Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Birdman]

The serpent had legs before being punished to crawl on its belly. While never explicitly stated that the serpent is Lucifer/Satan it is heavily alluded to. Now... When this serpent was punished, did he go around hooking up with legged serpents? Did their children gain his legless feature? Does this mean all snakes are the descendants of Satan?

[jimwalton]

The answers are, respectively, no, no, no, no, no, and no.

First of all, it may not have been a literal snake. The Hebrew word for serpent is nahash, which is indeed the common word for snake, but it also possibly means "able to stand upright." There are all kinds of verbal possibilities here. For instance, nahash is the same root as nehoset, which means "bronze." So the shiny, upright snake in Number 21.9 is the same root: it was a literal thing, but a spiritual symbol. "Snake" could also be a word play, because the Hebrew word for "deceive" is very close to it, and is the same root as for magic and divination. Snakes in the ancient world were very much associated with spiritual powers, magic, and cultic rituals. So what if this "thing" (the nhs) was a spiritual power, represented to the woman as a bright creature, speaking "spiritual wisdom", and yet was deceiving her—the word for snake? Just a little bit of research changes the whole picture.

As far as legs, Some Egyptian spells enjoin the serpent to crawl on its belly (keep its face on the path). This is in contrast to raising its head up to strike. The serpent on its belly is nonthreatening while the one reared up is protecting or attacking. Treading on a serpent is used in these texts as a means of overcoming or defeating it. This suggests we should not think of the serpent as having previously walked on legs. Instead, the curse combats its aggressive nature. The crawling is symbolic (see also Isa. 65.25), just as in Gen. 9.13 a new significance, not new existence, is decreed for the rainbow.

And it does not mean all snakes are the descendants of Satan. As I mentioned, "snake" could be a wordplay. Also, in their world the serpent would have been viewed as a chaos creature from the non-ordered realm, promoting non-order. Chaos creatures were typically thought to belong to the sphere of the divine, but they were not deity. They were not thought of as evil, but just destructive. And there is no explicit reference to Satan in the text, as you mentioned.

So snakes are not evil.
It didn't necessarily have legs before the curse.
It's not regarded as Satan in this text.
Snakes are not the descendants of Satan.

[Millionaire]

> There are all kinds of verbal possibilities here

Doesn't that line apply to most of the bible? Virgin (Young woman?) Camel (Hebrew word for rope/cable?) and so on?

[jimwalton]

In a sense, yes, and in a sense, no. The Bible is studied very deeply, not only word by word, but letter by letter. It's probably the most studied book in history. Sure, virgin and camel have also been studied, but Gen. 3 is more idiosyncratic than the virgin and camel texts. As literature it is jammed with symbolism, archetype, motifs, and ancient cultural and cultic items like snakes, trees, fruit, "the opening of eyes", wisdom, and order/non-order. As such it is found to contain far more verbal possibilities than the other texts, both in the particulars and the universals.

There is no attempt, at least on my part, to distort the text to avoid items that seem like fairy tales. Instead, my attempt is to try to avoid reading the text shallowly in the context of modern culture, and instead study the ancient texts and cultures to understand what the author meant by what he said in the context in which he said. His culture was permeated with snakes as spiritual presences, as diviners of wisdom, and as creatures of non-order. It was a culture infused with "wisdom" motif, and "the knowledge of good and evil" are like technical terms for wisdom possessed by the gods. We wrestle with literary motifs of temptation, initiation, fall from innocence, tragedy, contrasts and foils, and crime and punishment. There are elements of relationship, suzerainty, delegation and accountability. It's a much more complex theological and literary environment than the virgin and camel texts. It requires us to look below the surface (more than just what the words say and seem to mean) for truer understanding.

> Camel

You're off a little in your research. The Hebrew word for camel is "gamal." The Greek word for camel is kamilos, and the Greek word for cable/rope is kamelos. So, it's not really the same word, just like our "book" and "cook" aren't the same word, despite their similarities. And it's Greek, not Hebrew. Close, but no stuffed animal for a prize today.

> Virgin

Hebrew doesn't really have a word for virgin that's as technically separated as ours. It's 'almah, and it means "Young woman (ripe sexually; maid, betrothed, or newly married); one fully mature and approaching the time of her marriage; adolescent." Now, generally young adolescent women were virgins, but not necessarily so, and some old women (who never married) were also virgins, but they didn't have distinctions for all of that. It's like our English word "fiancée." It can mean "virgin" (especially in previous eras), but doesn't necessarily.

Hebrew has another word, betula, that is also understood as "virgin," but again, not as technically as our English word. It's a stronger word for "virgin" than 'almah, though.

And, of course, the Greek does have a word for "virgin" that means "virgin," just as our English word does: parthenos. This is why people spend so much time studying the Bible to figure out what is really meant by it. Surface and superficial readings sometimes just don't bring things properly to light.

[No money]

This is one of the most informative and interesting answers I have ever read on this topic, you have enlightened me. I am starting to think that to truly understand the old testament you must be able to speak Hebrew.

[jimwalton]

Thanks. Not really, but it helps, obviously. Most texts in the OT translate very clearly to the English, and you don't really need to read Hebrew to understand and appreciate them.

Gen. 3 is more idiosyncratic than other OT texts, however. As literature it is jammed with symbolism, archetype, motifs, and ancient cultural and cultic items like snakes, trees, fruit, "the opening of eyes", wisdom, and order/non-order. As such it is found to contain far more verbal possibilities than the other texts, both in the particulars and the universals. So in a text like this, Hebrew and a knowledge of the ancient culture is invaluable.

[Griffin]

These verses were not written by Egyptians. Also, please reconcile your "theory" with direct references to "wild animals" and "livestock". It seems perfectly clear that actual snakes are being cursed.

As far as the above comment is concerned...I just can't make any sense of it.

[jimwalton]

No, but the text (traditional interpretation) was written by a person who was raised and educated in Egypt, and written to a people who had lived in Egypt for 400 years, so the Egyptian cultural reference is understandable.

That the serpent is portrayed as real and not just mythological or figurative seems beyond doubt. What he looked like is open to speculation. Since snakes were very much a part of ancient cult, representing wisdom (good) and evil, life and death, it's quite possible that this being had serpent-like qualities in and amidst his spiritual qualities. (In the ancient world, cherubim were composite creatures—mixtures of lions, eagles, etc. Creatures of Chaos were also often portrayed as composite creatures, with a combination of appearances and attributes, both "divine" and "natural". It's impossible for us to know what this "serpent" even looked like.)

Given that reality, some of what was going on here was spiritual, and some "natural" (but that's a weird word to use). Part of curse pertains to spiritual changes, and part to natural evidences of that. Some of the indications about livestock and all the wild animals can pertain to the fact that all creation was cursed in the Fall, and that the whole animal kingdom was affected (Jer. 12.4; Rom. 8.20). The serpent, however, was cursed above all those. In the same sense, but in another sense completely, the spiritual serpent was restrained by spiritual limitations now, and the physical snake on its belly was an emblem of its new non-threatening posture. In that sense the physical things reflect spiritual truths.