Why is Satan a snake?

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Snake= "Patient is the devil?"

Thanks MrLoony. I will have to read that. The Adam and Eve creation story always bothered me most of all the biblical stories.

Whether its 4000 years before or 500 years before, it is somewhat irrelevant. The fact is that it is a Jewish writing. So if you want to understand it, you would need to study Jewish beliefs/thoughts- not Christian beliefs/thoughts.

Not that I ever have, but if you truly wanted to know why, you should study Jewish thought for that period. If your studying Christian thought, your too late.

Last edited by Francis on 21 Jul 2009, 9:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Also note the shape of the snakes in the medical symbol.



This intertwining of snakes is basically universal in indigenous mythology (if I'm not mistaken, this has happened commonly even in places where there are no snakes). My favorite explanation of it is the shamans' visions getting so deep into the human entity that they actually have perceptions of the human DNA (i.e. the double helix).

interesting!

Wonder why it couldn't have been a scorpion <.< they're equally as dangerous as snakes... And the most venomous one worldwide actually lives near Jerusalem and the surroundings. <.<

The adam/eve/snake story was designed by the priests of Yahweh to warn off the Hebrews from turning to other cults. The snake was a symbol associated with various goddesses in the middle east.

Goddess worship would appeal to women in a patriarchal society. The women then encourage husbands and sons to worship the goddess too. So metaphorically the snake tempts the woman who then tempts the man and they turn away from Yahweh who punishes them.

For more info google for "How the Snake Slithered into Eden".

While I know this is probably wrong (now), throughout my Catholic school life, I always believed that the snake was a symbol of male organs and the apple of female.

I'd always assumed that the true "original sin" was that Adam and Eve tried to set themselves among the Gods by creating (or procreating) life. This also tied in nicely with the idea that they recognised that their naughty-bits were actually naughty from that point onwards and made appropriate use of available cover.

Anyway, it was a good idea while it lasted. (the concept I mean, not the fig leaf).

The medical symbol is the Staff of Asclepius. In Greek mythology, Asclepius was a demigod, the son of Apollo, who was raised by the centaur Chiron, who taught him all about medicine. Asclepius went about the land, healing the sick, and he became so good at it that he was even able to bring the dead back to life. This made Hades greatly unhappy, as he feared that eventually there would be nobody left in his kingdom. As Hades was the one who had got the short end of the deal when he, Poseidon and Zeus had drawn lots over who would get dominion over the various aspects of the world (who would want to be ruler of the drab and boring underworld?), Zeus was very careful not to upset him, and so he struck Asclepius down with a thunderbolt. However, Apollo was able to intervene, and after some negotiations Asclepius was resurrected, and he became the god of medicine. As a result, physicians in ancient Greece were considered to be associated with Asclepius.

yeah that sounds familiar.

There some stories to that effect in gnostic apocryphal texts (the Nag Hammadi). It's a while since I read it but basically a woman/eve/daughter figure (I forget what they call her, Barbelo maybe?) takes it upon herself to create life without gods knowledge or permission and it doesn't turn out well, I think the thing that she created equates to an aberration/evildoer/error, although that was not her intention.

You may be thinking of Lilith.

I have always subscribed to the Church/snake/phallic symbol theory myself. I don't call it a "Christian" thing because there are plenty of Christians who don't go along with Church dogma. And although there's plenty to be said for the "limbic" or evolutionary theory, as a long-time reptile fancier, I thought it might be good to point out that the vast majority of snakes (a) aren't poisonous or particularly dangerous to humans and (b) are generally beneficial to humans (i.e. eat vermin and otherwise keep to themselves).

I think it's Sophia you refer to. Under Gnostic Christianity, there are many gods, the most important ones being the mysterious supreme god, and Yaldabaoth, also known as Samael (the blind god) who is identified as being Yahweh, the god of the Old Testament. Yaldabaoth came to being when Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, attempted to create life without the help of the supreme god. Her creation, Yaldabaoth, was born irredemably evil, and assumed himself to be the only god in existence (which was why Sophia gave him the name "Samael", because he was blind to the existence of a spiritual world higher than himself), and went on to create the physical world. Because of the evil nature of the world's creator, the Gnostics believed that all things relating to the physical world were evil, and existed to cut us off from the spiritual world of the supreme god. In their cosmology Jesus was the son of the supreme god (as opposed to Yahweh), sent to pass on secret knowledge (gnosis) with which people might free themselves of the influence of the evil god Yaldabaoth.

Generally speaking, whether or not a person just dies or burns in hell forever is something that is theologically open. However, traditionally, most people side with eternal damnation as the fate for many people.

As would the Buddhists and the Hindus, and that's my point: Is Christianity actually open to reincarnation with the idea that life without God sucks?

yes, that's the story, thanks for that.