| Serpent of Eden | |
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Real Name |
Unknown |
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First Appearance |
Hebrew Theology |
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Created by |
Hebrew Theology |
Origin[]
The Serpent called by the Hebrew word Nāḥāš which is also associated with divination, including the verb form meaning "to practice divination or fortune-telling". It is used in the Hebrew Bible to identify the serpent that appears in Genesis 3:1, in the Garden of Eden.
In the first book of the Torah, the serpent is portrayed as a deceptive creature or trickster, who promotes as good what God had forbidden and shows particular cunning in its deception. (cf. Genesis 3:4–5 and 3:22) The serpent has the ability to speak and to reason: "Now the serpent was more subtle (also translated as "cunning") than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made".
God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden to tend it and warned Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The serpent tempts Eve to eat of the tree, but Eve tells the serpent what God had said. The serpent replies that she would not surely die (Genesis 3:4) and that if she eats the fruit of the tree "then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5) Eve ate the fruit, and gave some to Adam who also ate. God, who was walking in the Garden, learns of their transgression. To prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and living forever, they are banished from the garden upon which God posts an angelic guard. The serpent is punished for its role in the Fall, being cursed by God to crawl on its belly and eat dust.
There is a debate about whether the serpent in Eden should be viewed figuratively or as a literal animal. According to one midrashic interpretation in Rabbinic literature, the serpent represents sexual desire; another interpretation is that the snake is the yetzer hara. Modern Rabbinic ideas include interpreting the story as a psychological allegory where Adam represents reasoning faculties, Eve the emotional faculties, and the serpent the hedonic sexual/physical faculties. Voltaire, drawing on Socinian influences, wrote: "It was so decidedly a real serpent, that all its species, which had before walked on their feet, were condemned to crawl on their bellies. No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or Belzebub, or Devil, in the Pentateuch."
At the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, Adam and Eve are shown with a female serpent. The portrayal of the image of the serpent as a mirror of Eve was common in earlier Christian iconography as a result of the identification of women as the ones responsible for the fall of man and source of the original sin.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of the Serpent of Eden from before January 1, 1929 are in the public domain in the US.
Some notable appearances are listed below:
- Book of Genesis
- Paradise Lost