The Serpent of Genesis is not the Dragon of Revelations

Blasphemy. Fiction. Speculation. Speak for yourself.

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I guess I'm okay then. I never cringe at anything. That's where I have a problem with all this Satan-worship. I don't believe God has any enemies. How could an all-powerful God have enemies? (Hence the "blasphemy" comment above - in case you didn't catch it. )And if God has no enemies, how can I have enemies?I believe that those who see Satan behind every bush and in every snake are the ones who are deceived. I tell you that Satan's job is to do the vaccuuming - until God tells him to do something else.

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Being "at enmity" doesn't make you an enemy. You'd have no credibility as an enemy of God.Neither does Satan (or any snake).

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Certainly not. God transcends time, does He not?(Can this be related to the topic?)

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I don't think the snake is symbolic. He's really just a foil.If Shakespeare had written Genesis, Eve would have solilloquized, "Methinks I shall not surely die." Instead, the writer(s) of Genesis introduced a new character to advance the plot.The snake is the Sam Gamgee of Genesis. Frodo needed Sam to talk to and Eve needed somebody to talk to. But the only other somebody around was Adam, who had another twist to introduce in the next scene.A new character was needed and that character could only be an animal. It could have been a talking shrew or a talking jellyfish - but people already hate snakes, so it was easy to make him the "bad guy". (Imagine how different the story would be if a cute little puppy said, "You shall not surely die.")Snakes are also weird, being legless and all, so the explanation for that is thrown in as a bonus track.Now, the point of the story is that we have the knowledge of Good and Evil. It doesn't particularly matter where we got it from.We have the knowledge of Good and Evil - we inherited it from Adam and Eve. It is our responsibility to do what is good and avoid what is evil. Putting the blame on a snake (or on any outside source) completely negates the message of the story.If we see the snake as a plot device rather than an "adversary", the message makes sense.

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Personification is when something that is not a person is given human qualities.The "sin" that was personified is not an external entity. It is within us - the knowledge of Good and Evil (the capacity to do evil and the responsibility for our own actions).

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Do you think you could keep the pseudopsychobabble to yourself and address the topic at hand?

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The wise can explain their wisdom for the understanding of others.So far, you have not succeeded in showing the connection between Genesis and Revelation - which is the subject of this thread.If Genesis has any value, it ought to have some value on its own, separate from what you perceive as connections to every other verse in the Bible.How about showing us how much you understand about Genesis in Genesis? Show us the "adversary" in Genesis.When/if you can establish an adversary in Genesis and when/if you can establish an adversary in Revelation, we can begin to discuss the relationship between the two. Until then, we are not talking about adversaries, we're talking about snakes and dragons.

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I'm not dismissing the comments of John. I'm just interpreting them differently from you. No offense, bud - but what you think of your efforts doesn't count. You're trying to edify others, aren't you? You have to show the connection to their satisfaction, not your own. Try for quality instead of quantity. As I have said, there can be no "battle" if God is all-powerful. All power on one side versus no power on the other side? What battle?As long as you have that wrong, the rest of your interpretations make no sense. Far from it. Adam and Eve could not be more significant because they represent all mankind. But the point of the story is our invividual responsibility for our actions, not some imagined "battle" between God and an imagined "adverary". The battle is within us. Maybe so, but if your interpretation of the Revelation depends on the false notion of an "adversary", then your interpretation is not a very bright light. I didn't say ignore the Revelation. I meant that a discussion of Genesis shouldn't just be, "The Revelation explains Genesis thusly."If your interpretation of the Revelation is wrong (which I believe it is), then your interpretation of its relationship to Genesis may also be wrong. I suggested that you try to get some of your interpretation of Genesis out of Genesis. What goalposts have been moved?The OP says:

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... the plain text reading does not support that the serpent of Genesis is the same as the serpent/dragon in the vision of Revelation.

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You are the one who claims that serpent=Satan and dragon=Satan, therfore, serpent=dragon. I'm just saying that you have to establish that serpent=Satan and that dragon=Satan before your equation can work.

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Adam and Eve used the "self" that they already had to make a decision. How could they make a decision without a "self"?God said one thing - the serpent said another. Adam and Eve made their choice. Genesis says nothing about an "alliance" with the serpent. It was strictly a one-off. They were not "Satan's accusuations" - they were tests that God allowed him to perform. In the book of Job, Satan was a minion, a flunky doing God's bidding. Why would God need to "prove" anything? And to whom?Do you think God didn't know that Job would pass the test?The book of Job does not portray a struggle between God and His "adversary". It teaches a lesson - stay loyal to God and He will stand by you through any hardships.(Once again, the character "Satan" is cast as the bad guy, so we won't blame God for the hardships that we do suffer. That doesn't mean that there really is an "adversary" or that God "allows" hardships. It just means that life inevitably involves hardships.) Did you not read through to the end? Satan was wrong. Job did not curse his Creator. He did not love his own self/soul more than God.You contradict yourself. How can there be an "alliance" with Satan, going back to the Garden, when Job took part in no such alliance?You have not shown that the serpent of Eden was anything but a serpent.

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It just occurred to me: are you suggesting that all dinosaurs could talk?(Edited subtitle for the edification of AdminNosy and anybody else who reads them.)This message has been edited by Ringo, 2006-03-11 12:35 PM

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It doesn't sound like an "alliance" at all. Yes, and the relationship is enmity - practically the exact opposite of an "alliance". Genesis is explicit about that. Once again, you have not established that God has "an enemy" or that He can, in fact, have enemies. I repeat, if God is all-powerful, how can He have "an enemy"? God is God. Is He so puny that he needs to "prove" anything?If you think He needed to prove something, then show us. You didn't answer the question.If God knew what Job's response would be, why did He need to do the experiment? Clearly, it is a teaching story for us - which is why I pointed out that Satan is a character in the story (the "bad guy"), not a real "enemy". So you keep saying, but you haven't shown how there could even be an "opposing will" to God's. It can not be a story about the "warfare between two kingdoms" because an all-powerful God is the only King of the only Kingdom. There is no test until after the lesson is taught. Education comes from asking questions. Job was a fallible human, like all of us. The story is to teach us, remember? That prize would go to the puny-god hypothesis - the hypothesis that there can be any conflict with God - your hypothesis. What use is any communication from the puny god you describe? He's too busy looking over his shoulder for Satan's attacks to be of any use to us.You need to raise your sights. God can not have enemies. The snake of Genesis was not an enemy. He was a snake.

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By the will of God or by God's bidding. I don't see much difference. Well, we have to go to the back of the book to find the answer:

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Job 42:12 So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning....

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Job got his "diploma", so he must have passed the test. Even Jesus said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"I don't think that questioning God is the problem. Rejecting the answers is the problem.Job faced his hardships with the typical human response, "Why me?" and God answered (more or less), "Who are you to question me?" In the end, Job accepted that answer.(Which brings us full-circle to Cain. We don't know why his offering was rejected by God. We only know that he rejected God's rejection. Same story as Job, essentially - different ending.)

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Satan is said to be an ancient serpent, not "the" ancient serpent. That's hardly a positive ID. It's like saying the perpetrator was a Caucasian male, not "that" Caucasian male. You still have not answered the question: How can any entity - snake or Satan - be powerful enough to knock god's intentions off track? We know you don't listen. How can we have a meaningful discussion if you willfully refuse to listen to the other side?We may need a separate topic for this, but you have to establish that Satan is a serious "adversary" to God before you can start proclaiming that every evil influence in the Bible is Satan.

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No. He did not.The creation was "very good", not "perfect". One of the imperfections was the free will that mankind has.The Eden story explains why we have the capacity to do evil and why we are responsible for our own actions. It does not describe an "event" in which evil "came into the world".Evil (imperfection) was always here. I'm not going to argue translations with you. My point is that Satan is called a serpent in Revelation, but he is not specifically identified with the serpent in the garden.Others have tried to explain that the "serpent" of Revelation represents leviathan/chaos. Revelation is about the epic striggle between order and chaos, good and evil. That struggle is within us. You can't blame it on some external entity. But it isn't a change in direction at all. We were created with free will. Congratulations on convincing yourself. Give yourself a prize.Unless you just like the clickety-clack of your keyboard, how about presenting arguments that convince somebody else? You flatter me. I don't think God needs me to establish that. If the Bible "plainly shows" your puny-god view, then show us.

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