gnosis92

Genesis 3

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
************************************************** *

Christians assume the serpent is Satan. Why God permits Satan into paradise is not explained. In almost every Christian apologetic literature directed against New Age, Hinduism, other religions, Evolution, Secular Humanism, Islam, etc., this passage is interpreted as this:

Satan's lie to man is that man can become God. Evolution teaches man can become God. Secular Humanism teaches that. So does the New Age.

:huh:

In contrast, Christianity is the only religion that teaches that sin is such that man cannot be saved by his or her own efforts, but only by the blood of Jesus. i.e www.ankerberg.com

Anyway I'm posting how the passage identified should be understood in secular context.

Amedeo

In order for you to evaluate the Christian interpretation, you have to have the correct interpretation. What other people say or think about man becoming god, or whatever, does not amount to beans.

Somebody told the tale of the conversation between the woman and the serpent. All other questions aside, the serpent is called the craftiest of the animals. The serpent is a SPEAKING ANIMAL.

THE TALE TELLER SAYS THAT THE SERPENT WAS THE CRAFTIEST ANIMAL GOD HAD CREATED. But when on earth did either the Elohim or Yahweh created a speaking (intelligent) serpent?????

The serpent is not implicitly in the catalogues of the creatures, because he is a HUMAN-like creature, not an animal creature.

The Serpent comes from OTHER ancient Mesopotamian tales, not from Genesis-1 and Genesis -2.

So, whatever the rabbinical and Christian interpretations of the nature of the Serpent are, they are talking a non-Biblical mythology (which was included in the Bible, since the Bible is a collection of andedotes and tales told by men).

The Bible Editors were not logically bright in keeping this fundamental story for the history of their religion and the Christian religion. Ask the non-Hebrews what or who the serpent is. (Maybe non-Hebrew cultures could be very enlightening.)

Joan of Bark

There are SO many interpretations of this passage. Not all Christians believe the serpent was Satan: some claim he was just a talking snake (a 'subtil' one).

Some Gnostics believed the serpent was actually Jesus, giving humans the knowledge they should have, over the objections of the 'bad' God (Satan) who created the 'evil' physical universe and everything in it. Talk about turning a story upside down!

gnosis92

the christians in the us r often evangelicals and they interpret this passage this way.

in revelations thebible says the serpent was satan. yes i know about gnosis interpretations

pharoah

Yep, they do.

One of those sticky questions that's usually filed under "God works in mysterious ways."

Of course the serpent said no such thing. He said that they would become as gods, knowing good and evil. God confirmed that this is exactly what happened in verse 22.

Shameless Big Lie #1.

Shameless Big Lie #2.

New Age is too big of a tent to make such a broad generalization, but who cares when you're evangelizing? BTW, none of this is directed at you gnosis92, but at the evangelizers.

Invent the disease and offer the cure - blood magic.

It is what it is, a creation myth from ancients trying to make sense of the world around them.

gnosis92

Some evangelical/fundie Xians say "you shall be as gods" which they see as Satan's lie.

Revelation does identify the serpent as Satan and it's in the xian but not jewish bible

pharoah

OK, let's look at the relevant verses.

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Note that everything the serpent told them in verse 5 was confirmed by either God or the author.

Actually that's not really true. Revelation calls the devil a serpent, but never directly connects the sepent of Genesis with Satan. This is just the way that some Christians have chosen to interpret Revelation.

Larsguy47

More art of Satan as a serpent lady.

Keeping it simple, basically, God TRICKED Satan by giving Satan an opportunity to be the muderous bitch that she had become. The little test about eating the fruit was the death sentence for Satan since if he rebelled on his own without killing anybody else, there might be some debate issues, but once he took innocent lives that was it. So whatever philosophical or theological issues Satan had with God, he still was resentful and spiteful and tried to kill innocent people as part of his act of rebellion. He didn't have enough dignity to just protest and commit suicide.

But god turned the tables on Satan by establishing two things: 1) The Ransom Sacrifice and 2) The Resurrection.

That is, the penalty of sin is DEATH. But that penalty is relevant to how long you're dead. If you're dead permanently then that's pretty severe. If you're dead 10 seconds and come back, then how bad was it? So basically this was a way to get rid of Satan legally and then minimize the damage by making it possible for those Satan had killed, still in the loins of Adam, to have a second chance. Everyone would have to die once though, literally or symbolically. Those who were not righteous would stay dead. Others could be brought back at God's own personal choice and be granted a second life.

But as you can see from the above, Satan is understood to have been a woman and in the Bible Satan was originally married to Christ. Satan is one of the two covering cherubs depicted on the Ark of the Covenant; the other angel/cherub is Michael, the archangel, who later became the man Jesus. Because of this close and specifical relationship in heaven, Satan and Jesus were considered like husband and wife, with Satan the most beautiful of all the angels. Thus the esoteric and artistic reference often depicts Satan as half woman and half snake, since Satan was depicted as a woman in this setting and spoke through the serpent.

Satan also has the body of a "dragon" in Revelation when he/she is cast out of heaven. Note, that Satan's position in this holy place on Holy Mount Zion is replaced by humans who become part of the "Church" and "Bride of Christ" a group of humans that are 10% natural Jews numbering 144,000 with the rest being gentiles to total 1,440,000 (Isa 6:13). Point being that Jesus got divorced in Eden from Satan and his replacement wife comes from those Satan killed.

So when Genesis 3:15 where god says: "I will put enmity between YOU and the WOMAN and between YOUR SEED and HER SEED," God is talking directly to Jesus about his divorce from Satan, his wife/woman, and how there would be opposition between the followers of Jesus in heaven and the followers of Satan in heaven. This plays out when the Dragon[Lady] Satan, is battles with the Christ in heaven, Christ and his angels vs the Dragon and his/her angels, and Satan and his angels are cast out of heaven and down to the Earth. Satan bruises Jesus in the heel when Jesus comes to the earth and must die. Jesus finally bruises the woman-serpent, Satan, in the head when Satan is finally cast into the lake of fire, meaning the "second death", permanent death, from which there is no return.

So those folks who think that the serpent references come from Babylon, forget that. The concept of Satan as both a serpent and a woman, or the obvious combination is a common reference based on the facts of Eden and obviously handed down through Noah so that various nations have their own varying versions of that event. Even the zodiac Sign, VIRGO, rerpesenting the "woman and her seed" (i.e. a woman holding a branch (lineage)) is based upon Satan as the woman and her rebellion against God. Thus the Mother Goddesses are based on Satan's original position in heaven as the Great Mother, the Beautiful Goddess.

http://www.geocities.com/siaxares/Virgo2aa1.GIF


Christ divorces Satan and marries the Church. So the Church is marrying a divorcee actually, but they don't care, since Christ saves them from death at the hands of his first wife, Satan/Lilith.

It all makes sense when you know the facts.

LG47

mojuang

the serpent did not lie......."man hath eaten of the fruit and hath become even unto one of us" says god (to himself?)