In the previous chapter it was suggested that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad might represent experiential knowledge of one’s animal nature and that the serpent represents evil. It was also suggested that this explanation might not provide a full explanation of this allegory and that we need to probe deeper.

A good place to start is to the nature of the serpent in the ancient world.

 

Many Hebrew words express underlying concepts. The Hebrew word for a serpent is nochosh – from the 3 root letters nun, chet and shin. From these three root letters comes the noun nichush, which means magic or witchcraft. The verb from these 3 root letters is lenacheish, which means to guess, to foretell, and also to practice sorcery.  

This suggests that the serpent in this story may not be an agent of evil but an indicator of the occult. 

 

We know that the god of the underworld in Mesopotamia was a serpent.  Also, at the entrance to Marduk’s temple in Babylon was the statue of a serpent.

 

It is difficult for us nowadays to appreciate the importance of the occult in ancient times. The supernatural world was the realm in which the gods operated. It was also the realm of illness and death, since these were conditions controlled by the gods. Diviners would attempt to tap into the supernatural realm to foretell the future by means of omens. The non-Jewish prophet Bilaam, who is introduced in the book of Numbers, was a skillful operator of the supernatural world. 

 

The Torah does not deny the existence of the supernatural realm, since this was also the realm of the One God. Neither, does the Bible deny Bilaam’s art and its effectiveness. The story of Bilaam in the Torah is about how God neutralized Bilaam’s control of the supernatural and took over his divinations.

 

When Moses was approached by God to become leader of the Jewish people, Moses asked for signs that he could show the Jewish people (Exodus chapter 4). God told him to throw his staff on the ground - and it became a serpent. He was then asked to put his hand under his cloak and it became leprous. These were more than party tricks. The serpent was a sign of the supernatural and leprosy a product of the supernatural. Both indicated that Elohim operates within the supernatural realm and He was handing over to Moses some of this capability.

 

Similarly, when Moses went to Pharaoh, his first demonstration was to throw his staff on the ground - and it became a snake (Exodus chapter 7). Pharaoh’s magicians were also able to do the same. Maimonides, ever the rationalist, suggests that Moses and the magicians had produced a sleight of hand. More plausible is that Moses was demonstrating to the magicians that Elohim was an authentic God who operates within the supernatural world. Initially, at least, Pharaoh’s magicians were unimpressed, since they were also able to produce snakes from their staffs. However, it did not take them long to realize that their control over the supernatural was no match for Moses’, as Moses’ snake was able to gobble up theirs.

 

The book of Numbers (21:4-9) describes how the Israelites, during their wilderness journey, spoke against God and Moses due to their discontent with the conditions and food in the desert. As a consequence, God sent venomous snakes among the people, and many Israelites were bitten and died. Upon their repentance, Moses interceded for the people, and God instructed him to make a model of a serpent and set it on a pole. Those bitten would look at this serpent and live. The Talmud explains that when they looked upwards to heaven and subjected their hearts to God they were healed.1 Rashi also explains that Moses made the serpent out of copper because the Hebrew word for snake nachash is linked to the Hebrew word for copper (nechoshes). But none of these explanations provide an explanation as to why a model of a snake was a fitting way to reach out to heaven. However, once the serpent is appreciated as a vehicle for reaching into the divine world, its use makes more sense. It also explains why this statue was kept as a memorial during the First Temple period. Eventually, King Hezekiah of Judah destroyed it during his reform program as it was being used inappropriately:

 

He abolished the high places, and broke the images, and cut down the ashera (idolatrous groves), and crushed the copper serpent that Moses had made: for until those days the children of Israel were burning incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan (II Kings 18:4).2

 

There are a number of Biblical prohibitions against delving into the occult.3 Divination was perceived by the Torah as a threat to Torah-belief, as it sought to enter the realm of the supernatural and usurp God’s control of this realm. 

 

Hence, an alternative explanation for the role of the snake was offering Adam and Eve a path to the supernatural world, a path that would place them on a par with God. The means for doing this was to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad.

  

This explanation fits well into the plain meaning of the text. Consider the following words of the serpent: 

 

You will not surely die; for Elokim knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and bad (Genesis 3:5). 

 

The text does not say - and you will know good and bad and be like God, but rather you will be like God first and foremost and then have knowledge of good and bad.  

 

This interpretation offers a new way of viewing this story. It suggests that the underlying question of the Garden of Eden story is where do man and woman belong?

 

One possibility is that man is no more than a higher form of an animal. Adam may have considered this possibility when looking for a mate, but in the end he rejected it:

 

And the man assigned names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field; but as for man, he did not find a helper against him (Genesis 2:20).

 

Another alternative is that because he is in the image and likeness of God as described in Genesis I (Genesis 1:29) Adam will function at a level just below that of the angels. He will live in the rarefied environment of the Garden of Eden existing totally in obeyance with God’s wishes. His experience of good and evil will be based totally on what God commanded him. He did, of course, have free will and could eat of all the delicious fruits of the garden. He would assiduously avoid, however, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was a utopian existence, although one might say that it lacked challenge. Perhaps even boring!

 

However, there was another option, and this is was the way offered by the serpent. This was to attempt to reach into the supernatural world and “to be like God knowing good and bad’ (Genesis 3:5). What this meant was the freedom to devise one’s own moral code.

 

Once Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Bad, which had opened to them the possibility of their formulating their own ethical code, YHWH had no alternative but to eject them from the garden lest they eat from the Tree of Life. Should they do this, God and mankind would be in continual competition for the direction of the moral world.

 

And YHWH Elohim said “Behold man has become like one of us knowing good and bad, and now, lest he put forth and take also of the Tree of Life and eat and live forever.”

 

Clearly, Adam and Eve had overreached. They had been given a privileged position in a paradise, the Garden of Eden, in which their earthliness was of no importance to them. Now, however, they needed to have awareness of their earthliness, human sexuality and mortality. 

 

The beauty of this explanation is that the punishments now fit the crime. They aimed for the heaven and are brought down to earth. One might even say that these were not punishments, but consequences.

 

Adam was, of course, already linked to the earth (adama) by his name, but his earthly nature had been of no relevance to him. However, as soon as the couple ate of the forbidden fruit, they gained immediate awareness of their physical nature:

 

Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed together a fig leaf and made themselves aprons (Genesis 3:7). 

 

Did this story ever happen? I very much doubt it. It is an allegory emphasizing why the travails of man’s earthly existence are the way they are and why immortality could not be an option for mankind. The Bible has also explained the reason for the dissonance between the perfection of the universe created by Elohim in the first creation account and the troubled existence of man. The reader is also provided an insight into the mind of YHWH and why He designed the world as it is.

  

References

1. TB Rosh Hashona 29a.

 

2. This episode is discussed in the Talmud (TB Avoda Zarah 44a). No explanation is provided in the Bible nor in the Talmud as to how it was being used inappropriately, but Rashi suggests that the image itself was being used as an object of worship.

 

3. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 and Leviticus 20:6.