The Serpent of Genesis is not the Dragon of Revelations

Ringo, I spot checked four English translations - 1901 ASV, RcV, Darby, Weymouth. They all said "THE serpent ... " (my emphasis).The definite article before Devil is omitted in one of these translations. But they all said "THE serpent". By enfluening man's free will to chase after a lie.Man's will is an extremly powerful force in the universe. The direction man turned in his will meant a lot, a bunch, a great deal, a big deal. It was important to the creation which way man's will turned.The serpent's power was derived from his ability to deceptively steer man's will away from the will of God. I listened. But I presented arguements that I think defeat this view. Did or did not the serpent cause the "very good" creation to become corrupt? If so how do you think God felt about that?Genesis says that God rested on the seventh day. Do you think that the condition of the earth at Noah's time caused God more rest or less? I speak as compared to Genesis 1:34.I think that you may hold to a view of God being transcendent, powerful, and great without denying that someone could oppose God. You seemed concerned to establish God's transcendence over being opposed or fought against. The idea itself may be a noble one. But not to the extent that you ignore the obvious of the Bible's record.Now if you prefer that you know more about it than the Bible does, then you may take a view that God cannot seriously be thought to have any possible advasary. But that would be your self chosen view by only choosing to ignore so much of what the Bible plainly shows.My way of believing something similar to what you hold is saying that ultimately God simply cannot be defeated. He will accomplish His will. No counsel, no scheme, no stradegy can prevail against God forever.This message has been edited by jaywill, 03-13-2006 11:49 AM

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.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

I didn't write that it was perfect. This disagreement has nothing to do with my post. I didn't write anything to suggest we are not responsible for our own actions. This rebuttal also has nothing to do with my post. That is nonsense.He is not called "a ... serpent" in those quotations he is called "the ancient serpent". Perhaps you want to argue that "the ancient serpent" is another "anient serpent". But within the scope of the Bible that doesn't make much sense.John wrote "he who is called the Devil and Satan". You're the one who can't figure out who John is talking about. The way it is written, he appears to expect his readers to know who is the one who is called the Devil and Satan.So who then is the OTHER "ancient serpent" who deceives the who inhabited earth? What other serpent who is ancient and deceives the whole earth is John refering to? Nothing I wrote disclaims that the struggle is within us. Indeed I pointed to Cain and to the imagination of the hearts of the sinful people in Noah's time to prove that it was an inward struggle.This rebuttal has nothing to do with what I wrote either.This message has been edited by jaywill, 03-13-2006 05:25 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 03-13-2006 05:26 PM

Read my lips: Nobody "deceives" the inhabited earth.The struggle is within us. There is no external entity deceiving us.We struggle with good and evil because we have free will. We were created that way. Nobody deceived us into changing.Clear? So you are suggesting that there was only one serpent in the Bible? That every serpent in the Bible was Satan? If I find a garter snake in my back yard, is that Satan too? Remember the OP?

quote:

---

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

​

The serpent in Genesis is a beast of the field.

---

It appears that I'm not the only one who doesn't see it. You'll have to do a better job of showing us. Then why do you keep calling the snake a "deceiver"? What does the snake have to do with anything if the struggle is within us? Why do you keep bringing up God's "adversary" if the struggle is within us?

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Ringo, In other words the Apostle John is mistaken or lying and Ringo knows better. I believe that John knew. God used him to write the last gospel. God used him to write the book of the New Testament. And God used him to write the last word in the whole Bible. I trust that this apostle of Christ was reliable to convey the truth and God's thought. I think there is such a thing as a prophet knowing what they are talking about:"And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, he who is called the Devil and Satan, he who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and his angels were cast down with him." (Revelation 12:9) The struggle is indeed within us. But there is also an external enemy. That is what the Bible teaches. It does not teach internal struggle rather than external enemy. This is your dichotomy of your invention.But at least you admit that we do struggle. That in itself is a step in the right direction. The first man who the head of the human race was tempted and that effect the whole race.The deception that we face today is that deception which convinces us that we do not need to be saved by the Son of God. Our struggle against deception is a struggle not to REMAIN in the condemned state that we were born into. Yes, concering the identity of the ancient serpent. And I am clear that today he continues to deceive man in rejecting the Savior Jesus Christ with various excuses as you have manifested in this discussion.For example, saying that the serpent in Genesis has nothing to do with the Devil. This is itself a result of deception. This deception has as its aim that you would make light of the need to be redeemed by Christ's atoning death and saved in His victorious resurrection.This deception is targeted at keeping you making light of the need for the Lord Jesus Christ to save you from the guilt and power of sin. I didn't say that there was only one serpent. But how can you miss the discrption of the serpent that John is refering to? And the symbolism itself of a dragon standing before a pregnant woman, to devour her child should be hard to mistake. Does this not remind you of the serpent in Genesis between whom and the woman God would put enmity? And doesn't it remind you that the woman's seed would be the undoing of the serpent though he be bruised in the process?COMPARE:GENESIS - "And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed; He will bruise you on the head, But you will bruise him on the heel. To the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your pain in your childbearing ..." (Gen. 3:15-16a)REVELATION - "And a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman ... And she was with child, and she cried out, travailing in birth and being in pain to bring forth ... And another sing was seen in heaven; and behold, there was a great red dragon ... And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bring forth, so that when she brings forth he might devour her child.

​

And she brought forth a son, a man-child, who is to spheperd all the nations with an iron rod; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne." (See Rev. 12:3-6)Can't you see the parallel? The conflict is old. The conflict is universal. And the conflict is throughout history until the end of the age until Christ comes with His overcomers to rule the nations with an iron rod of power. The challenge is that the serpent in Genesis is NOT that Devil spoken of in Revelation. Regardless of the OP that challenge I refute here. I think it is relevant to the discussion.But if you really want to stick with the plain text of Genesis then you might also argue that God in Genesis is not the same God who gave the law and established Judaism. That occurs in the plain text of EXODUS. So then you have no ground to keep appealing to Judaism's view verses the Christian faith's view. Judaism is not established in Genesis by the plain text either.At least it is as arguable that Judaism has nothing to do with Genesis by the plain text proposition anymore than the gospel of Christ and the book of Revelation. I didn't think you were the only one by any means. I think my case is still much stronger than yours. Because Adam and Eve believed the snake and the rest is history !! If you don't want to go beyond Genesis you still should see that they were deceived.How does Genesis close? It closes with Joseph in a coffin and in Egypt. Some spectacular climax to God creating man "very good" and placing him before the tree of life. You can be poisoned by a rattlesnake. The poison within is killing you or making you very sick within. That doesn't mean that there was no objective poisoness snake on the outside.Yes man is a battle ground between Satan';s injected poison and God's life. Man's created being is in the middle. And we are a battlefield. But the poisoner still has a objective outside existence.This message has been edited by jaywill, 03-13-2006 06:31 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 03-13-2006 06:33 PM

God creates man to have His image and excercise domion over His creation. What the end turns out is that the patriarch Joseph is in a coffin in a idolatrous Egyptian kingdom.And there was no deception?Is man reigning? Joseph reigned for God some. But look at the persecution he had to endure to do so. His brothers hated him for his dream to reign for God.Genesis starts with a promise of life and reigning of man in God's image. It closes with the faithful man of God dead in a coffin in Egypt. Man was deceived.And before all of this God has to wipe out the race of man except for a few who found favor in His eyes. Why? Because their thoughts were only evil continually.And it all traces back to man taking the tree of the knowledge of good and evil at the serpents enticement. And Ringo says there was no deception there?No, there was terrible deception. That was the deception of Adam taking another way besides God's way.

I didn't say that. I said that you are mistaken about what John meant. And you still neglect to explain how an all-powerful God can have an "external enemy". What "excuses" would those be?Remember me? I'm the one who's trying to convince you that our actions are our own responsibility - that there is no "external adversary" responsible, that there is no deception except what is built into us. That is the question, not the answer. You have not connected the dots. You have not established a link between the serpent and the dragon. All you do is keep repeating it as if it was a given.You have presented a complex interpretation which requires that God's power be shared with an "adversary". I have presented a simple interprestation in which no extraneous entities are introduced - Occam's razor - and God's power is not diminished.When estimating God's power, round up, not down.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

What does that have to do with deception?Connect the dots for your readers, not just in your own mind.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Familiarity with the Bible will help you to connect the dots. I am writing posts here not a book.Genesis is a book. The beginning is about God appointing man to reign for Him in His image with the indestructible life. Unless you think death was appointed by God as a blessing to Adam and Eve.That is how the book begins. In its conclusion one of the faithful of God, Joseph, holds the place of the last great biography of men of God in the book of Genesis. He does reign with some spendour for God in Epypt. But he is not able to overcome the curse. He also dies.And the final verse says"And Joseph died, being ibe hundred ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt" (Genesis 50:26)The Egyptians had a religion of preparing people for the afterlife by embalming. Though Joseph was a Hebrew he was subject to this "pagan" superstition. It was a poor substitute for what God had originally ordained for man.There is also significance that it was in Egypt. Cain built the first city when he departed from the presence of God. Egypt was the fully developed and top human cultural coming out of man's departure from God.Man starts out in Genesis ordained to live forever and express God's image and God's reigning authority over His creation. He ends up in a coffin in a idolatrous Egyptian kingdom.If you cannot notice that this is like the sinking of the Titanic as a story, then I don't know what can be done to help you connect any dots.

"Indestructible life" is yet another assumption that you are making. That has not been established and it is not the topic of discussion here. Death is a part of life. Everything does not have to be a blessing or a curse. Some things just are. I don't need you to help me connect the dots. My dots are connected.You should be trying to connect the dots for the other people who are reading this. Convince them, not me.You have a lot of knowledge about the Bible, but you assume a lot of tenuous connections that you can't seem to explain adequately. (For example, you haven't established any connection between the death of Joseph and the serpent in the garden.)Try to think more clearly. Try to express yourself more clearly.Instead of trying to link every verse in the Bible together at once, try to make one good link at a time.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

"And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, as well as the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 1:9)In the middle of the garden was something called "the tree of life""And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Gen. 2:16,17)The cause for Adam to die is established and also made forbidden for Adam to partake of. He may freely eat of every other tree. And the tree of life is central, being "in the middle of the garden." It is clear that God's intention is that man would eat of "the tree of life"."And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever -" (Gen.3:22)Adam has eaten of the tree that God said would result in his death. However, the tree of life will apparently allow the disobedient man to live forever. In other words an indistructible life. This possibility is eliminated by God. God acts to close off the possibility that Adam would live an indestructible life while he has the knowledge of good and evil."So He drove the man out, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword which turned in every direction to guard the way to the tree of life" (Gen. 3:24)Again, Adam IS to undergo destruction until he dies and returns to the dust from which he was taken. The possibility that he will never be destroyed but live forever is cut off from Adam by the cherubim and the flaming sword of fire.It is now established in this discussion that God intended the first man and parent of the human race to reign in His expression and dominion (Gen. 1:26) in an indestructible life. That life made available to him by the tree of life, of which he was to eat and which was positioned central to the garden in which he was placed. On this side of the curse, it is easy to say that. For that is the ONLY experience that mankind has ever known.That is not including Enoch, who walked with God and was taken from the cursed earth. And I am here restricting my comment to Genesis alone. Of course other books and especially the New Testament would argue that resurrection FROM the dead is the indipensible "part of life" ordained by God. You asked me to do the connecting for the readers. You did not exclude yourself. That's pretty much what I am doing. But still you asked me to connect them.You should regard this post as not intended for you although it responds to something you wrote. In case you didn't notice it, all death of man in Genesis and in the whole Bible for that matter, traces back to Adam listening to the lie of the serpent that man would not die for taking the tree of life. With the obvious missing of the most obvious facts mentioned in Genesis, I'm not convinced that you are thinking clearly about what you read. Thanks for the advice. But the forum does kind of call for brevity.We are here exchanging posts of a few paragraphs. I am not here to write a book.This message has been edited by jaywill, 03-14-2006 02:23 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 03-14-2006 02:24 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 03-14-2006 07:00 AM

Ringo has not proved that there was no deception of the serpent in Genesis. This is important. Because if the serpent did not deceive then the force would be taken out of John's description of the dragon as the ancient serpent ... the one who deceives the whole inhabited earth.The serpent tells the couple that they will not surely die.They do die. And all of their descendents also die (excluding Enoch who walked with God)."And Adam lived ... and he died ... and Enosh lived ... and he died .... And Kenan lived ... and he died... And Mahalel lived ... and he died ...etc. etc. etc." See Genesis 5:3 - 21.Did the serpents deception lead to all the inhabited earth being deceived or not? We don't need Pauline theology to inform us that "in Adam all die". By the text of Genesis it is established that all of the descendents of the first parent DIED, DIED, DIED.Thus the serpent deceived them all when he deceived the first man. Enoch, who walked with God, was an exception. Apparently, there was some level of clarity in him that he should always listen to God. Perhaps we can say that Enoch demonstrated that a man could overcome the ancient lie that God should not be trusted.This message has been edited by jaywill, 03-14-2006 02:43 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 03-14-2006 02:46 AM

Ringo says that there was no deception from the serpent.What does Genesis say?"Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the cattle ..." (Gen. 3:14)God is talking to the serpent. Because he has done what? He is cursed because he has enticed through his lie, Eve to take of the fruit which had been forbidden. And Ringo comes to the serpent's rescue. There was no deception from the serpent, he says."Because you have done THIS ...". What then reader is the "this" for which the serpent is punished?I understand that God said one thing and the serpent contradicted it saying another. Which turned out to be true? They did die. They did surely die. So the serpent lied. So the serpent deceived.

Purpledawn writes: Let's me now comment on Isaiah 27:1. But I would like to back up to the verse immediately preceeding - Isaiah 26:21. Here are the two verses together:For Jehovah is now coming forth from His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer conceal her slain.

​

In that day Jehovah will punish with His harsh, great, and mighty sword, Leviathan the fleeing serpent; And He will slay the dragon that is in the sea." (Isa. 26:21 - 27:1)These verses are really more related to Israel according to the context. Toward Israel the nations were like leviathan, the fleeing and crooked serpent. This dragon on the sea is a symbol of the nations who trouble Israel, God's covnanted nation.God sometimes used the surrounding Gentile nations to punish Israel. But they were excessive in their actions against Israel. In Zechariah God tells the nations that He was only a little angry but they furthered the disaster:"Thus says Jehovah of hosts: I am greatly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion; And I am extremely angry with the nations, who are at ease; for I was only a little angry, but their help increased the affliction" (See Zechariah 1:14-15)This "little angry" phrase refers to God's anger that caused the Babylonians to capture the Israelites and take them into captivity for 70 years (Zech. 1:12). God has used the Gentiles to punish Israel but they are unrighteous in their excessive punishment. And they also are at ease not realizing that it was for His purpose for the whole earth that He punishes Israel. It was not for the sake of the Gentile nations to be at ease.The same concept is in Isaiah. The nations are depicted as the fleeing liaviathan serpent/dragon. God will therefore punish the nations in spite of the fact that they have been an instrument of dicipline in His hands - For Jehovah is now coming forth from His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer conceal her slain. In that day Jehovah will punish with His harsh, great, and mighty sword, Leviathan the fleeing serpent; And He will slay the dragon that is in the sea.The footnote of the Recovery Version for Isaiah 26:13 reads: Leviathan is symbolic of the nations who trouble Israel. They are as the mythological dragon in the sea which God will punish with His mighty sword.Any fans of the Leviathan interpretation of Rev. 12 verses the Satan interpretation are welcomed to come back and comment. I know many of you have forsaken me (sniff sniff).

quote:

---

You have to consider if God should open up the Bible with a long backround comment on the nature of angels good and bad. This as an introduction to the Bible might not make much sense.

​

I don't see why you cannnot see the wisdom of God in telling us initially sparse details about the nature of His ultimate advasary. That these details are provided latter seems proper to me. ...

---

God didn't open with details on his ultimate adversary because he doesn't have one. But humans do have good and bad urges. So God needed to explain this concept while teaching us how to deal with it.God put it in a nice story. We are all born without the knowledge of good and bad. We have to be taught. If we are not taught about good and evil, we can easily be lead astray by others. Keeping it simple and portable, God showed via the story that mankind acquired their knowledge of good and bad, they weren't created (born) with it.The OT stories speak of real life adversaries (enemies), not necessarily supernatural ones.In Revelation, God shows John the coming troubles. Not from a supernatural source, Satan, but from very real adversaries such as Rome, etc. Just as he used animal symbols to denote nations in Daniel's vision, God did the same for John.I'm sure any historians on the board will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the culture of the time had the freedom that we do today to speak out against the reigning government. Nursery Rhymes have political undertones.Religious songs such as “Wade in the Water”, “The Gospel Train” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” directly refer to the Underground Railroad.It's an age old tradition.Just as the historical events behind the songs and nursery rhymes are no longer prominent in our minds when we hear them, I feel that the historical events that sparked John's vision are also lost in a plain text reading.IMO, the snake is just a simple snake to make a point in the story.
The dragon signifies a real adversary, not a supernatural one.(ABE: Your Message 134 really backed up my point here. Thank you. This message has been edited by purpledawn, 03-14-2006 08:38 AM

---

"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz