Was God really talking to a snake?

Question

Reasoning on this, it is easy to see that a curse upon snakes would be highly unfair. The snake had done nothing wrong. If a man were to use a puppet to somehow pick someone’s pocket, would the puppet be arrested? That would be absurd. The same principal applies here. So Jehovah was talking not to the physical snake but to that person who had used the snake as a puppet. He told that person that he was “cursed above all cattle, and above every beast.” Cattle are creations, just as snakes are creations. In the extraterrestrial realms, all angels--whether cherubim or seraphim or whatever--are creations. So Jehovah had here cursed the person we know as Satan the Devil to being forever cursed worse than any other creation. It was said that “upon thy belly shalt thou go.” Ergo, he would forever be opportunistic, ever conspiring to bring down Jehovah God in some sordid way. He would eat “dust,” a very cryptic remark. So who was made from “dust”? The people. His time would be in fooling us.

Answer 1

No. You answered your own question. The serpent that was cursed is Satan.

Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Answer 2

I tend to agree with Philip H, and his answer, but would like to suggest something, that parallels the subject. Was he speaking with a "snake"?? It occurs to me threw out the Bible as Phillip suggested the necessity of speaking to the people in a language (words) they would comprehend. Add to that eye sight is an informational input to our brains. Would the image of just another human form, have had the same impact on Adam and Eve? Consider the snake as a long lasting object of revulsion, just ask most near any woman.

Further consider, in countering the scriptures, the occasions that objects or persons would disappear. Jesus was able to appear or disappear, are we overlooking the fact that the Devil could seemly appear at will. Example taking Christ to the top of a MT and then to other locations. It would suggest the Devil could appear at will in his own choice of "being or creature". If in fact he was a "Fallen Angle", that would further be collaborated with the serpents the Magicians in the Egyptian court of "Ramses" .

Hmmm a snake or the Devil in disguise?

Answer 3

The Genesis writer may have believed that the serpent had been going about on its belly for the two days since it was created, and that God perhaps might eventually have elevated it to the status of the other beasts of the field by giving it legs, if only it hadn't tricked the woman. The writer may have believed that when the curse came, it had the force of causing the serpent to continue to go about on its belly for all of the rest of the days of its life. It's like a blind man who could be cured by God, but he commits a sin, and is then cursed by losing his chance to be cured by God. The blind man was suffering before the curse, just as the serpent was, but to have all hope for a cure snatched away from him forever is surely a curse. So it could have been with the serpent, at least in the mind of the Genesis writer.

The writer may have believed the serpent moved largely upright through the garden, holding itself vertical in much the same manner as the King Cobra does, by using its coiled tail as a base on which it may hold itself erect, and moved across the garden by means of a twisting action of its coiled tail. After the serpent tricked the woman, Yahweh took away its ability to hold itself erect, and the serpent was condemned to spend the rest of its days going about on its belly.



Once again, we see that there is a plausible alternative belief the Genesis writer may have had which does not have the serpent with legs before the curse. And, again, it doesn't matter that Mesopotamian myths had serpents with legs, or that Jews traditionally believed that the Genesis serpent had legs. All that matters is what the Bible says, and the Bible does not say that the serpent had legs before the curse, and it does not say that the serpent had its legs removed in the curse. Why, then, must we believe, as some skeptics insists, that the Genesis writer's serpent had legs, if there are plausible alternative explanations?



The notion that the Genesis writer believed that the serpent had legs before the curse is certainly quite plausible, but it seems about as likely that the Genesis writer thought the serpent twisted itself across the garden in the manner I described in the second alternative above, and therefore the serpent need not have had legs.



Readers who still doubt that the Genesis writer could have had any other type of serpent in mind besides one with legs, let them read further.

The Genesis author doesn't say that the serpent had legs before the curse, nor does he say that Yahweh removed the legs when he cursed the serpent, and the writer doesn't say how the serpent moved about the garden, so we are free to imagine any mythically plausible form of locomotion beside walking, as long as it's consistent with the myth.



Those who argue that the Genesis writer's mythical serpent had legs naturally claim that the serpent got about the garden on its legs, but there's no textual evidence to support this. Perhaps, then, the serpent was legless and flew about the Garden of Eden. Such a beast, for example, is found in the myths of the ancient Aztecs, who worshipped a winged, legless serpent called Quetzalcoatl. More importantly, a winged, legless serpent is found in the mythology of the ancient Arabia; the legless flying serpent in Arabian mythology was said to have been the guardian of a tree1, just like the serpent in the Genesis story. The fact that both serpents guarded trees suggests that the serpents in both myths may have been based on a common antecedent now lost to history that predated each of them. If this is the first occurrence of a biblical myth based on a lost antecedent, it is certainly not the last one. Some parallel gospel stories from Luke and Matthew are believed to have originated from a common source, now lost, called Q (stands for Quelle, German for "source"). If two or more gospels stories can have a common, but lost, antecedent, then so could two or more serpent myths have had a common source, now lost.





We are thus left with what seems to be a quite plausible alternative view of the Genesis writer's serpent. Just as we are free to imagine that the Genesis writer's serpent had legs before the curse, and lost them in the curse, even though there's no biblical evidence to support the notion that the serpent had legs, we are equally free to imagine that the writer had in mind an amphiptere, a winged, legless serpent that lost its wings in the curse, and was consigned all the rest of the days of its life to go about on its belly.

Answer 4

The Bible is TRUE in essence but not Absolutely, Literally true. It was written to communicate to people in a way they could understand its significance.
We are different now and if the Bible were written today, it would give the information in a manner designed to communicate to the people of today.
All efforts to understand the nature and intent of the message is the best approach to understanding scripture.

Answer 5

Interesting speech, however whether I agree with you or not, this is not the proper place for it. If you go to http://www.360.yahoo.com you can post such speeches till your heart's content.