Why did Lucifer take the form of a snake instead of a cute bunny rabbit or squirrel?

Question

No, some of you aren't getting it. Lucifer set out to persuade Eva to eat some bad fruit. WHY would he take such a creepy form?

Answer 1

Ahahaha...it would be awesome to see Satan depicted as a cute little pink bunny.

"Feel my wrath!!!! ....of...fuzziness!! Yes, I said it, damnit!"--Satan

Answer 2

I agree with a lot of the other people posting, that:

1. Creepy didn't exist until after the fact.

2. Eve needed to be tempted by a phallic symbol because the story is metaphorical.

3. Maybe Satan just thought that snakes were cool.

4. Judgement, outside of "the knowledge of good and evil" was utterly suspended, so even if snakes are creepy, Eva would not be able to recognize it - let alone that disobeying the rules would be good or bad. So maybe it also shows that, without judgement, one can tell no difference between good or bad advice nor that it came from a trustworthy or untrustworthy source.

That all said, Bible literallists and Mormons really ruin a brilliant metaphorical story from the Bible (see about ALL of Genesis). It's not literal because the storytellers were not trying to convey historical fact. Conveying historical fact (or fiction) didn't become a serious advocation for most people until just a few centuries ago.

The brilliance of the story is that it is about a loss of innocence and metaphor of parent to child relations in a society that, should a child lose virginity, children could suddenly be cast out the parents' house as independent adults. The loss is that of childhood and the care and protection of family. On some level, although we now have mandated child dependency to certain ages, it is a story that most people can relate to on some level.

Then along come these religious nuts and they screw the whole story over, either wanting it to be a literal "truth" or interpreting as something so utterly different from what was written that the meaning becomes unintelligible from the original.

I suppose on some level the story is a metaphorical story about how people are so creeped out by snakes. But if that's the case, where are the stories about spiders and other creepy crawlies?

Answer 3

I would think that an innocent women in a beautiful garden would be more likely to be tempted by a cute bunny rabbit eating a carrot or a quirky little squirrel eating a nut.

A snake and an apple? It just seem so strange to me. (But, I wasn't there, shrug).

Answer 4

Well, y'know, the character is famous for having more than his fair share of pride, so where's the challenge in appearing as a bunny?
ANYONE can persuade someone to do something if they put out with the soft warm fur and the twitchy little nose and the cute floppy ears and all that, but where's the dignity in it?
Nah, let's be a creature covered in scales that slithers and STILL get them to trust me. That'll show Him Upstairs the scale of his design flaw...

Answer 5

I think that the question ought to be, why did the authors (or editors) of this creation myth choose the snake/serpent as their symbolic representation of "evil" temptation?

To understand that, we'll have to look at some other religious symbolism...the snake was a holy symbol for some of the polytheistic religions of the time; a symbol of rebirth, and sometimes fertility, associated with Goddesses. A very famous statue of a Minoan Goddess shows her snakes:

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/snakegoddess/

Snakes are associated with prophecy and wisdom - and Goddesses - in several places, such as Egypt, Sumer, Crete, and Greece. In Egypt, the female deity of pre-dynastic northern (Lower) Egypt was the cobra goddess Ua Zit. Egyptian deities and royalty has a uraeus emblem - a head and hood of a cobra. Some Sumerian Goddesses, such as Inanna, were associated with snakes. In Minoan-era Crete, we find some statuettes of goddesses or priestesses with snakes. In one case, the snakes are cobras. In Greece, in what is most likely a Minoan legacy, Hera and Athena were associated with snakes, and the shrines of Delphi, Olympia, and Dodona were originally associated with goddesses. However, they were taken over by the followers of the male gods Zeus and Apollo, who were depicted as snake-killers. Even then, the greatest wisdom was associated with priestesses.

The snake (together with the cup or chalice and the raven, and still associated with new forms of old Goddess-worshiping religious practices) is also resident in the sky as a constellation:

http://langlab.uta.edu/german/personal/rings/skygoddess/hydra.htm

Examined in light of this, the Adam and Eve story is quite interesting, and it answers the question of why the snake/serpent in this creation story tempted Eve rather than Adam. In a struggle to establish a male tribal God as the only God of a people, it would naturally be women who were most reluctant to give up religious practices and religious thought that gave them the same rights to holiness as men, and by extension, an equal place in society. And it also makes perfect sense that the snake or serpent would be symbolic of the Goddess-oriented religions that posed a threat to the establishment of the Hebrews' tribal God as the only God.

The Adam and Eve creation myth clearly sets men up as being superior to women. The resistance of women to embracing both a religion and a society in which they were inferior to men can be seen as the theme of this creation myth. In the symbolic language of myth, this is a story about how women rejected the tribal God of the Hebrews and the limitation on their freedoms.

Of course, since it is written from the point of view of enthusiastic followers of the religion of the tribal God of the Hebrews, this rejection had to be portrayed as something evil, with dire punishments falling on the women who didn't submit to the authority of this tribal God or the societal rules of a male-dominated culture.

Answer 6

The Holy Bible doesn't answer such questions. But surely you can see where a snake would be more fitting for the story. BB

Answer 7

Wait who said this? Ohhhh yyeeeahhhh.... that one book. Are you sure you want to be taking this book as a credible source of historical events. Especaily of these sorts. This book is full of flaws and symbolism. Its possible it WAS a bunny, but you know when you retail a story? You know how you like to change a few details, just to make it more interesting?

Well, i suppose so do the Jews.

Answer 8

Because at that time all animals were beautiful, and a snake was just as beautiful as a cute bunny or a squirrel.

Answer 9

Because nobody takes bunnies or squirrels seriously. Would you be tempted by a fuzzy rabbit holding an apple? I don't think so.

Answer 10

i think if he take the form of a snake he can eat the rabbit or squirrel. if it is the other way he cannot eat the snake. no rabbit or squirrel eat snakes.

got it.

Answer 11

because then youd hate bunnies/...maybe the snake ate the bunnies...how do you even know he did change into a snake? whats with the apple? isnt that a fruit we all eat today? why was it evel then nd not now?