The Serpent of Genesis is not the Dragon of Revelations

i'm going somewhere with this, i promise. 1. associated with the sea. check.what else do you think of? i know there's another aspect it connotates for me.

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yes, you are. see all those little short replies you made? those are all changes. big changes. changes you agree to, and then write: "complete overhaul" ≠ "a lot of change?"which is it buz? are you asking for it, or are you not asking for it? remember, "the bible says..." is not a good argument with me. i've read genesis. i know what it says. hey, context is a useful word, isn't it. perhaps you should (i don't know) maybe describe some of the context that describes a lot of change? your argument is that this biblical story fits the fossil record. and it's not intelligent design, it's intelligent modification. excuse me? have you not been following paleontology for the last 40 years or so? we have a pretty good idea what killed most of the dinosaurs. and if you think that dinosaur were the only things that vanished, you should find a textbook or two. those two ancient sea-reptiles i posted? they were gone too. flying reptiles were also gone. you can't say in one breath that id need not fit evolution, and in the next that it makes biological sense. that's what we call a contradiction. so? so it's a different animal. not one slightly changed. yes. you make my point for me. allow me to add that using your "hypothesis" as supporting evidence for your very same "hypothesis" is generally considered bad form. it's no suprise that you agree with yourself. you seem to know very little about dinosaur biology, and natural history.a good point that one should note is that it actually went the other way. dinosaurs evolved from early lizard-like creatures. the difference here is that the crocodilian thecodonts actually had similar anatomy. their skulls were flattened in the same direction -- yet they crawled on the ground with stubby legs. the amphibian model for locomotion (the one adopted by reptiles) predates dinosaurs by quite a long time -- it was walking with your legs UNDER you that was the revolution....and led to the extinction of thecodonts.

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i suppose you'd like to think that your are. but proposing ad-hoc "hypotheses" to try to line up with an ancient religious work, while ignoring any evidence to the contrary and lacking the paleontological and biological knowledge to even know why dinosaurs are not lizards and not even remotely snakes, is not what i would call "scientific."shall we play "count the logical fallacies?" wow. what an academic link you have provided. you seem to think i have no idea what i'm talking about, like i've never been to a natural history museum, taken a biology class, or read a paleontology community. "how absurd!" you must be saying to yourself, "he actually thinks dinosaurs aren't reptiles EVERYONE knows that dinosaurs are reptiles!"everyone knows a lot of stuff about dinosaurs. lots of people have a favourite dinosaur that never existed: brontosaurus. lots of people think stegosaurus had two brains. lots of people think iguanodon is bipedal. lots of people think dinosaurs were slow and sluggish -- ok just the big ones now. people are often wrong.now, there's been a significant debate over what we consider reptiles nowadays. and dinosaurs are the BIG problem. have a look at wikipedia's entry on dinosaurs:

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^ From the classical standpoint, reptiles included all the amniotes except birds and mammals. Thus reptiles were defined as the set of animals that includes crocodiles, alligators, tuatara, lizards, snakes, amphisbaenians and turtles, grouped together as the class Reptilia. However, many taxonomists have begun to insist that taxa should be monophyletic, that is, groups should include all descendants of a particular form. The reptiles as defined here would be paraphyletic, since they exclude both birds and mammals, although these also developed from the original reptile. Thus, some cladists redefine Reptilia as a monophyletic group, including both the classic reptiles as well as the birds and perhaps the mammals (depending on ideas about their relationships). Others abandon it as a formal taxon altogether, dividing it into several different classes.

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Dinosaur - Wikipedia

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some are filing birds and mammals with reptiles now. that includes us, btw. but mostly birds. shall i do that? if birds are reptiles, dinosaurs clearly are too. but that's hardly a good division: birds aren't very reptilian, and we aren't either. that also makes us amphibians. shall we keep going backwards?where do we draw the line?for me, dinosaurs are high-center-of-gravity, rigid backbones, feathered and warm-blooded animals with the socketted teeth of their reptile ancestors. most of the defining characteristics of what makes something a dinosaur are very un-reptilian.

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still ad hoc. and this ad-hoc requires that all of the evidence of just about everything in paleontology is wrong. why even bother? um. no. there were not. perhaps the problem is that this is circular: the definition of a reptile partly has to do with locomotion -- they hug the ground. basically, you're arguing that dinosaurs were MADE INTO reptiles from SOMETHING ELSE.

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yes, i noticed that. but since "id" is really just *ANY* creationism in disguise, and it wasn't the topic, i let it go.

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no no, you were still right. leviathan embodies the same characteristic as tiamat, and is associated with chaos through some implications in the text we do have. leviathan seems to come from tiamat, through lothan.it's just never mentioned in the hebrew texts that we have that leviathan had seven heads -- so that bit of coincidence leads me to believe that john had other sources. it's odd that similar stories keep popping up. the ironic thing is that buzsaw might accidentally be right in reverse. dragon myths might actually come from dinosaur remains.however, the serpent in the garden is a snake, not a dragon.

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ok, so:
1. lives in the water.
2. big.you saved me from asking my next question: what's big and lives in the water? a whale.according to my hebrew dictionary, the modern word for whale is — though other sources spell it — -- "LeViYaTaN." the plural, — (leviyatanim) literally invokes the (taninm) of genesis 1:21. wikipedia claims the name comes from a word meaning "twisted" or "coiled."so, as per the bible, whales = serpents. i know i've showed pictures before demonstrating that whales were not known very well, even somewhat more recently. they were considered sea-serpents. the term "serpent" seems to be kind of loose -- i doubt moses's staff turned into a whale.

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slight correction: in job, satan does his own bidding, allowed by god. he is quite independent: it is satan that suggests the test to god, not god commanding satan.it still cannot happen, but by the will of god. but it's not god's bidding. ...does job pass? there's about 30-some-odd chapters in there that seem rather failing. never outright, if i remember, but he certainly seems to imply that god is an absentee parent, or an unjust one. and yet, at the end, it's job's friends that god says are wrong.job is a very curious book.

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...well, lets not go that far. the dragon of revelation is based on pre-existing legends, and there's a lot of distortion in between. it's not like john saw a whale, and thought "big seven headed snake!" it's just that legends grow after a while.also, i would like to suggest (before anyone else) that the multi-headed sea-dragon myths might also have some origin in giant squid. certainly the kraken and homer's scylla does. maybe leviathan as well? it's possible that rare encounter with different animals are distorted and combined...

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it's subtle, but the difference is free will. which is a big deal for us human types. so maybe the fundamentalists who scorn doubting thomas might take head to job, and indeed jesus. questioning god is not a sin. job sought, and he found.

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quite. anyways, i was bringing it up mostly to show that the definition of "serpent" is rather vague, in this case.we can conclude that where some of these serpents might be (paritially) inspired by mysterious animals in the sea, the serpent in the garden was not. it is a definition of a common garden snake. no legend, no mystery, and no awe seems to be implied here.

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you're right, that is a false statement.the serpent does not oppose god in genesis. rather, he tells man that god was lying. there is no opposition -- no open fight. just two competing points of view.in revelation, the fight is out in the open, all out war in the heavens.

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figuratively, the snake *IS* satan. in a manner of speaking. the snake is the figure in the story that provides an alternative choice, and who attempts to lead man astray from god. he is the tempting and testing force -- and that makes him satan.the problem is that this is "satan" not "The Satan." it's not a centralized idea, he's merely the adversary in this particular story. he's the bad guy -- and that's all that a satan really is. the disagreement here comes from the fact that over time, a decentralized concept has become personified into a single entity: ha-satan, or the devil.it is clear that it's just a snake in genesis 3. but some of the thematic elements are still there anyways. precisely. fairytale princess is an archetype in some of our stories. satan is an archetype in the bible. i can't actually find anything about fallen angels anywhere in the ot. can you? there's the nephilim (who's name comes from the word for "fall") but they are at best half-angelic, not angels themselves.as for something behind the serpent -- why does he not speak up when god punishes him? adam is quick to blame eve (or rather, god for giving him eve), and eve is quick to blame the snake. all three are punished. so to say "the devil made him do it" is a fundamental misreading of the story. it is a lesson about PERSONAL responsibility for your own choices. the idea of inserting the idea of a devil into the story who takes the blame for adam's, eve's, and the snake's actions is utterly abhorrent to whole reason the story was ever written.adam has free will. eve has free will. and so does the snake. just for fun, i have a plural or six. i'll direct them to jaywill.

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much obliged.psalms 38:20, 71:13, 109:4;20;29i'd post in hebrew, but the grammar's not very clear, because it contains the possessive endings of biblical hebrew. but check your concordance and translations. i bet it says "adversaries" plural. i'm sorry, shall we try this one again? the word in the greek that the kjv translates as "devils" is diablos. think about it for a second. yes. they're called "jews." maybe you've heard of the group before? so, presuming the snake in genesis is satan, where's the lie? where is the lie in job? satan makes a wager, and loses. but losing a bet is not the same as telling a lie. failing is not the same as deceit. whoa whoa. wait a second. CAN defeat?don't you mean DID defeat?

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i'll leave that to the dictionary.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 03-15-2006 05:59 PM

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