Why is Satan a snake?

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And not a lion, a wolf, or a spider? Why not a jaguar, a poison-toad, or a giant wasp? Why are we told that he is a snake?

My proposed answer is that Christians are trying to shame the lower classes out of having sex, and that they do this by making an association between evil, the male genitalia, and an animal that resembles the male genitalia. The concept of 'sinning' is deliberately left vague in order to scare subordinates into feeling like anything they do could be a sin -- even peeing in a toilet. Why else would Satan be called a snake?

But men aren't always evil, nor are we snakes.

The idea that Christians are intentionally bullying unattractive people, systematically controlling and manipulating them with lies for their benefit, is expounded on in my essay, Christianity as a Tool of Oppression Against the Romantically Unsuccessful.

I have heard a pretty good evolutionary biology explanation for it.

There is a deep part of our brains that we share with our distant reptilian cousins. As we branched off into mammals we got the friendlier and more bonding emotions that mammals share. We look at dogs, cats, horses, bears, lions, any mammal and there's something we can relate to because of our common mammalian nature. Cubs play, just like us. Parents look out for their offspring and will defend them to the death. There's something in all mammals that we can relate to. But the parts of us that are cruel and heartless and remorsless and just plain evil, that feels more like it comes from farther back in our heritage. It comes from the time before mammalian warm fuzzies- wolves mating for life, bears protecting their cubs, the loyalty of dogs, the fun play of chimps and otters. We look at reptiles and they are from a time before nature evolved the emotions and loyalty and just plain love that mammals have. And the evil in us looks like it can be traced directly back to them- back to a time when there was only kill or be killed and no dog loyalty or otter playfulness. Only meanness and looking out for yourself. And it's still in us waiting to pop out if we don't keep it tamped down.

And so Satan is a reptile. A snake.

I don' think ancient Christians were evolutionary biologists. I think they just observed both mammals and reptiles and recognized that the more admirable qualities of humans were shared by other mammals but the meanest qualities of humans were shared by reptiles without any of the "good" qualities that mammals also have. "Mean as a snake" and all that. Given that, Satan could have been a crocodile too, since they lived in the area and shredded people from time to time. My guess is that the snake was chosen as the representative reptile because not only is it a reptile and therefore not sharing positive mammal emotions, it has no legs which makes it sneakier than a crocodile and there is just something extra creepy about sneakiness.

In a related story, I don't recall any reptiles being around the manger when Jesus was born, but He was surrounded by mammals sharing their positive mammal emotions with him. Fellow mammals can "adore Him" because adoration is mammalian, but reptiles just don't feel that way about anybody (we assume).

Actually, I tend to doubt this. Why? The words "be fruitful and multiply" are within the book of Genesis multiple times, having many children is a very common blessing that God gives to the faithful, for example giving it to midwives in Exodus 1:21(big families means a lot of sex) and God has actually punished a man, Onan, for not doing the deed when told to(Genesis 38:9). Given that the only way to reap God's reward of children and fulfill some of the commands is through sex, I would have to doubt that the purpose is to make people afraid. I would think it more likely that snakes were chosen because they were weird as Genesis 3:14 seems to reflect the fall as explaining why snakes are on their bellies, and also because snakes are generally dangerous creatures that can be hard to see(they rest in the dark) and that can quickly kill an individual using poison whereas other creatures can be fought off more easily. Because snakes are more of a "sneaky assassin" creature, they can be seen in a negative light rather easily.

Lions however, are generally seen positively because they are seen as strong and courageous. I am not sure that jaguars, poison-toads, or giant wasps were known for being in the area, and I am not sure if spiders were considered dangerous creatures by the Israelites as spiders that are dangerous for people are rarer than dangerous snakes.

In any case, the idea of sinning is actually clearer in Judaism, where the text you draw upon is from, than it is in Christianity. As in Judaism, the Biblical text acts as the legal text, and the local rabbi basically acts as a local legal scholar, who basically works to define what is exactly sinful and what isn't, helping local Jews understand their code. This process of defining what is and is not immoral is described by Rabbi Chaim Saloman in his paper "Jesus' legal theory", where he actually talks the extremely legalistic nature of Jewish theology related to the commands in the scriptures and how rigorously they attempt to understand each Biblical command. As such, if Saloman is correct, then your criticism of Genesis is wrong, as Genesis was a Jewish text before it was ever a Christian text, unless you actually believe that the Christian God is real.

That is interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that, but it makes sense to me.

I suppose you just mean the traditional nativity scene. I don't think there are any animals referenced as being present in the 4 Gospels. Just some shepherds and the child being in a manger in Luke 2.

I think I read to someplaces that it was for keeping the fidels away from some Babylonian god...
There also that primates are naturally afraid of snakes and spiders.

Please point to me the part of the Bible that says that Satan is a snake. I may be wrong, but the only snake I recall from the Bible is the serpent in Genesis, and that is not Satan. I'm fairly sure that the first 12 chapters of Genesis were written before Satan came into Jewish faith.

Also, to understand why it is a serpent that tempts Eve, read the Enuma Elish, which was the original account of Jewish Creation.

There are a number of misinterpretations in the Bible, this being one of them.

That is a good eye! I didn't even think about that because of how much Christianity just identifies the serpent with the devil.

he's also known as the Lord of the Flies.

Why would you blame the Christians? The passage to which you are referring is in the Book of Genesis, which is Jewish and was written some 4000 years before Christ.

And Serpent is a better translation anyways.

To be completely clear: In Revelations, Satan is referred to as "the old serpent," but please keep in mind that serpent has many figurative meanings to it as well, and he is actually referred to in Revelations as a dragon. On the other hand, the serpent in Genesis is referred to as a beast (not as an angelic being), and is cursed to go on its belly (which is why it is assumed that it is a snake).

Serpent also has other meanings, especially when Genesis is considered. Satan is known to be very cunning and evil (though the serpent in Genesis is likely more mischevious than evil), and so it would not be unheard of to refer to him as a serpent in the figurative sense.

No, it's not that old. That portion of the bible was written about 500-1000 years after Moses, so probably somewhere around 900-500 BC. I would tend to believe the older end of that spectrum. After that, we get into Satan and heaven vs. hell, which would mean that the text would likely have Satan tempting Eve.

Okay, let's take it from the top:

1) The Serpent, in Genesis, was not Satan. Satan was more of a job title, perhaps translating best as "Adversary" or "Prosecuting Attorney"; the idea behind the angel Satan was supposed to be that he would look over the Lord's creation for flaws. (Later theologians came up with the idea that Satan got a little too into his work, and was trying to create flaws...) The Serpent of Genesis ch 2, meanwhile, was a tempter, attempting to lead the newly created people astray for reasons which are never adequately explained. (I always saw the whole thing as more akin to Kipling's "Just-So" stories, attempts to explain why things are the way they are. God's supposedly Chosen People were always being oppressed because their first ancestors defied the Lord; snakes don't have legs like other reptiles because their ancestor was cursed by God. And the bear doesn't have a tail because he sat on the ice too long and it froze.)

2) Satan is seldom depicted in Christian theology as a snake. Usually, he's more of a Pan-figure, with satyr legs and goat horns. There is a reference to a Great Dragon in Revelation, but it's not clear from context if that's supposed to represent Satan, Man, having the wrong attitude about religion, or what. It's about as clear as the identity of the Whore of Babylon.

3) The Book of Genesis is the eldest of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Torah (the holy book of Judaism). Since Christianity is an Abrahamic faith, it uses a version of the Pentateuch as well (so does Islam, as I understand it, at least up to the point of deciding who was supposed to be the heir of Abraham - his first son, Ishmael, or his second son, Isaac), but the book is Hebraic in origin. As such, one can hardly blame any of the imagery on Christians...

4) Interpretation of Sheol, the Hebraic term often translated as "Hell", as a place of punishment seems to have been an invention of the time of Paul's epistles, at the earliest. The ancient idea was just that those who displeased YHVH didn't get an afterlife, they just died. Jesus reportedly said the same thing in the Gospels, that those who were not saved to eternal life didn't get eternal life - not even unpleasant eternal life. I suppose that for some people, just knowing their enemies were dead wasn't good enough, they had to be tortured for eternity instead.

I never really thought about this before, and I don't have a good theory myself. But what is interesting to me is the contrast between the Satan snake/serpent in Christianity, and the serpent symbol in other mythological contexts around the world, where it is representative of water and the creation of life.

I think there could be SOMETHING to what the MikeH is saying, as the mythical snake/serpent is generally directly linked to fertility. Based on that, one certainly could argue that it is related to male genitalia, and show the contrast between MikeH's perception of the "shaming" of sex in Christianity, and other religions/belief systems where sex is seen as natural and beautiful.

I don't entirely agree with what the OP is getting at (my opinion is not strong on this one way or another anyway), but there's a lot out there that suggests you could easily make an argument along those lines.

Actually, Genesis, as a whole book, is younger. I know that the first 12 chapters were written long after Moses died. I am not clear on the others.



Quick question: It's been a while since I studied this side of Christianity. It says that those who love God go to heaven. Does it actually say that those who do not just die, or is that left open?

It's also used in the medical profession as a symbol, the snake.

It pretty much is THE symbol for the medical profession