"Never Listen to a Talking Snake"

Mike Criswell

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"Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field....” (Genesis 3:1)

Here, we have one of the most interesting and yet most perplexing sections of the bible. Not long after Adam and Eve are created and placed in the Garden of Eden, scripture introduces us to a snake.” Maybe I would be more accurate in saying, “The Snake.”

Snakes! I hate snakes. There’s just something wrong with a creature that has no legs and slithers along the ground. Cultures from antiquity until now have both revered and hated snakes. Through the centuries many cultures have even “worshiped” the snake (aka: Ophiolatry – snake worship). From the ancient Mesopotamians who believed snakes were immortal, to the Appalachian “snake handlers” of today, snakes have often played a prominent role in religion. It’s an interesting study for sure, but let’s get back to our text.

What are we to make of “The Snake” in Eden? Here is where I would encourage us to be a bit more philosophical than “dogmatic” – a bit more spiritual than literal. Whether or not the Serpent was a literal reptile (ie: Chordate) or not really makes little difference to the real essence of the biblical story. Let me just state at the outset that the Israelites of Moses day knew that snakes did NOT talk.  And since Moses is credited with writing the Genesis account, it’s safe to say that Moses did not believe that snakes had articulated speech either. This is not to say that God could not have created a snake with the ability to talk. After all, he created mankind out of the same dirt that he created all other fleshly creatures. And if man (Adam and Eve) had the ability to communicate then why not snakes?

But then again, other than Balaam’s donkey, this seems to be the only “cross species” direct communication. And that incident was obviously a miracle that was caused directly by God. Clearly the talking snake of Genesis 3 was NOT caused by God. Far from it!  But this all misses the point of the Genesis narrative.

The point of Genesis 3 is not to give us the once physical ability of reptiles. The point is that while Genesis introduces us to the goodness of the Creator, there was yet another force at work. Nothing makes evil shine like good. God is the ultimate good, and while not nearly as powerful as God, the snake represents all that is evil and antithetical to good.

This then is the point. We really are told very little in Genesis about the Serpent other than that he brought havoc to God’s perfect creation. It is clear that Satan is the force behind The Snake in Eden. But whether or not Satan actually and literally appeared as a snake is another question. Obviously, while Satan can falsely appear as an “angel of light,” he does not have a literal stomach on which he crawls. So, we must decide what to do with all this “anthropomorphism and figurative language.” What is it really trying to say to us?

Let’s be careful not to miss the point. It is possible that The Serpent “motif” is a title as much as anything, even in scripture. See Revelation 12:9, where this seems to be the case. But in the Genesis narrative, the real truth here is to be found in what Satan (snake, serpent, devil, evil) communicates. In the conversation with the woman (Eve)

The Serpent (Satan) accuses God of being a liar, of being too restrictive, of not having the power to carry out His ultimate agenda, and in reality, of being the real “evil.” In other words, goodness and righteousness has been flipped on its head. But fortunately, God has the final say. He (God) flips the snake on his belly and sends it off to be crushed by a coming Messiah.

What a wonderful story! Good will always triumph over evil! God will always triumph over Satan. Christ (the seed of woman) triumphed over death at the cross. So, in reading Genesis, sure, let’s take time to think about what The Snake was all about. That’s healthy! But let’s not be so worried about whether or not snakes talk (or once had legs) that we miss the Word that SPEAKS to us today.