Joan of Bark

First of all, what was he doing in the "perfect" Garden of Eden?

Who first associated him with Satan? What is current mainstream teaching on this "most subtil" creature? I don't recall reading anything more about him in the Bible after God condemns him to slither on his belly. It seems as if this is one subject who is rarely referred to in debates over scripture.

Please use Biblical references when possible.

sunspark

Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 14:12-20, Ezekiel 28:12-19 and Revelation 12:17 is the (very sketchy) link.

'course the popular theology of Satan (fallen angel) totally goes against what Jesus said of Satan.

John Kesler

The connection of the serpent with Satan/the devil appears at least at early as the Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 2.

He appears in the NT. Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 make the serpent/Satan connection explicit.

Magdlyn

One theory that makes some sense to me is, the serpent was a popular Goddess symbol of the time. Since one thread of Biblical agendas is the destruction of Goddess worship and denigration of women, the appearance and role of the serpent and the woman in the "perfect" garden supports this theory.

The serpent of Genesis (later seen as the Dragon of Revelation), "Lucifer" (originally a nickname for a king of Babylon- Isaiah 14:4, 12- Lightbringer, son of the Goddess Dawn), Baalzebul/Beelzebub (originally a god of Ekron- 2Kings 1:3) and Satan (the shaytan, mostly appearing in Job), were conflated after the the dualism of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism influenced the diaspora of 6th century BCE Judahites.

Chili

The serpents is a 'she' that Adam took to be his wife. He called her Eve because she would tell him the difference between good and evil which taught him to crawl when the going gets tough and also light up his day when the sun is shining in his direction.

Eve is the serpent that presides over the Tree of Knowledge next to the woman who presides over the TOL from where the woman strikes at the head of Eve who in her turn strikes Adam/us at the heel to be motivated.

Her aspirations are drawn from the woman in the TOL who saw that the TOK was good for gaining wisdom, food and beauty, which makes her the reason for our intelligence and headaches alike but not of wisdom itself that is retained (tied down) in the TOL by the woman. This makes here the temple tramp who points at the goodies for the day and not much more beyond that.

Down the road she is also the cause of the emnity between Herod and Pilate who ruled over the offspring of these two serpents. Herod an Pilate became friends after Michael had maimed her which then would be why Herod was eager to see Jesus etc.

Joan of Bark

sunspark, John, Magdly, thanks for the references. I'm going to do some more reading on this before I comment further.

Chili, once again your post left me scratching my head. Where do you get this stuff? I've never heard these theories of yours anywhere else, and you don't support them with scripture or even expert opinion.

Gullwind

I once had a creationist tell me that Satan's rebellion was not sin, because then Satan would have brought sin into the Garden, and the bible says it was Adam. So apparently, trying to take God's place and being cast out of heaven isn't a sin. Go figure.

Diogenes the Cynic

Because of its ability to shed its skin and seemingly be "resurrected," the serpent was a frequent symbol of immortality in ancient ME mythology. It was symbolized thusly in Egyptian and Sumerian mythologies, for instance. There are at least two stories that I know of (Gilgamesh is one of them) where the means to immortality (rendered as either a plant or a drinkable potion) was stolen by a snake.

Snakes were often sometimes seen as being messengers between the earth and the underworld (because they lived in holes and cracks in the earth). I would guess that the serpent in Genesis probably has some derivation from the latter perception and is also made indirectly responsible for the loss of human immortality.

Chili

No, it was not a sin but it is called original sin. This sin is what created Adam and he took the serpent to be his wife.

Take note that man 'was' and that his wife 'was' in the last line of Gen.2 where they both were naked to wit and felt no shame. The reason they felt no shame is that they were naked to wit wherein they had no identity of their own and thus also no life of their own wherein they could die.

You can also say that they had no shadow which is seen only in the light of common day that was not theirs in Eden where the difference between good and evil and between light and dark are not known.

If they had no shadow in the celestial light it can now be said that Adam was the shadow of man, or at least that Adam was created by the light of common day wherein only the shadow of man can be seen by the ego of man that was stirred during a breeze time of day by the sound of the Lord to lay it on there thick and heavy that Adam was conjectured in the Tree of Knowldge after he/they ate and became rational beings -- and this would be man without a halo (who does not see shadows), the Church would add, to give substance to the imago of man that has a double in the ego that was called Adam. It was he who took Eve to be his wife as shadow enhancer there called mother of the living because she cares, or does not care, in the life of the living to make destiny a part of our life that affirms the imago unto whom she is in service always, while shining our image in view of the light of common day.

Magdlyn

I don't know why I get so annoyed when everyone says "Satan" was an angel fallen from heaven, but I do. It's ancient myth and people have a right to their myths.

But Isaiah is so clear that the Lightbringer or Day Star (Lucifer in the Latin and in the KJV, lucent meaning light) is the King of Babylon. It says it right there in the text, and everyone today seems to ignore that. Lucifer is not Satan, and he is not an angel of YHWH's heaven, but seems to see himself as a god from the Babylonian pantheon.

It's a taunt by the captive Judahites, full of wishful thinking against their earthly oppressor.