman?

Fourth, is the “focal point of the narrative” the tree of knowledge?
¹⁵⁷
That places the serpent in a minor position. The story does focus on knowledge and wisdom, but the serpent is as central as the tree. Genesis 3 opens with the Nachash, and he remains dominant either explicitly or implicitly from 3:1 until 3:15. At that point God curses him (her).

We asked what the serpent might reveal or disclose in Genesis 3:5. If there is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then it is either unknown to the humans or some knowledge about this tree is revealed to them by God Yahweh. G. von Rad points to the difficulty in the Hebrew behind “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and asks: “Does man already know it as such?” And if God here reveals the mystery, what sense has the snake’s explanation (ch. 3.5)?” G. von Rad continues by pointing out that the suggested emendation (cf.
BHS)
, “from the tree in the midst of the garden,” agrees “with what the woman gives as the wording of the prohibition (ch. 3.7).” He then notes, correctly, that such knowledge entails more than the “law of psychological credibility.” It involves “omniscience in the widest sense of the word.”
¹⁵⁸
Surely, knowing demands experiencing.

More in focus than any tree in these verses are the words between the woman and the serpent (3:1–5). No conversation with her husband is mentioned (3:6–7; cf. 3:12). After the conversation between God and Adam becomes central (3:9–12), God addresses the woman and she answers (3:13). God next addresses and curses the serpent and the land (3:14–15). God does not curse the woman (3:16) and the man (3:17–19).

Now, we may ask “Where is God in this story?” God does not appear to be the protector of Adam and the woman. Is he not an absent god (a
deus absconditus)?
Le Grande Davies offers some insight: “The serpent of Genesis 3 most certainly is portrayed as part of the Garden of Eden. He is the main character associating with Adam and Eve. As a matter of fact more is stated about his association with them than their association with their God, who seems for a time to have left their presence.”
¹⁵⁹

The opening of Acts implies an absentee Christology: Christ has left the disciples and will return as he ascended into heaven. Likewise, the Eden Story God implies that Yahweh is absent in Genesis 3:1–7 so that the Yahwist must introduce him again: “walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” Then, as the narrative develops, Adam and his wife can be shown to realize that they are now naked (not the
of Gen 2:25 but
of Gen 3:10, 11) before the God who returns to walk with them.

Adam had been assigned tasks in the garden, so work antedates the punishment: Adam was to till the garden (Gen 2:15).
¹⁶⁰
Paradise was no place of contemplation, rest, or sensual pleasure.

The narrative ends when God casts the man (and, by implication, the woman but not the serpent) out of the garden (3:24).
¹⁶¹
The dialogue moves from interrogatives to curses and rejection. If dialogue is central to this narrative, the serpent, the woman, and God are the dominant characters. This conclusion is strengthened by the recognition that in the patriarchal stories it is God’s word that influences actions.
¹⁶²

Fifth, are the serpent’s first words inaccurate (3:1)? According to Speiser, the serpent “is deliberately distorting a fact.”
¹⁶³
Speiser assumes the serpent is a male, since he uses the pronoun “he” in referring to the creature.
¹⁶⁴
Speiser clearly believes the serpent is an evil creature. The serpent’s words cannot be inaccurate if they are a question, which we have seen to be highly probable.

According to Genesis 2:16–17, God Yahweh gave only one command to Adam. Note the often-missed poetic form:

From every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat,
For in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.

My translation represents the Hebrew words that are omitted in translating, and lays out God’s first command in poetic parallel lines
(parallelismus membrorum)
, a form that signifies exceptionally important words
¹⁶⁵
that are often intended to be memorized.

How are God’s words reported by the serpent and the woman? The serpent does not report God’s commandment to Adam; in 3:1, he asks the woman, “Did God really state, ‘You may not eat from every tree of the garden’?”
¹⁶⁶
If the Nachash asks a question, one cannot conclude that he is deliberately misquoting God. The woman summarizes God’s commandment, repeating that she and her man, Adam, may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God had a proscription. Regarding “the tree in the middle of the garden,” presumably the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” God said, according to the woman, “You may not eat of it, and you must not touch it, lest you die.” The woman is not quoting God verbatim; she is summarizing God’s command and clarifying that the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is in the middle of the garden. Such repetition helps readers understand the lone commandment and helps them comprehend and imagine the scene: the place of the tree. The text does not suggest that the serpent has failed to represent God’s commandment and thus has deceived the woman. The presupposition that the serpent in Genesis 3 is an evil symbol is not supported by the passage in focus.

Sixth, why does the serpent approach the woman and not the man? Is it perhaps, in the eyes of the Yahwist, because the woman is naïve and weaker than the man since she was taken from his body? Is she chosen because she really needs a “master” (3:16)?
¹⁶⁷
Does she remain nameless, until 3:20, and subsumed under the category of “woman” and “wife” because of the dominance of men in the Yahwist’s culture? Perhaps the correct answers partly lie along such lines that expose the Yahwist’s patriarchalisms. This interpretation was inherited and emphasized by Philo, who in
Questions and Answers on Genesis
1.33, explained that the serpent by trickery and artfulness deceives, and the woman “is more accustomed to being deceived than man.”
¹⁶⁸