The Good and Evil Serpent (100 page)

Eternal Life and Life Abundant
. Since in the first century
CE
the serpent was the quintessential symbol for denoting abundant life and eternal life, to what extent did the Evangelist or his readers ever imagine that the “Gospel of Eternal Life” mirrored serpent symbolism?
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Did he or they ever imagine a connection between the symbols of the serpent which were regnant around them, in the following selected passages:

3:15 in order that all who are believing in him may have eternal life.

3:16 in order that all who are believing in him may … have eternal life.

3:36 the one believing in the son has eternal life.

5:24 the one who is believing in him who sent me has eternal life.

6:40 so that all who are seeing the Son and are believing in him may have eternal life.

6:47 the one who is believing has eternal life.

10:10 I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

11:25 I am the resurrection and the life.

11:26 and all who are living and believing in me shall never die.

20:31 and that believing you may have life in his name.

Jesus’ Legs Were Not Broken
. The Fourth Evangelist distinguishes his presentation of Jesus on the cross by stressing, even redundantly, that Jesus’ legs were not broken. What is the meaning of this aspect of Johannine theology? Is it because of the law recorded in Numbers 9:12? Recall the text: “They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break a bone of it; according to all the statute for the Passover they shall keep it” (NRSV). Or is the author thinking about Psalm 22? Numbers 9 seems without basis in the text and Psalm 22 has not been employed as in the other Gospels. What is the source of the Evangelist’s inspiration and reason to include it in his narrative, and what images might come to the mind of a reader of the Fourth Gospel?

The answer may lie in the portrayal of Jesus. If he is a serpent on the upraised tree, then his legs cannot be broken. That is, when we study the serpentine feet of Yahweh—or, better, some depiction of his power—in images roughly contemporaneous with the composition of the Fourth Gospel, then we see legs that are bent. A bone can easily be broken. But the curved and flexible body of a serpent bends to a blow, such as that attributed to a Roman soldier’s weapon. Similarly, the Fourth Evangelist knew the curse of the serpent, according to Genesis 3; since he loses his legs, no one can break them. Perhaps the Fourth Evangelist imagined such concepts. Or perhaps some in the Johannine school or circle might have developed such thoughts. Is it not absurd to imagine that we are the first to imagine such imagery and symbolism?

The Fourth Evangelist and most of his readers knew well the account of how Hezekiah broke the copper (or bronze) serpent in the Temple (which is an echo of Num 21). Did the Evangelist ever and some of his readers occasionally think that while the serpent was broken by Hezekiah, Jesus—the antitype of Moses’ serpent—could not be broken?

Nicodemus Brings the Corpse Down from the Cross
. Jesus’ last words to Nicodemus are evident in John 3:14–15. Jesus tells this leading Jew that he, as the Son of Man, must be raised up on the cross like the serpent lifted up by Moses. Nicodemus appears on stage again briefly when he apparently defends Jesus by pointing to legal procedures (7:50–52). He is on center stage at the end, when Jesus has already died. He brings Jesus’ corpse down from the cross.

Only the Fourth Evangelist mentions the so-called Beloved Disciple. He is at the foot of the cross and sees Jesus die. Why does the Evangelist have him leave the scene? Would not the Beloved Disciple be the ideal person to honor the corpse?

The Evangelist has a secret disciple of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus obtain and honor Jesus’ corpse. Then they laid Jesus’ corpse in a garden. Why?

The passage is as full of emotion as it is of symbolism. What could be in the mind of the Evangelist or in the minds of some of his readers? Is it not possible that they understood the remains Nicodemus received in terms of a metaphor, that Jesus’ corpse was seen as the abandoned skin of a serpent gone on to a better, even eternal life?

In the so-called
Epistle of Barnabas
, we find an exegesis of Numbers 21 and John 3. Note this excerpt:

Moses makes a type of Jesus, [signifying] that it was necessary for Him to suffer, [and also] that He would be the author of life [to others], whom they believed to have destroyed on the cross when Israel was failing. For since transgression was committed by Eve through means of the
serpent
, [the Lord] brought it to pass that every [kind of]
serpents
bit them, and they died, that He might convince them, that on account of their transgression they were given over to the straits of death. Moreover Moses, when he commanded, “Ye shall not have any graven or molten [image] for your God,” did so that he might reveal a type of Jesus. Moses then makes a brazen
serpent
, and places it upon a beam, and by proclamation assembles the people. When, therefore, they were come together, they besought Moses that he would offer sacrifice in their behalf, and pray for their recovery. And Moses spake unto them, saying, “When any one of you is bitten, let him come to the serpent placed on the pole; and let him hope and believe, that even though dead, it is able to give him life, and immediately he shall be restored.” And they did so. Thou hast in this also [an indication of] the glory of Jesus; for in Him and to Him are all things.
(Barn
. 12:5–7)
¹⁷⁸

A later tradition attributed to Ignatius reflects on the meaning of John 3:14–15. An expansion to Ignatius’
Epistle to the Smyrnaeans
reads, “The Word, when His flesh was lifted up, after the manner of
the brazen serpent
in the wilderness, drew all men to Himself for their eternal salvation.”
¹⁷⁹
This reflection seems to suggest that the “flesh” denoted, or would have been understood by some readers to mean, the skin left by the serpent who had apparently died, but had actually gone on to a better and fuller life.

Does not the mention of a garden evoke the Eden Story, so that the end of salvation of history was mirrored in the beginning of history? What lies hidden behind John 19:38–42? Perhaps this passage was informed by discussions in the Johannine school of the serpent who brought death in the Garden of Eden and the antitype, Jesus, who brought eternal life from the final garden.

Appearance in a Garden
. Only the Fourth Evangelist stages the first resurrection appearance of Jesus in a garden. If Jesus has been portrayed as an antitype of Moses’ serpent, then it is symbolically significant that Jesus, as the life-giving serpent, appears in a garden. The garden is the mythical abode of the life-giving, perceptive, or guardian serpent, as we have seen from Gilgamesh, the Eden Story, and the Hesperides. The garden is also the natural habitat of the serpent. Did such myths and folklore help shape the Evangelist’s creation or inform readers’ imaginations?

The scene in John 20:11–18 is so reminiscent of the Eden Story that the Evangelist must have perceived the symbolic power of his account of Jesus’ first resurrection appearance. His last story seems shaped by the first story in the Bible. Both stories highlight a garden, a man, and a woman. In both the man is portrayed as a gardener (Gen 2:15 and Jn 20:15). Both stress misperception and revealed knowledge. As the first story is shaped by the loss of life, the final story is defined by the proof of unending life.

A key link between the first biblical story and the last biblical story (Jesus’ first resurrection appearance) has been missed by exegetes and commentators. Mary Magdalene hears Jesus call her by name,
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and is told by him: “Do not touch me” (Jn 20:17); later she informs the disciples what Jesus had told her (Jn 20:18). The linguistic link between John 20 and Genesis 3 is interesting (
in John 20:17 and
in Gen 3:3 [LXX]; MT =
). John 20:17 is an echo of what the first woman added to God’s command when she tells the Nachash: “And you must not touch it” (Gen 3:3).
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Would the Fourth Evangelist miss the link he had made when he created his own resurrection account? Should we imagine that he was deaf to the echoes from Genesis? Did he not imagine that the new creation (Jesus’ resurrection) was parallel to Creation?

The echo has many sounds. The echo occurs when the woman in the garden is told by the one who has been lifted up as Moses’ serpent that she must “not touch” him. The “original sound” was the woman’s addition to God’s command when she spoke to the serpent in the Garden of Eden: “And you [plural] shall not touch it.” The serpent, as we have seen, was one of the major characters in the first story. Is the life-giving serpent missing in the final story, or have Johannine experts simply missed him among the trees in the garden?

Such reflections derive from contemplating, under the stimulus of John 3:13–16, that some readers of the Fourth Gospel imagined Jesus on the cross in light of Moses’ upraised serpent. The brilliant interpreter John Chrysostom, in his
Homilies on Colossians
, obviously thinking about John 3:14–15, argued that Jesus was crucified in public as a serpent. Here are his words: “[W]hile the world was looking on, the serpent should be slain on high upon the Cross, herein is the marvel.”
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DOUBTING THAT JESUS IS PARALLEL TO THE SERPENT IN JOHN 3

It is easy to doubt an exegesis that is directed against the tide in Johannine research. Here are some objections that may be raised against the exegesis that the Fourth Evangelist presents a typology of Jesus as Moses’ upraised serpent and that Jesus is one who embodies the positive symbolic power attributed to the serpent.

1. The fact that the Ophites and others interpreted John 3:14–15 to signify that Jesus is like the serpent implies that the Fourth Evangelist did not intend that interpretation.

Response:
The Ophites’ misleading interpretation cannot be a means of discerning the intention of the Fourth Evangelist. The only means of grasping the meaning in John 3:14–15 is to study the Greek within the immediate context of the Fourth Gospel and to comprehend the text within the social and historical context of the symbols that were known to and shaped the symbolic world of the Fourth Evangelist.

2. The Ophites are certainly heretical; their exegesis must be ignored in seeking to understand the Fourth Gospel.