The Good and Evil Serpent (104 page)

What was our most surprising discovery? There was more than one.

It was startling to discover the linguistic brilliance of the Yahwist, who lived about the same time as Homer. He was gifted with language. But he could not systematize all the previous and diverse folklore and myths into one coherent Eden Story. Was his creation marred by the clash of Canaanite and Israelite cultures (Kulturkampf)? Or was his story confused because the diverse mythologies, shaped by oral and literary history, simply could not be merged with the emerging new religion, Yahwism? The latter seems likely. Although Yahwism derives ultimately from Moses, it was shaped more definitively from 1100 to 800
BCE
.

The Nachash appears suddenly in the Eden Story. Slowly it became apparent, through our research, that “Nachash” should not be translated as “serpent” in Genesis 3:1 because he is a “beast of the field” (3:1 = 3:14) and because he is transformed by God’s curse (Gen 3:14). Jews who have given us documents in the Pseudepigrapha and in Rabbinics wisely imagined that the Nachash lost his legs when Yahweh God cursed him and was for-evermore condemned “to walk” on his belly as a serpent.

Thus, it is surprising to hear, almost constantly, in many settings that “the serpent tempted Eve.” As we have demonstrated, this one short sentence contains three misconceptions. The Nachash in Genesis 3:1 is a “beast of the field.” The woman has not yet been named “Eve.” The Nachash does not tempt; it asks the woman a question. These discoveries reveal that exegesis has been too focused on philology and lexicography; it needs to be enriched by symbology, narrative exegesis, and especially an immersion in the context of the text.

Why did the serpent lose most of its pellucid symbolic power in the work of the Yahwist? Was it because of the threatening power of serpent symbolism among the Canaanites (and Jebusites in and near Jerusalem)?

Yahweh God is portrayed as one who could not tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” God is the one who receives the credit (really blame) for a woman’s pains in childbirth and a man’s fruitless toiling with a hardened earth (was not the earth also cursed?). Why is God so miscast?

Yet Yahweh God appears alive in the world created by the Yahwist. He knew that idolizing God and portraying God as perfect removes God from the human world. The Yahwist seems to have grasped a thought lost in recent theological works. He seems to have perceived that a deity can become a god only by entering the human realm. He also probably grasped that such a journey demands obtaining some human characteristics. Thus, anthropomorphism is a divine feature that weds the divine and human worlds.

We were astounded by the ancients’ thoughtful attachment to a living being, the earth. They lived close to snakes, who knew the water, earth, and subterranean regions in ways unimagined by humans. The snake is not to be dreaded. The serpent is to be admired; it will not attack until threatened. Its venom is reserved for killing a prey that is necessary for survival.

Why is the serpent to be admired? Snakes have survived on this planet longer than humans—well over seventy million years longer. And the serpent is celebrated by Jews and Greeks as the animal who has wisdom. What an accomplishment! The snake was elevated above all beasts of the field, even though it could not close its eyes, cannot hear, and has to swallow its food whole, often by dislocating its jaw. It must slither on the earth without feet or arms.

The story of the serpent in our culture is a tale of how the most beautiful creature became seen as ugly, the admired became despised, the good was misrepresented as the bad, and a god was dethroned and recast as Satan. Why? Is it perhaps because we modern humans have moved farther and farther away from nature, cutting the umbilical cord with our mother: earth?

We came eventually to the Fourth Gospel. We saw that the Son of Man, Jesus, was a typos of Moses’ upraised serpent. As God told Moses to make a metal serpent and lift him (or her) up on a pole so those bitten might live by looking up through him (or her) to God’s power of healing revealed through him (or her), so God announces that it is necessary for Jesus to be lifted up on the cross so that all who believe in him may have eternal life through him. We observed in John 3:14–15 the poetic
parallelismus membrorum
that clarifies a parallel between “the serpent” and the Son of Man, Jesus. We perceived that the positive features of the serpent, regnant in the time and culture of the Fourth Evangelist, are harmonious with Johannine Christology: Jesus comes from above to bring life and eternal life to those on the earth. We speculated about possibilities in which an ophidian Christology may have existed behind the Fourth Gospel and within the Johannine community or school. We wondered to what extent serpent imagery and symbolism is mirrored, perhaps imperfectly, in the present, heavily edited, narrative of the Fourth Gospel.

We were amazed at the power in symbols. For reflecting minds, they create an exciting world of thought and imagination. The Yahwist gives us an Eden Story that is known throughout the world. We humans who know the Eden Story dream of a far-off day when God appears in the cool of the evening, takes our hand, and walks with us in Paradise. In such an environment are animals, especially a serpent that is attractive and converses with us, asking questions?

We have searched for the meaning of serpent symbolism over time and through all known cultures. We have perused ophiology, and exposed ophiophilism and ophiolatry.
¹
We have pointed to the distorted exegesis of the Ophites who simplified the complex ophidian symbolism of John 3, in which Jesus is “like” Moses’ upraised serpent. They erred in seeing Jesus as a snake.

Now we shall conclude by reflecting on one of the great masters of symbolism in our own time. He preserves the ancient richness of serpent symbology. His name is Marc Chagall. Again, our observations must be succinct and selective.

Through his genius with vivid and living colors, Chagall painted the scene envisioned by the author of Genesis 3:6: “And the woman saw the tree [was] good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make [one] wise. Then she took of its fruit and ate. And she gave [the fruit] also to her husband [who was] with her; and he ate.” To the right of center of the painting, which is now on public display in the Musée National in Nice, are two nudes, in pale blue; they are holding each other. The woman lifts up her right hand and offers Adam a bright red apple. They are contented and peaceful. Behind them, in bright red, is the tree of life.

Around the tree curls a serpent whose colors blend with its surroundings. The serpent is thus green at the bottom and red at the top. Its face features a broad smile; it also seems happy. The serpent is certainly not dangerous or threatening.

Chagall returned to the image of the serpent again when he created the stained-glass windows for the Fraumunster in Zurich. The scene also is paradisiacal. The time, however, is the future. Chagall was trying to represent the time from the giving of the Torah to Moses to the end of time. The effect of his work is so significant in itself and as a fitting conclusion to a study on the meaning of serpent symbolism that it deserves more than a perfunctory presentation.

The Chagall windows are placed in the restored late-Romanesque chancel in the Fraumunster. They are featured within five vertically curvilinear windows. The chancel, dating from 1250
CE
, is a simple yet austere feature of the Fraumunster, which contained colored windows as early as the ninth century. Chagall is reputed to have fallen in love with the chancel, stating that he felt it was there that he could best express his biblical images in a holy setting. In fact, he went to Rheims to paint the figures on the glass surfaces in grisaille.

It is surprising how Christian symbols are featured in the work of an artist who comes from a strict and Orthodox Jewish background in Eastern Europe. Russian icon paintings, with their interpretations of Christian symbols, seem to be what first instilled in Chagall a means for expressing ideas and feelings in art. And his chosen themes were usually derived from biblical stories. At the center of Chagall’s work is frequently a portrayal of the obedience and suffering of God’s chosen people; at the heart of the art is often Jesus’ crucifixion.

This focal point comes into blazing view in the right window of the chancel in the Fraumunster in Zurich; that is, in the “Law” Window on the south side.
²
Here Chagall’s oeuvre reaches a rare burst of perfection, and he chose to achieve it in a grand scale (9.77 meters high by 0.96 meters wide). This far right window is primarily dark blue with drippings of red, perhaps representing blood that increases in volume as it proceeds downward. At the top, suspended above the tortured world, is a depiction of an enthroned Moses receiving the Torah. The tables of the Law are in vivid white, stressing the purity and truthfulness inherent in them. Rays of light from Moses’ head denote his exalted status. A space separates this scene with the depiction of disobedience and suffering, culminating in Jesus’ crucifixion—a band of red streaks through Jesus’ chest and heart. Such colorful details provide their own hermeneutic.

As our eye continues downward, we see a blue space that separates this scene from a depiction of the Kingdom of Peace and the appearance of the Messiah to come. The Messiah is depicted in living red. Beneath him is an imaginative reconstruction of Isaiah receiving the message of peace.

Only one item has not yet been mentioned. It is what is held in the left hand of the coming Messiah. What is it?

As one might have guessed by now, it is an upraised serpent. The serpent is larger than the Messiah. While Moses and Jesus occupy two panels, the serpent fills two and parts of two more. That is, the serpent occupies about twice as much space as the other dominant figures. Appropriately for our improved perception of serpent symbolism, the serpent is depicted in offwhite.

Most important, the serpent is the dominant figure in the depiction of “The Kingdom of Peace of the Messiah to Come.” Here Chagall seems to have captured the prophecy of Isaiah 11, which was so instrumental in shaping the concept of the Messiah, the Christ, by author of the
Psalms of Solomon
. Note now, Isaiah 11:8, the infant shall play over “the cobra’s hole” and the child shall dance over “the viper’s nest.” The serpent, the feared one, is transformed back into the adored one through Chagall’s brilliant exegesis of scripture. The restoration of creation is symbolized by the retransformation of the Nachash. Has not Marc Chagall urged us to return to the source of our expressive symbols and recover the positive force primordially inherent in ophidian symbolism?

Appendix I: Biblical Hebrew Terms for Various Types of Snakes

Prolegomena: Caveats

Perfunctory readers of the Hebrew Bible tend to think that there is only one word for “snake” or “serpent” (V)!”!}).
¹
More learned individuals might be able to suggest, in addition,
and
.
²
That would indicate that the erudite Semitist knew eight words for “serpent” in the Hebrew Bible. Over a century ago in one of the most informed publications on the serpent in the Bible, the learned scholar T. K. Cheyne reported that in the TANAKH (or Old Testament) “writers use eleven different words for serpents of one kind or another.”
³
This number appears again in
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
, “Fully Revised” in 1988.
⁴

Are there eleven different nouns for a “snake” or “serpent” in the Hebrew Bible? Many readers of the Bible will find that number exaggerated. In fact, I have discovered that there are eighteen different nouns for “snake” or “serpent” in the Hebrew Bible.
⁵
These nouns are sometimes interrelated Hebrew terms for various types of snakes. I have been surprised to discover that many of these nouns for a snake appear only once in the Hebrew Bible; these
hapax legomena
frequently occur in the Book of Isaiah.
⁶