by jimwalton » Mon Jun 02, 2014 9:58 am
It wasn't a talking snake at all. We have to look at what it means, not just what it says. Serpents were significant religious characters in the ancient world. They were associated religiously with both death and life. We find mention of them in the Gilgamesh Epic as well as Egyptian religion. They represented wisdom, chaos, immortality, and well-being. Already we can see why the cunning creature in the Garden is portrayed as a serpent.
The serpent in the ancient world was endowed with divine or semi-divine qualities, and was often worshipped. 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. As I mentioned, 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—and the word for "snake" would be used for all of that? Just a little bit of research changes the whole picture. What we have here is most likely not a talking snake (like a silly fairy tale or a mythological creature), but a spiritual being that Eve would respect and converse with, but would deceive her.
We also notice that this being, whatever it was (but almost certifiably not a talking snake), is not presented as any kind of divinity, but obviously as something created by God. The author has no intention of identifying the serpent beyond this brief narrative. The way it's written is clearly demythologizing