The Good and Evil Serpent (3 page)

THE GOOD AND
EVIL SERPENT

STARTING POINT: THE PERPLEXING NATURE OF JOHN 3:14

The present search began in a PhD seminar in Princeton. I was bothered by a passage and asked the members of the seminar to assist me in obtaining some insight into what it could mean. The passage is John 3:14–15:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
So it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up,
In order that all who are believing in him may have eternal life.
¹

In the Christian Bible no passage is so misunderstood and yet equally full of symbolism as these two verses.

What is the symbolic meaning of these two verses? They reflect the author’s refined thoughts because they are placed at a crucial point in the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus. They come at the climax of Jesus’ words to this “ruler of the Judean leaders.” The significance of these words is also obvious because they have been carefully couched by the Fourth Evangelist in some of his common technical terms
(termini technici)
, specifically “lifted up,” “Son of Man,” “all who are believing,” and “eternal life.”

Virtually any student of the Fourth Gospel will readily grasp the major point the Evangelist is making. It is clear that the author is foreshadowing Jesus’ crucifixion. The key verb is “to lift up,”
²
which obtains singularly important Christological meaning in the Fourth Gospel. This well-known Greek verb attains a new meaning here; it signifies that Jesus’ crucifixion was not a failure but an exaltation; note especially 12:32–33, “ ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, shall draw all to myself.’ He said this to signify by what death he was about to die.”

The major problem remains: Why does the author mention the serpent? Another problem is the meaning of the simile. Does “as” denote only the action of lifting up—Jesus was lifted up as the serpent was lifted up—or does it also intimate an association of what is lifted up: the serpent and then Jesus? That is, has the Fourth Evangelist inherited a typos for Jesus, the serpent? Is the author suggesting that Jesus is being compared to the serpent raised up by Moses? Initially it seems obvious that the author of the Fourth Gospel cannot be claiming that Jesus is a serpent. Such a thought repels us as being abhorrent, since the serpent, as snake, is a pejorative image in Western cultures (especially among Jews, Christians, and Muslims).

New Testament scholars habitually fail to raise the crucial question: Did the Fourth Evangelist, or those in the Johannine community, imagine that Jesus could be portrayed symbolically as a serpent? Most New Testament experts tend to assume prima facie that those possibilities are nil, taking for granted that serpents symbolically denote evil and demons. These scholars presuppose that such a suggestion cannot be contemplated as appropriate for Jesus. They reject, out of hand, that such an allusion is possible for the sophisticated and refined theology of the Fourth Evangelist. In one sense they are right. Of course, the Fourth Evangelist surely cannot be associated with the Ophites, those “heretical” so-called Christians who worshipped Jesus as the serpent, according to Epiphanius of Salamis.
³

In our Western culture the snake has become only a pejorative symbol (as portrayed in the movies about Indiana Jones). The first and last books in the Christian Bible leave most readers with a foreboding fear of snakes. We think about “the wild animal,” the snake, that deceived Eve and Adam and introduced sin and death into creation. We obtain such symbolism from Genesis 3, and we inherit from Revelation many symbols that have shaped our Western culture. Surely one of these is the snake or dragon that comes to the cosmic woman and futilely attempts to devour her child (Rev 12:1–6). Then Michael and his hosts fight and defeat the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan (12:7–9).

The conception of the snake as the embodiment of evil has permeated our Western culture. Young people who have had no means of learning about the myths that explain the snake as evil nevertheless have dreams that mysteriously seem to be mirror images of those myths. Carl Gustav Jung refers to a dream that was difficult for him to understand. It was unique. It was the first in a series of dreams an eight-year-old experienced. She so cherished them that she compiled them into a booklet that she gave to her father for a Christmas present when she was ten. Although he was a psychiatrist, Jung was baffled by them. The first of the twelve dreams had what he called the following “relevant motifs”:

“The evil animal,” a serpent-like monster with many horns, kills and devours all other animals. But God comes from the four corners, being in fact four separate gods, and gives rebirth to all the dead animals.
⁴

The serpent-like monster is clearly a feared “evil animal.”

It is apparent, therefore, that many will think it scandalous, sacrilegious, and an aspect of anti-Christian polemic to suggest that Jesus may be like a snake or serpent. It will probably seem even more blasphemous to claim that such a thought was in the mind of the Fourth Evangelist and was an aspect of the mythology and lore in the Johannine community or school. But should we lack the courage to explore whether the Evangelist might have held something like an ophidian Christology? Did the Fourth Evangelist, or some in his community, contemplate—perhaps even conceptualize—that Jesus Christ had the attributes of a serpent?

Would not my colleagues lose respect for me and perhaps ostracize me for contemplating what may be to them heretical—even corrupt—thoughts? Surely, no scholar should be swayed by what some revered colleagues might think about the conclusions of careful work that seeks to obtain answers to obscure passages that have been ignored by experts. Thanks to hundreds of years of struggles by Wycliffe, Luther, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Tillich, J. A. T. Robinson, and so many others, we are finally free from ecclesiastical controls to explore the full range of the words and intentions in our sacred Scriptures. We now have the freedom to proceed with every conceivable question without fear of reprisal or condemnation.

This thought—that Jesus may be represented as a serpent—has sounded so incredible to many with whom I have shared it that it deserves exposition. I am astounded that a scholar would imagine it was not an insightful question to ponder. One leading scholar, during the sessions of the Society for New Testament Studies in South Africa, asked me what I was now focusing upon in my research. When I told him I was striving to comprehend the symbolic meaning of the serpent, he replied, “I hate snakes.”

Often those who are attracted to biblical studies assume that scholars are in some ways constrained by the questions they might raise or the conclusions that are permitted. They assume that because I am a Methodist minister and teaching at Princeton Theological Seminary that some issues and conclusions are not allowed. Nonsense! I spent over a year at New College in the University of Edinburgh, at the Universität Tübingen and at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and twenty-three years at Duke University. I feel as free here at Princeton Seminary as I did in those universities to pursue my creative reflections, without any person or institution dictating what might be considered proper. This freedom for research is absolutely necessary if the major seminaries can be considered “academic” institutions in which free inquiry and advanced research are fostered.