Chapter 12 - The Serpent In the Garden: Understanding the Foundations of Why We Believe a MythIn all stories about the fall of man that have come down through the ages there is none so well known as the Biblical account of Adam and Eve and the serpent in the garden that is said to have caused their fall. The beginning of all sin and suffering is often attributed to the monumental event that is believed to have taken place in the Garden of Eden. An event that took place sometime around 6000 years ago according to chronology that calculates the ages and numbers which are provided in the Scriptures. The story has been told for generations and has either been believed to be wholly literal or believed to be wholly allegory; a mere tale to deliver a message that speaks of mankind’s potential to choose to sin. When taken as wholly literal this tale of ancient origin is commonly seen as a true story about a man and woman that were created by the Creator. In the process of performing their assigned duties in their garden paradise abode, they were tricked by a creature that may have been inhabited by Satan or may have been Satan himself as some suggest. Acceptance of such a story at face value is often the practice of a biblical literalist and is not easy to agree with entirely, while contrariwise, the dismissal of the story as purely lore is equally as difficult to accept from the other end of the spectrum. The issue then could be debated with no resolve for hundreds of years, as has been the case with this ancient tale up until this point. It may be possible to enjoy the both/and perspective on the Adam and Eve tale involving the serpent in the Garden. This tale may very well have content that is both allegorical and literal. The appearance of a serpent in the story has done little to add understanding to either side of the debate but remains a multi-interpreted conundrum that seems to speak of a nefarious force, yet is difficult to pin down. In this present age however, it seems plausible to submit a comprehensive answer to the question of whom or what the serpent in the garden was. Looking at this perplexing puzzle through multiple modalities of instruction and information such as history, archeology, and linguistic studies, does much to direct a query towards a possible solution to the question. That question being, “Who or what is the serpent in the garden?” In this chapter, we will be employing not only the aforementioned means to reach a conclusion but we shall be challenged to incorporate some logic and some philosophy. This is necessary in order to unearth an answer that lays forth a conclusion, which upholds a true monotheistic ideology. In exploring the topic of who or what the serpent in the garden was, there is no better place to begin than at the start of the book of Genesis. Genesis is the document, that has for centuries, held the words of this ancient story in somewhat of a vault that locks out man's understanding. This is so, not because the words are incomprehensible, but due to the prolific, popular views, which themselves are somewhat incomprehensible for various reasons and ideological inconsistencies. Following is the first verse of the book of Genesis and a lengthy thesis to explain that the serpent in the garden is not what most think it to be. Answers to the question of the serpent being a real serpent, or a manifestation of Satan are not easily gleaned from the language of Genesis but diligence in study will prevail and a more acceptable solution to the question will be submitted in the following pages.
Well ----that seems easy enough to understand doesn’t it? No need to question who it was that did the creating or what was created. It is so nice and simple when the words in the text of Scriptures are easily understood. It is not so nice when the words of Scripture are full of metaphors and concepts from a cultural period that we have long lost and forgotten. So often the ancient metaphors that are written in Scripture are so far from the modern reader’s line of reasoning that we are prevented in part from understanding them. Often times reading Scripture can leave us with the same patchy understanding as one might experience after reading a Newspaper from across the world. Unless the writer provides a complete context to the story and fully articulates every aspect, nuance, and image of his or her story, the reader automatically places images and ideas from his or her own mental library into the writer’s description. This practice is a normal and helpful process for the reader because it enables the reader to get more out of the story than if the entire writer’s tale had not invoked any images for the reader. We read the Scriptures in a very similar manner, where we see what the writer is imaging through a pre-set library of images in our mind. When a word or phrase is used to describe a character or situation our mind goes to work to complete the image to help us to attain a comfortable level of understanding. Although, the images in the mind of the news story reader may help the reader to avoid the confusion that comes from a complete lack of understanding, they are in all likelihood inaccurate images that were developed out of the library of images that have been inserted into the mind of the reader over his or her lifetime. If the reader were transported to the time and place of the story and was able to perceive with their own eyes and mind the same scenario that the writer shared through the written word, they would understand clearly the situation. What the reader would actually see and what the writer intended to be seen might be quite similar. The reader would probably be happy to see the images as the images were intended to be seen but would also have many words and phrases come to mind to express the scenario in a way that would be more comprehendible to that reader if the story were to be re-written. It would be interesting to have a group of people read a story from the news in another part of the world and then ask them to describe the images that came to mind while reading. Upon receiving the descriptions from the participants, it would undoubtedly be illuminating to then show a video of the same story and compare the descriptions of the participants with the images that are displayed on screen. It is not likely that a comparison of the images presented to the images described by the participants, would result in exactness of similarities. The participants might find themselves stating that they pictured that all wrong and then have a sense of enlightenment upon receiving the true pictures in their minds to replace the misinformed and uninformed images, which they had previously described in detail. Thankfully, for most news stories today we are privileged to have the aid of photographic images along side the story. A picture is truly worth a thousand words when it is presented in place of written details describing a scene. A picture of a scene brings much greater clarity to the story than is being told in writing alone and provides imagery that is often unattainable by words alone. Wouldn’t it be great if we had pictures of the first few chapters of Genesis? In the absence of pictures, mental images differ from hearer to hearer. The stories of Genesis have been interpreted in picture, by thousands of illustrators and writers for centuries. The imagined scenes that have been put to paper are not necessarily accurately represented in the images that are portrayed. Any story that has accurate pictures of the scenes it writes of becomes vivid to the reader. Sadly, the stories of Genesis and much of the Scripture lack the vividness that would be found had there been accurate pictures available to add to the written version of the story. One is hard pressed to accurately perceive of the images related to a written story when they are deprived of a concise image to visualize and store in the memory. This image association works in two ways. If I say, “Don’t think of a flower,” you automatically have an image of a flower come to mind. Your image might be of a different flower than hundreds of others but you very likely did have an image of some type of flower. The other modality this functions in is if I tell you a story about a beautiful bouquet of flowers that sits on the mantle of a warm country home, filled with the sweet scent of roses. In hearing that story, one is very likely to have had a picture from their image library in their mind of the roses sitting on the mantle. The image may be even clearer because the sense of scent was brought into play when the aroma in the home was spoken of. Whether we are given a negative instruction to not think of something or something like a rose is merely suggested, a typical person has images come to mind. We are very much subject to suggestion and what comes to mind from reading the words of Scripture is no different. All the suggestions we have received from images one has seen, that were supposedly depicting a certain story, are conjured up in the mind every time the story is reiterated. If a picture of the rose or bouquet were available to be viewed, the reader would then have all their own mental images replaced with the image that is presented to them in the picture. Once shown the picture, the image of that bouquet is now perceived accurately as it is not an image drawn from a mental library that is readily available to apply images to any written description that a person reads. As an example to help make the point that accuracy of mental images is compromised in the absence of clearly discernable pictures, I will simply quote a few headlines below. Take note of what images come to mind, including any details involved. Don’t think too hard but pay attention to any mental pictures that come to you as you read the words and the short description of the article. South Africa: Zuma Trial Heightens Rape Awareness
Charles Taylor Faces Court in Sierra Leone
Senegalese Musician Honors African Leaders
Malaria at a Crossroads
These are just four examples from African news in May of 2006. They are headlines and teasers from the internet website WorldPress.org. http://www.worldpress.org/Africa.htm. The images that come to mind for most of us may be similar but the details we could put into the images will be vastly different. Where one person would have a mental picture of swarming mosquitoes while reading the last of the above example news stories, another person may imagine a mosquito “biting” the arm of a young child. Still another may not imagine mosquitoes at all but may picture the emaciated body of a sick mother close to the point of death with her baby in her arms, too weak to cry. Because I do not know much about Malaria, the mental picture I had when I first read this was of military workers going through the region wearing white masks and spraying for mosquitoes. Forgive my ignorance on this issue but I don’t even know if they have ever sprayed for mosquitoes in Africa. After writing down the mental image I had of the above Malaria story I clicked on the link to see if my mental images correlated to the picture provided.[145] The picture on the website revealed a child sick in bed who appears to be near the point of death. The sick child is being attended by his mother who is stroking the child’s face and there was a younger sibling in the picture kneeling near the foot of the bed. The article tells of Malaria as significantly affecting pregnant mothers, infants, and young children. The images in the online photo were similar at best to some of the images I had in mind when reading the headline but there is no way I could have accurately depicted this picture until I saw it. The point is, the words in a story do bring forth images for the reader but unless the words are absolutely, explicit and fully descriptive, the reader will stand a good chance of entertaining inaccurate images. We are going to encounter this same problem when reading the words of the Scriptures. As I was researching for this book, while discussing some of the concepts with my own family, I saw first hand the propensity of people to apply images that are in their mental library to written stories that come into their path. This replacement imaging happens readily within the mind’s eye of most who read stories from the Bible when they do not have the privilege of knowing helpful information surrounding the context of the tale. The story of the Serpent in the Garden is not exempt from this process and some in my family have become aware that it is difficult to see something differently when the way it is written has engendered the same images for so long. In a telephone conversation recently, my mother asked me if I could rewrite the Adam and Eve with the serpent account from Genesis, in a plain understandable text for her. We were discussing the literal nature of the writing versus the metaphorical nature of the writing and the words before her on the pages of Genesis were too potent and image invoking for her to move past. Mom therefore could barely perceive of a different message than the one she had in mind from the years of this message being taught, indoctrinated, and reaffirmed. Mom could only see a real snake slithering in a real tree actually speaking to Eve and convincing her to take the fruit. The picture Mom had in her mind of the fruit was clearly an apple. Of course there was more detail in the images Mom saw in her mind’s eye than just an apple, but I saw a little more clearly how deeply embedded the images we have “seen” our whole life are, when we read a Bible story that has never had any Polaroids to go along with it. I told my Mom I would write about the serpent story soon and although I will pass along the following “re-writing” to my Mother long before any of you read this book, Isubmit the following for your discernment. I call it a conceptual and contextual paraphrase of the Serpent in the Garden story. I will go into great detail to explain my understanding, after the “re-writing” Of Genesis 3 seen below. I will just mention before we go any further, that those inclined towards Bible worship, known as bibliolatry, will have a very difficult time reading a paraphrase such as I am presenting below. However, if you can trust that you will not be agreeing to a change in the words of the Holy Bible and try to be opened to the potential of finding more truth, then perhaps you will read through the following information with greater ease. As you read the following re-writing of the serpent in the garden account, please understand I am attempting to express what I have come to comprehend is the concept Moses was relaying when he reworked an ancient serpent myth that was common in his culture. The myth was depicting a decision made by the story’s characters to choose evil and disobedience as opposed to good and obedience. The retelling of the ancient story in the manner that I have submitted below is an analytical paraphrase and is not intended to replace or add to the words of Scripture, only to assist in explaining the meaning of the words of an ancient and difficult to understand story.
The analytical paraphrase you have just read admittedly is only one way to hear what the words of the Genesis passage are saying. It is difficult to know for certain what the conversations and attitudes of Adam and Eve were in the Garden. However, the account as presented above shows much greater logic than is found in a traditional, literalistic view. The above version provides an explanation for a poetical manner of writing as would have been done by the writer of Genesis to an ancient culture. Thinking that there was a serpent who slithered into the lives of Adam and Eve and outsmarted them because it was supposedly inhabited by the spirit of “Satan,” offends the senses when one tries to consider the logic of such a literal interpretation. The point alone of a spirit of “Satan” inhabiting another created object goes against all the statements Yahweh made which claim there is “none like him.” If there exists a supposed Satan, who has the ability to inhabit the spirit of a creature, then “satan” is like God and God then becomes a liar. There cannot be any entity that can “fill” a person or creature, except The Holy Spirit of Yahweh the Creator. What happened next was Yahweh sent the man and woman out from the perfect environment, which is to say they are not going to be allowed to enjoy paradise until the sin of theirs is atoned for. So, out they go and they cannot come back to eat of the tree of life. This consequence comes because the Father and Creator has allowed the subtle potential for man to choose sin to be strong enough in the heart of man, that entry by sinful man to paradisiacal immortality is prevented. Man is unable to receive the immortality of paradise until such a time as the plan for the ages is complete and the seed of the woman has fully put an end to sin, the sin that stems from the sinful desire of the heart of man. The only way man can eat of the tree of life is through obeying the commandments the Creator gives them. God’s commands must be obeyed out of a sincere heart of love for the Creator and His Messiah, the promised seed of the woman. The Tree of Life is protected now but man can find his way back to paradise eventually and enjoy the gift of immortality.
The above paraphrase of Genesis 3 is not intended to replace the words in the Torah but to explain what was to be relayed by the writer. The last words of Revelation 22:14 are quoted to help bring attention to the Tree of Life, which is available to all who keep the commands of the Creator. The Tree of Life will be part of “Paradise” once again according to what is read in Revelations. The wording I used to expand on some of the thoughts in Genesis is wording which could be used to describe any parable-like story. Yeshua of Nazareth is known to have taught in parables and therefore when we read a parable in the Apostolic writings, we know the characters are not literal. The probability of the story in the garden, or at least parts of it being like a parable, which is full of metaphor and non-literal meaning, is high. In the above re-telling, we see that Eve is not talking with a serpent but she is talking with herself, in the sense of an internal dialogue. She is battling that part of the human being that we all battle from time to time. Eve is fighting against her own internal desires. It is the flesh or rather her desires that Eve is battling against. One’s desires often lust against the spirit. Paul spoke of this perpetual struggle in his letter to the Galatians;
James also tells us that out of our own lusts we are drawn away. James the apostle knew the origin of our sin choices was not from the evil desires of a satanic salesman but that the origin of our sinful choices was from the desires and lusts that lay inside of us.
Is it Possible That the Evil Inclination in Man is “good?”In the above retelling of the serpent in the garden account, I tried to express the story in such a way so as to help the reader understand that the serpent character, which is read in Genesis 3, is a metaphor for the latent sin-potential in humankind. The serpent represents the subtle nature that was created within man from the beginning. A nuance of human character that is the driving force behind sin choices. Every human being on earth has a desire to choose good and a desire to choose evil but where do those desires come from? There has been a debate for centuries as to whether the human infant is born into sin or if sin is learned. To engage in that debate here would undoubtedly be engrossing and would not be solved by simply assessing and adhering to the typical arguments found on both sides of the debate. Where the debate falls short of being successful on either side is when it fails to recognize that man was created with a potential for both evil and good. Man is not so much either born with sin or born without sin, but man is born with the profound ability and potential for both. Yahweh created man with both the ability to choose good and the ability to choose evil. Interestingly, if one believes the following statements in the bullet points below, then one must believe Yahweh placed the potential for good and evil inside of man and that both of those attributes are good. This is seen by noting that it was only after man was created that Yahweh said, “It is very good”; Genesis 1:31 “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”Where He otherwise said, “it is good” for that which was created on the previous five days.[146] In using logic to discern the truth the following points must be considered when finding a way to accept that the evil potential in man was imparted to man at the point of creation and that it is not an attribute that was foisted on man by an evil cosmic deceiver. Here then are some points to add to the equation.
All of the other creative efforts of the Creator brought only the remarks that acknowledge the product of His work as, “It is good.” However when man was created we heard the Creator saying, “It is very good!” Now, if Yahweh created man with the potential to choose good or evil and said the entire creation was very good, then the potential in man to choose evil must be “good.” Is it possible that Yahweh is saying that the “yetzer ha ra” which is known as the evil inclination in man is “good?” If it is true as I am positing that Yahweh did create man with the potential for both good and evil and then said “it was very good,” then it must be that the evil inclination is good in His eyes. I am not saying that when man chooses evil it is a good thing. Rather, I am saying the ability and potential to choose evil as well as good is good. According to Yahweh, choice is good.Man’s evil choices are part of the acceptable plan of the Creator to redeem man. If man were incapable of choosing evil then man would not need a redeemer and would not need God at all. However, throughout life man must learn to choose the good and refuse the evil. Shades of the necessity for man to learn to refuse evil are found in a prophecy about a uniquely anointed child who is spoken of to come by Isaiah. It is believed that this prophecy is about the Messiah but an application to all men can be made.
Man does not acquire this potential to choose sin as he grows, but the potential to choose sin is inherent. He was created with it and it is an attribute of human beings that needs to be managed and balanced. This balance takes place by man coming to understand what righteousness is. This learning process presents man with the option for righteous choices as well as having the option for wicked choices. We humans are neither inherently good nor inherently evil, we are inherently both, and this is what differentiates us from the animal kingdom. We have the privilege of choosing our behaviors in life where animals have only the ability to act on instinct. That is unless you are to train a monkey or like creature to choose between two objects, then it appears you are endowing that creature with the gift of free choice. However, that animal is not choosing between good and evil on a conscious plane because that animal does not know the difference between good and evil. It would be senseless to argue that animals do not have the power to choose because certainly some are trained to choose. This choice is not based on the animal’s autonomous free will. Free will is an attribute that is a unique aspect of humanity, which allows us to choose between good and evil. Rather when an animal makes a choice, it is either out of instinct or out of a programmed response through training.
Was the Serpent Motif New to Moses?To understand the fact that we as humans are created with the power to choose good or evil carries us a long way from the place where we are abdicating the responsibility for our sin choices to some mythic satanic being. I use “mythic” in reference to this being here, because the serpent in the garden has been a mythic or mythological figure for ages before the account of the serpent in the garden story was written into the Torah. In fact Moses, who is the alleged and commonly accepted writer of the book of Genesis, had spent forty years in Egypt and became learned in all the wisdom of Egypt we are told in Acts.
This learning would have included an in depth understanding of all the gods of Egypt, which included the serpent. To put it plainly the serpent as it was spoken of in many ancient myths was a mythological creature that was said to be full of wisdom and protected the “tree of life.” Is it plausible that Eve would blame a literal snake for tricking her into disobeying God? It is a huge ideological leap into mythology to rationalize such as a phenomenon. A phenomenon that claims that a creature man had named and man was ruling over, was the character that actually deceives a human being. The humans were the top of the intellect chain and unless the serpent was a literal serpent with unbelievable intellect, or the serpent was “Satan” posing as the serpent or appearing as a ”shining one” as some teach; then this “serpent” must have been a literary tool used to teach some other point. We know with almost concrete certainty that the writer of Genesis was a Hebrew and in all likelihood was the great Hebrew leader Moses. Without debating that fact, we can see Moses was able to use this myth involving a serpent, in writing the story of the beginnings and fall of man. Although there are crumbs of a serpent-to-Satan relation left in Judaism today, the pre-Judaism faith in Yahweh (God) was not akin to interpreting the serpent in the garden as Satan or any other literal entity. Moses, as many great writers today, played off a very commonly understood concept and mythological story to tell the Israelite people about their beginnings. Moses knew his kinsmen had been in Egypt for hundreds of years and because of their connection to Egypt would understand the connection Moses was making to the ancient serpent myth. The serpent was hailed as divinity in Egypt and any connection made to this “divine” creature would have held with it the understandability that was commonly associated with the attributes of this creature/god. Egypt was not the only culture to possess a belief in the serpent as a subtle intelligent representation of divinity, almost every ancient culture throughout time has held a similar belief. Therefore, the Moses, who was the prophet of the only God, carried this story with him. Moses was allowed by the Creator to incorporate the mythopoetic imagery familiar to the people of the day, into the creation account. An ancient story that had all but been lost and forgotten by the Hebrew people while in a centuries-long enslavement in Egypt. Relating a necessary story in terms that were comprehendible and connectable to well understood ancient mythological themes was instrumental in expressing the profound nature of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, known as Paradise. Satan Grows in Imaginations Over TimeAs was said earlier, we humans automatically place the pictures that have been given us through various modalities of stimulus throughout life, into the text of Scripture and other written works. For many of today’s believers in “Satan” and “Hell,” the ideas they possess are really second-hand beliefs. Historically there have been many submissions of unique and equally incorrect images and writings about Hell and Satan. Looking at the historical evolution of these ideas is immensely valuable in coming to a correct understanding of Satan. Jeffrey Burton Russell discloses explicitly how the formation of the concepts and images of the devil have been evolving throughout history as a result of personification of evil by past generations. Russell says:
Many of the well-knownimages, specifically of Satan, which have taken up residence in the minds of many, have roots in the descriptions and subsequent artistic works of two pieces of famous literature. These are the famous works by Dante Alighieri and John Milton. We will talk about Dante’s Inferno in a little while; as for John Milton, it was in the 1600’s that he wrote a famous poem called Paradise Lost. This work of John Milton has been acknowledged as a primary source for instilling many of the images one brings to mind today when the serpent and the Garden of Eden are spoken of. The Wikipedia says this in its entry on the epic poem Paradise Lost.
Paradise Lost is very creative writing indeed but what Mr. Milton has failed to do in his writing which sadly is not always read as fiction poetry but is taken as non-fiction by so many, was to separate the use of ancient myth and mythopoetic language that is read in the Scriptures, from what is real and literal. Mr. Milton apparently decided at one point in his choice for belief system that this satanic spirit realm and its accompanying hell was a factual and literal group of beings and places. His writing reflected his belief, and through that choice of a belief he was forced to concoct or fabricate if you will, in a hodge-podge fashion, an entire spiritual system in which was contained the main component of the supernatural Satan. I state this as somewhat of a presumption in that it seems Milton’s work was not intended to be complete fiction but he articulated it as true and literal to a large degree. Through this belief system Milton has done what countless other hyper-spiritual individuals have done through the ages, and from my experience, do so presently in constructing their own game and set of rules. The manner in which the spiritually minded have developed their own system of operating within the faith practices they adhere to is very much like creating a new game based on an original that had its own established set of rules. If you sit down today and invent a brand new game, such as a board game or a sporting-type event, it is you the creator, who establishes the rules. The game itself may be inspired by another similar game but because you are the designer, you get the privilege of defining the rules and parameters that are built into the game. For instance, there are numerous word games on the present board game market. Most of us have played or heard about “Scrabble™.” Scrabble™ is an excellent game that allows each player to possess up to seven tiles with varied letters on each tile. The player is asked to place his tiles in the acceptable fashion according to the rules on the playing board and in so doing composes a word, which scores him a number of points. The total of points varies depending on the letters used, and the placement of the tiles. The player may acquire a double or triple letter score or a double or triple word score. Board games that are similar to Scrabble™ are numerous and one such game that comes to mind is Boggle™. Boggle™ is a word building game where the letters are all placed on dice in a 4 by 4-square pattern. When the dice are shaken and then settled in place in the 4 by 4 pattern, the player then attempts to find as many words in the presenting letter combination within a short period. The game of Boggle™ accepts the National Scrabble Associations Dictionary to settle disputes on questionable words. Beside board games that were built in part from a concept seen in an existing game are electronic games. One type of word game that is of the electronic variety has taken the notion of building a game from the concept seen in another game to the digital world, yet the creator of the game was free to define the rules and parameters of play;
The number of games taken from concepts seen elsewhere is vast and in each of the games, the designer has implemented his own rules. If you try to play any of these games by different rules, you in essence are actually coming up with a new game. The whole point of the designer placing rules and parameters on “his” game is so that it is unique and different from all the other games in some ways. The designer is now in a sense the one who controls how the game is played, that is if the player agrees to play according to the prescribed rules. John Milton seems to have done this very thing by creating images and concepts to go along with his belief system, which includes a cosmic “Satan.” He took an existing concept and reworked it, adding elements and concepts so it became a completely new way to see Satan and Hell but still based it on concepts that developed long before his time. Milton launched his concept of Satan and Hell off another concept drawing inspiration from a previous work. In so doing, Mr. Milton has established the rules for his game; only in this instance, the game is not physical but spiritual. In developing his concept, he made it unique from previous concepts but drew from much available thought that pre-existed himself. The rules he decided to play by are uniquely his and because they are all in the spiritual realm, which is, for the most part intangible, they become unchallengeable. These are the rules that he seems to play by and because he is convinced that this is how to play this spiritual game he is able to remain in control and appear that he has a form of Godliness in the concept of “Paradise Lost” as it relates spiritual forces to the reader. Milton is not the only one who has compiled a treatise on the concept of a cosmic “satanic” being who thwarted God’s plan to establish an eternal Paradise at the beginning of creation. As I mentioned another writer who may have been a catalyst at embedding a false notion of “Satan” and “Hell” even further in the psyche of humankind is a man named Dante. For your reading pleasure and as an aid in understanding some of the origins of the highly evolved, present day concept of “Satan” and “Hell” please peruse the following synopsis of the poem, which is more of a book, titled “The Divine Comedy” . Themost famous segment of the entire work is called Dante’s Inferno. Here follows excerpts of the poem as synopsized on the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia. The poem is the transmission of a vision of Hell that Dante claimed to have had. The following explanation and synopsis provided by Wikpedia is far more concise than any that I might provide for you. Please note the remarks of the contributor who supplied the poem to Wikipedia. We are told that this poem has had such a great influence “that it affects the Western Christian view of the afterlife to this day.”
Dante’s poem goes on in magnificent detail to speak of no less than 9 descending circles and some of those with various zones that are even more deep, dark and dire than the upper levels of the Hell. The final zone of the final circle, zone 4 of Circle 9 depicts the place for the worst sinners that ever have or will exist. Dante speaks of this tortuous place and then closes his poem/vision in the following fashion:
Both Dante and Milton, although excellent writers, are guilty of prejudicing their writings based on forgone errant conclusions of the concept of a “satan” and a “Hell.” Your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not they were intending that their writings become a part of forming the collective consciousness of society for centuries to come. Perhaps, in a style similar to Dan Brown and his book the Davinci Code, both Milton and Dante may have professed that their works were not to be taken as fact but were fictional works, which were composed to entertain the masses. Dan Brown has stated that his work is intended to be fiction although it does in fact contain some fact. So too perhaps, did the aforementioned writers make the same claim. Nonetheless, Milton’s and Dante’s impact through their ingenious work certainly has some parallels to the impact Dan Browns “fictitious” work has had on religious thought today. As I said, your guess is as good as mine and it may be true that Dante and Milton set forth to develop a work that would be used to inform the readers of their day what they believed Hell and Satan to be. By extension, a large segment of society today, which was future to Dante and Milton, has the common belief in a cosmic “satan” and his abode. The Harris poll quoted in Reuters News, November 29th, 2007, claims 62 percent of Americans believe in Satan and Hell. Perhaps these historical writers were hoping to impart their theology which spoke of the abode of the wicked upon their death, to all those who might read their works in the future. Regardless of the writer’s intentions, both of these works have proven to be a major piece of the puzzle in understanding the composition of beliefs in our culture today. Their writing has definitely helped to form the contemporary concept of the supposed archenemy of God and the Hell the enemy rules over. In addition, regardless of their intent, both Dante and Milton are guilty of placing concepts in the hands of society that they themselves had adopted from previously known concepts. Both these gifted writers wrote through the eyes of their predetermined understanding of the concept of Satan. Because of a propensity for much of culture to accept hyper-spirituality and the concept of spiritual men and women having special insight into the “spiritual realm,” both Dante and Milton garnered much support for the concepts explained in their works. Although both men were writing through an incorrect, pre-determined understanding of unproven concepts, they were able to write their own rules. Because most people will not question the “spiritual” visions and dreams of others, Dante and Milton were allowed to play by their own rules to their games and get others to play by the same rules without recognizing when and how those rules were developed. We see in this a clear picture of the evolution of a belief or ideology. Persons of influence developing theo-spiritual ideas based on preconceived or previously available concepts is a grievous occurrence which has taken place with great regularity throughout history and has affected many. The practice of studying long-held church doctrines, as opposed to rightly dividing and studying the Scriptures from a properly placed historical context, has led many brilliant men and women astray into further doctrinal error. This typical shortfall and misunderstanding has been the error of many writers and teachers who have put forth works that have added to the forming of contemporary thought about “Satan” and “Hell.” It is little different to say that one could write a book about the Tooth Fairy and her escapades and then have readers all over the world believe that the Tooth Fairy is real. Readers would fully embrace the Tooth Fairy idea and believe that she truly does come at night, undetected to reach under young children’s pillows. It would be ludicrous to think that the readers would believe the Tooth Fairy literally does remove a carefully placed, sub-pillow tooth and place the currency of the respective country in its place. Along with the acceptance of a myth as fact, one must weigh the factor of time into the equation. This plays a big part in how a belief comes to be cemented in the societal psyche. The longer a myth is told the more rooted into the human belief system it stands to become. Regarding the heartfelt belief of a myth as it pertains to theology there can be no more profound and true axiom than to say that a lie told long enough becomes the truth. The entire cycle of people designing their own spiritual reality, which I have made analogous connection to one designing their own game or games, continues to happen over and over again, as time moves on. Dante and Milton both did it when they created their own reality wrapped in spiritual and pseudo-scriptural concepts. They presented it articulately and convincingly to a culture that was not privileged to access of information. Because it appeared to be their experiences; and one cannot argue the significance of another’s experiences in determining that person’s belief system, their spiritual flavor was accepted and began more and more to be the rules by which others formed their belief systems. Along with that process, the established concept became a template for others to fabricate their own “spirituality” which cannot be challenged by another who is only a bystander able to observe individuals as they play by their own rules. This is such a deeply rooted Gnostic concept in our culture that it is acceptable and has become today what is known as Christianity. With over 33000 different flavors of Christianity that have developed since the first century, one can see where one game inspires another and another and another. Down to the present age, we are seeing such diversity in the explanations and understanding of supposed “satanic” activity that it is difficult, but not impossible; to trace the evolution of these fabricated concepts. The family tree of similar but unique theological ideas and concepts continues to grow and ultimately the original rules for the spiritual game are no longer used, and possibly forgotten altogether. Recognizing the origin and original parameters of true faith though is different than feeling the need to determine the process of the evolution of a board game which begets numerous knock offs and look-alikes. The true faith, if in fact was started by the Creator of the universe who is perfect in all His ways, is more consistent than the creators of various games are. If in fact there is a true faith that is designed by the one God who Created the heavens and the Earth and all that is in them, then it seems reasonable to believe that He would not make a game with rules that needed constant revision and evolution to make them better. His faith has no need of fundamental change. Unless one can reconcile all the apparent contradictions in the entire bible as we have it today and come up with a faith-based stand that allows for a perfect unchanging Creator, they will be left floundering with seemingly unanswerable questions about who God is and how He desires to be served and worshipped. The idea of one constant format for a game, or to be more specific, a pattern of worship and obedience to the Creator that is intended for all time, is far more comprehendible than an ever-changing set of rules, which are altered by humanity, as time marches on. Every child has played a game with a few friends where the rules keep changing every time the game is played and often changed during the game. This makes it impossible for the players to establish a concrete relationship within the game and to the game itself. There is no difference with the evolving spirituality that many allege has its roots in the Bible. These alterations appear to be done in an effort to create a God who is palatable and not convicting of our rebellious desires that reside in our hearts. The pattern of worship and obedience, which one chooses, can be referred to as ones “spirituality.” It is this spirituality that should have endured, being more consistent as a rule instead of evolving from one concept to another. As well, it is this inconsistency and evolving truth, which has brought us to the point in contemporary belief systems, where the most common beliefs about of the serpent in the garden contain the notion either that “Satan” is the serpent or that “Satan” inhabited the serpent for his evil manipulative game. For our pursuit to be closer to being considered exhaustive, I hope to answer the following very important questions. The questions are;
And
Other topics that will be discussed are;
[145] Image and caption can be found at http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/2293.cfm. Caption with photograph says the following: Most of the hundreds of thousands of children who die from malaria every year are under the age of five. Almost 90 percent are from sub-Saharan Africa. (Photo: Cris Bouroncle / AFP-Getty Images) [146] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. Genesis 1:4 KJV And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:12 KJV And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:21 KJV And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:25 KJVA [147] Classical Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism by Bruce D. Chilton and Jacob Neusner, p. 92. Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing, 2004 [148] From page 4, The Prince of Darkness; Radical Evil and the Power of Good In History by Jeffrey Burton Russell Copyright 1988 Cornell University Press [149] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost [150] The Divine Comedy can be viewed at: http://www.divinecomedy.org/divine_comedy.html. Excerpt provided above can be viewed at; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy Now for a sneak peek at . . . CHAPTER 13 - Answering The Serpent In The Garden QuestionsNow we shall go on to consider the first question posed in the previous chapter. Is the serpent in the garden “Satan?”The short answer is, No! If as some say, the serpent was in fact Satan who had taken on the form of a serpent, then we are back at the place where we are ascribing supernatural attributes to an entity other than Yahweh. If it is true that there is a God and He calls himself Yahweh in the Torah or as some pronounce it Yehovah; then, it also must be true when He says “He is God and there is none else,” as well as when the God of the universe says, “there is none like me” in Exodus chapter 9.
If there is “none else,” this means there are no other entities with supernatural powers. This would include all the false Gods the Egyptians and many of the Hebrews had come to believe existed and believed possessed supernatural power. The statement, “there is none like Me” was made by Yahweh in the context of referring to the Egyptian gods who were given homage by the Israelites and the Egyptians. If we understand even a few of the thoughts the Egyptians had on the topic of the gods of Egypt and that these gods included supposed deities who enacted evil upon humans, then we have to include “satan” as being the same as one of those gods. It is a well-known historical fact that Ancient Egypt had hundreds of Gods as we discussed in chapter five. Egypt was not as close to a monotheistic belief system as was Persia. Many of these gods were believed to have the ability to incarnate themselves or to manifest themselves as different animals and objects. It was highly common to accept and believe that certain gods caused good to come upon or happen to humans and other gods caused evil to happen to man. It was also a belief that some gods cause both good and evil to happen. The fact that Yahweh decided to free His people from Egypt and show them He is the only God and there is none else, was His instruction to the people. Yahweh wanted to teach the people that they are not to believe in the gods of Egypt. He wanted His chosen people to not only come out of Egypt physically but to come out of Egypt spiritually too. After spending multiple generations in Egypt, the Hebrew people had learned about, and in many ways come to believe in the false gods of Egypt. Yahweh referred to these supposed forces that were believed to possess ability to affect and control matters here on Earth as “Gods.” Even though they were imagined forces that didn’t really exist, Yahweh referred to them as “Gods” because they were given the place of God in the minds of the people. Early on in the story of the Exodus, we hear the . . .(To read more of this chapter, request your copy of Satan: Christianity's Other God)
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James R. Brayshaw