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Snakes are not evil or cursed - 4/26/2008 1:48:54 AM
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Raptorman
Posts: 85
Joined: 9/21/2005
From: Colorado
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Just a warning: this rant contains an unusual amount of sarcasm for me. It’s just that I love being sarcastic with things that particularly bug me, at least when I am clever enough to be sarcastic. As usual, I invite criticism of any points I make here. If you can find mistakes, then I beg you to point them out to me!
Well, to cut right to the chase, I’m tired of the idea that snakes (and other real or fantastic reptiles, often associated with snakes – crocodiles, lizards, dragons, Leviathan-type sea serpents, etc.) are supposed to serve as a universal symbol in Christendom for evil. And of course it apparently got started in Genesis, where the Bible says the “serpent” tempted Adam and Eve.
At what point are we going to realize that this is not an actual snake? Correct me if I am wrong, but it’s pretty clear that it’s not a snake, it’s not Lucifer taking the form of a snake or possessing a snake, and it is not another reptile (or any other animal). “Serpent” is obviously a metaphor for Satan, due to his sneaky/subversive nature, a “snake-in-the-grass” type of approach to tempt Adam and Eve. The serpent in Genesis 3 is described as the craftiest, most intelligent being God had created. Surely the highest angel (as Lucifer apparently was) would qualify for that title, and need not be connected to an animal. Once we realize this, any concrete basis for saying a literal snake was involved in the Fall disappears faster than a bacon cheeseburger on my plate.
The references to “crawling on his belly” and “eating dust” are probably just extending the metaphor of Lucifer being brought low and knocked out of his position as the highest of the archangels. It’s kind of a stretch to say that this is why snakes have no legs, and pick up the scent of prey by using the Jacobson’s Organ at the roof of their mouths to taste air and dirt particles. This concept literally loses more ground when we realize that not all snakes spend their lives eating dust, staying close to the earth. Quite a few snakes are arboreal (tree-dwellers), so I guess they are less unholy. Well, they are living in trees, so they have to be a little closer to God… Oh, and let’s not forget sea snakes.
Even then, the Creation in Genesis 1 already mentions “creeping things” (reptiles, in the context of the ancient Hebrew) as, well, creeping on the earth. Rather than the product of a curse, it seems that reptiles were originally created to walk close to the ground. You know, part of the same creation that God pronounced as Very Good.
This idea of reptiles representing evil also operates under the extremely shaky notion that mankind shows a “natural” aversion to reptiles, or that snakes/lizards/dragons are usually repulsive creatures from a human perspective. Yeah, right! I guess Jesus was mistaken when He said that young children are innocent and that “the Kingdom of God belongs to them.” Why was He mistaken? Well, kids love running around outside and catching those satanic reptiles and bugs and other creepy-crawlies. They’re fascinated with them and keep them as pets. Surely this is a sign that our children are losing their innocence.
What about people who honestly find reptiles fascinating, even beautiful? Are they less godly because they love creatures that are cursed for something Satan did? (That never made sense to me, by the way, cursing the snake for Lucifer’s screw-up) Sure, there are people who are afraid of snakes. But there are also people who are petrified of spiders, sharks, jellyfish, wolves, pit bulls, army ants and hamsters (yeah, there are some hamster-phobes; you know who you are). People are afraid of certain animals. That’s just they way it is, and not much evidence exists to tell me that “most of mankind” is afraid of snakes in particular because of a curse placed upon them.
What about the fossilized snakes with small legs that have been uncovered? Don’t they show snakes have since been cursed to not have legs? Well, there are also lizards that have no legs, or tiny and vestigial limbs (called Glass Lizards). For that matter, there are some beetles that no longer grow wings. That’s not a curse, but a genetic mutation.
I will happily admit that the Bible sometimes uses actual snakes to illustrate evil, but to my knowledge, no animal group – not even reptiles – is all good or all evil in the Bible. For example, lions are used for good and evil comparisons. Lucifer is compared to a prowling lion, seeking to devour. But the Bible also claims Jesus to be the Lion of Judah, and it says “the righteous are as bold as a lion.” Likewise, even snakes are used favorably. Jesus may have called the Pharisees a “nest of vipers,” but he also commanded Christians to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” And let’s not forget the snake stuck to a pole that Moses raised up, a miraculous cure for Hebrews who had suffered snakebites. Jesus even compared His own death to this event (“As the serpent was raised in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up”).
Okay, I will confess that I have a vested interest in this. I personally love snakes. Some of you are afraid of them, and that’s fine. I won’t rock your boat by insulting you for it, nor will I place a boa constrictor in your sock drawer to irritate you. But I’ve grown to love even the scaly members of the animal kingdom. Everybody needs a friend, after all. My childhood often included me catching horned lizards and garter snakes in my yard, and I was endlessly fascinated by these creatures. So please forgive me if I am a little repulsed by the concept of these animals as satanic, or reminders of the Fall. There is ingenious design built into snakes: the aforementioned Jacobson’s Organ (for detecting prey animals) and the dislocating jaw which allows them to swallow large victims, the interaction of muscles and scales giving them the ability to slither, and in the venomous species we find teeth built like hypodermic needles to deliver poison. The fingerprints of God and His ingenuity are found as much upon the snake as any other animal. Does it really look like a “cursed” creature to you?
Of course, that’s just my two cents. I could be proven wrong. But until then, I think we really need to stop thinking of snakes as evil, jinxed or something which men are naturally going to be afraid of. Unless I am mistaken, they need to be remembered as a wonderfully designed, fascinating part of God’s creation. You don’t have to like snakes, but they should be seen for what they are: creatures that God made, because creation would be incomplete without them. And yes, the same goes for other animals we may not like – tarantulas, great white sharks, rats, etc. – as much as it does for creatures we love: cats, dogs, horses, canaries, swans, and so forth.
Thanks for putting up with another long rant, folks. If you would like to contribute anything, feel free.
Yours in Christ,
Raptorman
_____________________________
"Satan himself trembles when the weakest saint is on his knees."
-Unknown
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you."
-Gandalf, "Lord of the Rings"
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RE: Snakes are not evil or cursed - 4/26/2008 9:14:41 AM
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abraxas
Posts: 94
Joined: 4/8/2008
Status: online
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Amen to that! We have some beautiful snakes here, and I'm always afraid someone will decide to kill the ones who become regulars. Like this six-foot spectacled cobra (that I hope doesn't bite one of my dogs). Don't know how easy it will be to see--40kb is small!
Did the Bible story influence hatred of snakes, or did hatred of snakes influence the Bible story?
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RE: Snakes are not evil or cursed - 4/26/2008 10:24:55 AM
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henny
Posts: 1263
Joined: 4/15/2005
From: MN
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I've always liked the first 3 chapters of Genesis best of any of the parts of the Bible, just because they seem to have come from or been influenced by sources that resist being fully integrated into a traditional Christian world view (Judaism is more at home with some of the issues, but even then, resists certain aspects). The first 3 chapters are very "mythic" (in the classical sense) given the way that they describe God (he behaves more like a mythic "god" than the Christian "God"), the serpent, and man's fall. If you actually read them it basically has more similarities to promethean type myths than it does traditional Christian readings of the story (i.e. it's clear from the story that mankind in eatting the fruit are gaining/stealing knowledge that only God posesses. The only reason God gives for banishing mankind is that they stole this knowledge, and so if they were to eat of the tree of life, they would become even more like Gods. The account itself never really says if the knowledge Adam and Eve gained is good or bad, and it doesn't mention a fall into sin and the need of redemption any where in the account -this reading only seems to come about later). In this sense, the serpent's and man's punishments really read more like the traditional how the "X" got its "Y" myths (i.e. how the fox got its tail, how the birds got their wings, etc, etc) as the punishments seem really specific to these creatures (mankind, serpent) as oppossed to being an opening of sin into the world with universal/grand consequences.
But I don't think traditional Jewish readings of the Genesis account ascribe any particular "evil" to the snake nor did they read him as Satan. I read somewhere once that traditionally Jewish people thought that ALL animals, not just the snake, could talk in the time of Adam and Eve. The snake is really more of a clever "trickster" figure, the likes of which pops up in similar promethean type myths all over the world. He's not so much evil as he is a sly fox, or a brair rabbit (certain traditions even read him as good, like early gnostics who saw the serpent as the bringer of gnosis who awoke Adam and Eve from the demiurge's false paradise).
< Message edited by henny -- 4/26/2008 10:32:15 AM >
_____________________________
Both read the Bible day and night but thou read'st Black where I read white -William Blake
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RE: Snakes are not evil or cursed - 4/27/2008 2:33:44 PM
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abraxas
Posts: 94
Joined: 4/8/2008
Status: online
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That could be, though it seems hard not to view the serpent as "the bad guy" in the story--could you sum up the traditional Jewish reading? Also, was it an arbitrary act to name the serpent to that role? Definitely lots of other "sly trickster" animal characters, as you mentioned, but certainly it couldn't have been, say, a squirrel, or a butterfly? As I live in a non-Christian country where snakes are also hated, it seems sensible that the anti-snake attitude could have affected later readings of the story, though that attitude probably already existed in the cultures that gave rise to the story.
This chicken-and-egg thing could also apply if we substitute 'snake' with 'woman' when we look at the story. But this thread is about snakes. Today on the hill three of my dogs had a young cobra surrounded. It was lunging at them and they at it. Not pretty. No casualties.
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RE: Snakes are not evil or cursed - 4/27/2008 2:36:05 PM
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abraxas
Posts: 94
Joined: 4/8/2008
Status: online
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By the way, can anyone open the attachment in my first post? It won't open for me.
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RE: Snakes are not evil or cursed - 5/1/2008 5:58:21 PM
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DanJames
Posts: 393
Joined: 12/13/2007
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I don't know if you knew, but we actually had a thread in this forum where we talked a little bit about the snake-with-legs fossil. I don't know what the nature of the curse on the serpent was, but I think it is interesting to think that the snake kind may have stood with much of their body off of the ground. The Black Mamba is capable of standing with at least a third of its body off of the ground. I imagine that, if they had legs for support, an average mamba would be able to stand as tall as a human. The curse may have been to paralyze these legs and all snakes have now secondarily lost them.
Not to take away from the OP; I agree with you, snakes are fantastic creatures.
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RE: Snakes are not evil or cursed - 5/8/2008 4:46:59 AM
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scutus
Posts: 639
Joined: 10/30/2006
From: Sydney, Australia
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quote:
That could be, though it seems hard not to view the serpent as "the bad guy" in the story--could you sum up the traditional Jewish reading? You could ask a rabbi.
quote:
Also, was it an arbitrary act to name the serpent to that role? Definitely lots of other "sly trickster" animal characters, as you mentioned, but certainly it couldn't have been, say, a squirrel, or a butterfly?
The choice of the serpent as the tempter may be reflective of the Middle Eastern context in which the Biblical authors lived. It may be an old holdover from Canaanite mythologies where primordial monster-serpents represented chaos.
The snake wasn't considered an embodiement of evil (at least, early on). In Genesis 49:19 for example, Dan and Gad are compared to snakes because of their sudden ambush tactics, and Moses has the God-given power to change his staff into a snake. Certainly God doesn't seem to see the snake as unworthy to his messenger.
Aside from that, the moment in which God curses Adam, the Serpent and Eve, marks the key turning point between the man and the animal kingdom. What better animal to symbolise this separation than a dangerous, deadly animal?
< Message edited by scutus -- 5/8/2008 4:55:39 AM >
_____________________________
"Take your son."
"I have two sons."
"Your only son."
"Each of them is the only son of his mother."
"The one whom you love."
"I love them both."
"Isaac."
-God to Abraham, according to a Jewish midrash.
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RE: Snakes are not evil or cursed - 5/15/2008 3:16:41 PM
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Raptorman
Posts: 85
Joined: 9/21/2005
From: Colorado
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Hmm. Interesting facts, Scutus. But frankly, if God really wanted to employ a dangerous animal to symbolize evil, I think there may be better options than a snake. The spider or scorpion could symbolize animals that are cunning in their own way, and there are probably more people scared of them than snakes, and they have a more strange appearance that provokes an avoidance response when we see a large tarantula or black widow. Still, each animal can teach mankind lessons about both good and evil. Perhaps I am mistaken, but aside from the evidently metaphorical use of the term "Serpent" to refer to Lucifer, there does not seem to be much reason to single out the snake as being satanic, or cursed to be a solemn reminder of the Fall. For instance, if I were running the exhibits at Answers in Genesis' new Creation Museum, I'd tear the red snake with legs and horns out of the Adam and Eve exhibit, and simply put a statue of an archangel in its place. Yeah, so I love snakes. They are still God's creatures, even if some people hate them.
_____________________________
"Satan himself trembles when the weakest saint is on his knees."
-Unknown
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you."
-Gandalf, "Lord of the Rings"
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