{"id":145,"date":"2003-12-05T17:45:17","date_gmt":"2003-12-06T00:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=145"},"modified":"2006-06-01T14:24:43","modified_gmt":"2006-06-01T18:24:43","slug":"serpents-the-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2003\/12\/serpents-the-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Serpents & The Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a comment to my entry below about biblical inerrancy (“Balaam’s Ass<\/a>“), Brent writes in connection with his experience substitute teaching in Seminary:<\/p>\n

I came across several commentaries about the serpent speaking and Balaam’s ass. Some of these also mentioned other scriptural references (I think some in Revelations) which I mention “beasts” talking. Some of these individuals have theorized that in fact, because of the fall, animals, being lesser intelligences cannot communicate verbally, but that God can loose their tongues and allow them to speak.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For purposes of this post, I am not interested in whether this theory of talking animals is true (though I suspect that the careful reader could discern my feelings), but rather in the possible significance of talking serpents.
\n
\nToday in Seminary we discussed the brief but famous story in Numbers 21, where Moses confronts the problems of the “firey serpents” who are sent to plague the rebellious Children of Israel. Moses is told by the Lord, “Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.” Moses did as he was told, and those who looked were healed.<\/p>\n

We have no trouble relating this story to the Atonement. The brass serpent represents Jesus, and looking upon the serpent is an act of faith that wards off death. Right?<\/p>\n

If that seems right, then one thing that strikes me as significant about this story is the use of a brass serpent as a metaphor for Christ. Did the people of Israel understand the brass serpent in this way? The biblical text is silent on this point, but the connection to the Garden story seems too direct to be coincidental.<\/p>\n

When Eve saw the serpent, she did not realize that it was Lucifer. Could she have thought that this was Jesus, her spiritual brother, coming to give her instruction? And when she says “the serpent beguiled me,” could she have been saying that the appearance of Lucifer in the form of the serpent had fooled her, because she associated that form with Jesus?<\/p>\n

By the way, one of my clever Seminary students asked why God commanded the Children of Israel to make no graven images and then here commands Moses to create a graven image. I suppose the easy answer is the best one: if you make the law, you can provide for the exceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a comment to my entry below about biblical inerrancy (“Balaam’s Ass“), Brent writes in connection with his experience substitute teaching in Seminary: I came across several commentaries about the serpent speaking and Balaam’s ass. Some of these also mentioned other scriptural references (I think some in Revelations) which I mention “beasts” talking. Some of these individuals have theorized that in fact, because of the fall, animals, being lesser intelligences cannot communicate verbally, but that God can loose their tongues and allow them to speak. For purposes of this post, I am not interested in whether this theory of talking animals is true (though I suspect that the careful reader could discern my feelings), but rather in the possible significance of talking serpents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}