It was concluded in the previous chapter that eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad could lead to experiential knowledge of one’s animal nature and that the serpent represented evil. On the other hand, this explanation does not seem to provide a full explanation of this allegory and we need to probe deeper.

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A good place to start is to the concept of the serpent in the ancient world.

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Many Hebrew words express underlying concepts. The Hebrew word for a serpent is nochosh – from the three root letters nun, chet and shin. From these three root letters comes the noun nichush, which means magic or witchcraft. The verb from these 3 root letters is lenacheish, which means to guess or to foretell, but also to deal with the supernatural.  This suggests that the serpent in this story may not just be an agent of evil but an indicator of the way to the occult. 

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The role of the serpent as a pathway to the spiritual world was well known in the ancient world. There were dragon-serpent reliefs along the monumental entrance structures to the temple of Marduk in Babylon. There was a Mesopotamian deity strongly linked to serpents called Ningishzida: His name means roughly “Lord of the Good Tree.” He was associated with serpents, vegetation, and the underworld gates. He was often shown as a serpent or serpent-dragon or accompanied by snakes. Often on the crowns of the Egyptian Pharaohs was the Uraeus, a stylized representation of a rearing cobra. It symbolized the goddess Wadjet, who was a protector of Lower Egypt and the Pharaoh. This cobra was believed to provide protection through its venomous power, warding off enemies and malevolent forces. In a mystical sense, the Uraeus embodied the Pharaoh’s divine connection and his role as a mediator between the gods and humanity.

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It is of interest that a 12-inch copper serpent was found in Timna Park in the Negev in a pagan temple.1 Timna was an important site of copper manufacture in the ancient world.2 This would indicate that the role of a copper serpent for occult practices was by no means a specifically Jewish symbol but was recognized and used in the ancient world.

 

 

It is difficult for us nowadays to appreciate the importance of the occult in ancient times. The supernatural world was the realm in which the gods operated. It was also where illness and death were decreed, since these were conditions controlled by the gods. Diviners would attempt to tap into the supernatural realm to foretell the future by means of omens. The non-Jewish prophet Bilaam, introduced in the book of Numbers, was a skillful operator of the supernatural world. 

 

The Torah does not deny the existence of this realm, since it was also the realm of the One God. Nor does the Bible deny Bilaam’s art and its effectiveness. The Bilaam story is about how God neutralized Bilaam’s control of the supernatural and took over his divinations.

 

When Moses was approached by God to become leader of the Jewish people, Moses asked for signs that he could show the Jewish people (Exodus chapter 4). God told him to throw his staff on the ground and it became a serpent. He was then asked to put his hand under his cloak and it became leprous. These were not party tricks. The serpent was a sign directing towards the supernatural and leprosy was a product of the supernatural. Both indicated that Moses now had privileged access to God’s supernatural realm. In other words, he was now a genuine prophet of God.

 

Similarly, when Moses went to Pharaoh, his first demonstration was to throw his staff on the ground - and it became a snake (Exodus chapter 7). Pharaoh’s magicians were also able to do this. Maimonides, ever the rationalist, suggests that Moses and the magicians had produced a sleight of hand. More plausible, however, is that Moses was demonstrating to the magicians that he had access to the supernatural world. Initially, at least, Pharaoh’s magicians were unimpressed, since they were also able to produce snakes from their staffs. However, it did not take them long to realize that their control over the supernatural was no match for Moses’, as Moses’ snake was able to gobble up their snakes.

 

The Book of Numbers (21:4-9) relates how the Israelites during spoke out against God and Moses due to their discontent with their conditions and food while in the wilderness. As a result of this, God sent venomous snakes among the people and many were bitten and died. Following their repentance, Moses interceded for the people, and God instructed him to make a model of a serpent and set it on a pole. Those bitten would look at this serpent and live. The Talmud explains that when they looked upwards to heaven and subjected their hearts to God they were healed.3 Rashi also explains that Moses made the serpent out of copper because the Hebrew word for snake nachash is linked to the Hebrew word for copper (nechoshes).

 

However, none of these explanations provide the reason as to why a copper snake was a fitting way to reach out to heaven. However, once the serpent is appreciated as being a vehicle for reaching into the divine realm, its use has more meaning. It also explains why this statue was kept as a memorial during the First Temple period. Eventually, King Hezekiah of Judah destroyed it during his reform program as it was being used inappropriately, probably as an object of worship.

 

He abolished the high places, and broke the images, and cut down the ashera (idolatrous groves), and crushed the copper serpent that Moses had made: for until those days the children of Israel were burning incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan (II Kings 18:4).4

 

There are a number of biblical prohibitions against delving into the occult (Deuteronomy 18:9-14 and Leviticus 20:6). Divination was perceived by the Torah as a threat to Torah-belief as it sought to enter the realm of the supernatural and usurp God’s control.

 

Thus, an alternative explanation for the role of the snake in the Garden of Eden was that he was offering Adam and Eve a path to the supernatural world, thereby placing them on a par with God. The means for doing this was to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad.

  

This explanation fits well into the plain meaning of the text. Consider the words of the serpent: 

 

You will not surely die; for Elohim knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and bad (Genesis 3:5). 

 

The text does not say — and you will know good and bad and therefore be like God, but rather first you will be like God and then have knowledge of good and bad.  

 

This interpretation offers a new way of viewing this story. It suggests that an underlying question of the Garden of Eden story is where do man and woman stand in relation to God?

 

One possibility is that man is no more than a higher form of an animal. Adam may have considered this possibility when looking for a mate, although in the end he rejected it:

 

And the man assigned names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field; but as for man, he did not find a helper against him (Genesis 2:20).

 

Another possibility is that because he is in the image and likeness of God as described in Genesis I (Genesis 1:29), Adam will function at a level just below that of the angels. He will live in the rarefied environment of the Garden of Eden functioning totally in obeyance with God’s wishes. His experience of good and evil will be based on what God commands him. He does, of course, have free will and can eat of all the delicious fruits of the garden. However, he will assiduously avoid the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This was a utopian existence, although it would have lacked challenge.

 

However, there would be another option, and this is was the way offered by the serpent. This was to reach into the supernatural world and “to be like God knowing good and bad’ (Genesis 3:5). This meant the freedom of Adam and Eve to devise their own moral code.

 

Once this happened, YHWH had no alternative but to eject them from the garden lest they eat from the Tree of Life. Should they have done this, God and mankind would be in perpetual competition for the direction of the moral world.

 

And YHWH Elohim said “Behold man has become like one of us knowing good and bad, and now, lest he put forth and take also of the Tree of Life and eat and live forever” (ibid 3:23).

 

Clearly, Adam and Eve had overreached. They had been given a privileged position in a paradise, the Garden of Eden, in which their earthliness was of no importance to them because of the spirituality pervading the Garden of Eden. Now, however, they would have awareness of their earthliness, human sexuality and mortality. 

 

The beauty of this explanation is that the punishments now fit the crime. One might even say that these were as much consequences as punishments.

 

Adam and Eve aimed for the heavens and are now firmly brought down to earth.

 

Adam was, of course, already linked to the earth (adama) by his name, but his earthly nature had been of no relevance to him. However, as soon as the couple ate of the forbidden fruit, they gained immediate awareness of their physicality:

 

Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed together a fig leaf and made themselves aprons (Genesis 3:7). 

 

Moreover, as the serpent had promised, “their eyes will be opened” (ibid 3:5). However, they did not enter into a higher spiritual realm as they might have anticipated but to awareness of their physical natures.

 

Did this story ever happen? This seems unlikely. It is an allegory describing why immortality can never be achieved by mankind. If man was immortal, he would dominate this earth with his own ethics. The Bible has also explained the reason for the dissonance between the perfection of the universe created by Elohim in the first creation account and the challenging existence of man in the second.

But we have not finished yet with the Garden of Eden. The punishment of the serpent and Eve and Adam is yet to come.

 

References

1. The original of this copper serpent is in the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv and a replica is displayed in the Visitor Center at Timna Park.

2. Timna was a major copper mining and production site beginning in the Chalcolithic period, which was from about 4,500 BCE. The Chalcolithic period is distinguished by its use of copper, this being the first metal to be extracted and purified by man on an industrial scale. Copper would have had a number of uses; one of them was its use in cultic activities. This may be why the Hebrew word for copper, nechoshet, is from the same root as lenacheish, to engage in reaching the occult or spiritual world. This is an instance in which the Bible helps us understand the pagan world, rather than the other way round.

3. TB Rosh Hashona 29a.

4. This episode is discussed in the Talmud (TB Avoda Zarah 44a). No explanation is provided in the Bible nor in the Talmud as to how it was being used inappropriately, but Rashi suggests that the image itself was being used as an object of worship.