The serpent is found in the Garden of Eden near the tree of life as the tempter, an evil figure who motivates the fall of Adam and Eve, inciting them to transgress the laws of God. The serpent also represents faith, and redemption in the wilderness where a serpent is raised on a pole for the people to look upon and be saved from the bites of the poisonous snakes around them.
The Serpent in the Garden of Eden
The serpent is often found associated with a tree or pole in mythology. This is true of the serpent seen throughout the Bible. While the serpent was often a female in world mythological tales, it was always portrayed as a male in the Bible. The Jews considered the serpent to be evil -- it was counted among the unclean animals, and was portrayed as threatening.
While sometimes thought to be an evil god, the serpent was also thought to be good throughout world history, a sign of rebirth and immortality. In Sumeria, the god of the underworld, Ningishzida (Lord of the Good Tree) is a symbol of healing and a guardian of the celestial palace of Anu.
The Sumerian deity Ningishzida has a female name, although by the time of the Babylonian Adapa myth from around 1400 B.C.E, Ningishzida is spoken of as a male deity. Adapa of the myth unknowingly refused the gift of immortality, a tale also related to the Garden of Eden story.
There are many scholars who theorize that the Garden of Eden passages in the book of Genesis were adapted from Mesopotamian mythology (Sir Henry Rawlinson, Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, for example).
Abraham, the father of the Hebrews, was originally from Mesopotamia and would have been familiar with the religious mythology of the area. The Bible records that Abraham’s father, Terah, worshipped other gods (Joshua 24:2), and the Midrash teaches that Terah was a wicked man, actually manufacturing idols (Numbers Rabbah 19:1; 19:33.).
There are many parallels found in the stories of Genesis with Sumero-Babylonian mythology. Eden, the garden in the midst of the wilderness created by God for man is similar to the Sumerian wildnerness known as Edin. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the characters Enkidu and Shamhat, are characters like the Adam and Eve of Genesis. Many myths exist but with changes to the background details and outcomes in the Genesis version.
Moses and the Serpents
In the biblical book of Exodus, the prophet Moses appears before Pharaoh, changing his rod into a serpent, as one of many miracles he is able to perform. The Pharaoh’s magicians are able to do the same with their own rods. The serpent/rod wielded by Aaron, the brother of Moses, was then able to swallow up the serpents of the magicians, showing the greater power of Moses and his God.
In Numbers 21, the Israelites who have flown from captivity in Egypt into the wilderness are besieged by venomous snakes after cursing God and Moses for their trying situation of wandering in the wilderness for thirty-eight years. Moses is directed by God to make a bronze snake and place it on a pole so that anyone who looked upon it could be saved from the bites of the snakes. Those who looked were saved.
Much later, in II Kings 18, the Israelites turned this bronze serpent formed by Moses into an idol, lighting incense for it. Snake cults of the Canaanites have been found by archaeologists to have existed in the land at the time and it appears that the Israelites had adopted some of the rites and beliefs of their neighbors. The serpent created by Moses was then destroyed by Hezekiah, along with other examples of idolatry.
The Christian View of the Serpent
"Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind.”
As John Milton penned in Paradise Lost in the 17th century, the reason for the appearance of Satan in the Garden and this temptation was that Satan was angry for having been thrown out of heaven by God for his rebellion (see Revelation 12:7-9). Satan caused the dismissal of Adam and Eve from their earthly heaven and was cursed for it (Genesis 3:14).
The serpent seen in the Garden may have not been threatening or frightening to the first couple as it has become to followers of the Bible today. He was serpent-like in his magical, enchanting ways when he whispered his reasoning in Eve’s ear. Eve was deceived, II Corinthians 11:14 elucidates, because Satan appeared as an “angel of light.”
According to the New Testament scriptures, Christians believe that this bronze serpent lifted up in the wilderness represented Jesus Christ, who was to be lifted up in the same manner, so that those who believed would be saved. It was related to the biblical purpose for the law of sacrifice (see John 3:14-15).The serpent in the Bible thus represented both punishment and death and healing and life at the same time.
Sources:
Gettys, Donald J. Jesus Our Serpent. Accessed 7 March 2010
Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y d la Torre. Eden's Serpent and its Pre-biblical Mesopotamian Prototypes . Accessed 7 March 2010
Paula I. Nielson - Paula I. Nielson, Ph.D., holds credentials and interests in anthropology, archaeology, religion, the Middle East and Asia.
