the voices in my head say the voices in your head are wrong. now let's stick to what we can discern about what the text actually says -- if you make arguments about how nobody has any clue without the help of god, don't expect us to take the rest of your arguments seriously. and the whole "plain reading" bit goes right out the window. eve, "the mother of all mankind..." now what could her seed be, do you think? in a book called "genesis?"because there's a huge problem here if we go reading symbolism where none was ever intended. if the woman's seed is christ -- is the snakes seed the devil? i thought the snake was the devil? the shoe has to fit, if you're gonna wear it. i have an alternative. a better one, too: it means exactly what it says. the son of god was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. except when i say that, i mean the works of the devil -- not a bunch of dogmatic assertions that have very little to do with what the bible actually says.this is what we call "random quoting" or "random preaching." it's quite the standard practice among many fundamentalists. can't support an argument? talk about jesus. this bit has nothing to do with anything. jesus was great. i agree, and phat (i'm sure) agrees too. more than great, the guy gave his life for us, right?but what does it have to do with a snake in a garden? and when god gathers his council of gods/angels/kings/whatever in job, satan comes from where? the earth. this is nothing new -- and shows NOTHING about the snake in the garden of eden.just to be a further thorn in the side of this point -- what ever happens to the snake in the garden? adam and eve are kicked out, but there's no mention of where the snake goes. if the story's an explanation of why snakes have no legs (and therefor it must be a snake and only a snake), then it must also have left the garden. if it's not, there's no reason to assume it didn't stay right there.plain reading, and all. further proof that they cannot be the same -- if christ's sacrifice was the death blow to satan, as per genesis 3, then satan CANNOT be the great red dragon of revelation 12. because he's dead.either he's there to put up a fight, or he's been beat. which is it? when i was a kid, a friend of mine got a snake as a pet. he showed it off to his friends at a birthday party once. all the kids were scared of it. nobody wanted to hold it, or even touch.you've honestly never seen people irrationally afraid of snakes? or people who just thought they were gross and slimey?without some experience living in the real world, i doubt anyone can have the slightest clue what anything in the bible or any other text means.

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someone missed the point. and yet the word in question is "satanim." isn't it? actually, it's that, plus the personal possessive ending (no longer used in modern hebrew). but check your concordance.while we're on it, provide me some evidence that the sons of god are divine, or angelic. but you really are missing the point. "satan" is just a word. it just means "adversary." it's actually something like a gerund, in english, derived from a verb of the same spelling. so yes, it appears in plural. it applies to various different things, including even david himself. anything can be a satan. anyone can be a satan.in job, we have the use of a SPECIFIC satan, but there's no indication that it's a title. and it's definitally NOT a name.now, it's tradition to read the satan in job as being angelic. but does it need to be that way? if the sons of god are human (there's never any indication otherwise) and satan is there also... maybe he's human too. he's given the power of god -- power he did not have before.so now comes the part where you show that this satan, and the sons of god, are divine.

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not even in 1ti 3:11, 2ti 3:3 or tts 2:3? i bet we can find that in plural, can't we? yeah, these guys were a real pain to beat:but this guy took me forever:i hear some people are pretty fond of hellboy:although i think my favourite has to be tim curry. i mean, look at those horns!but let's stick to what's actually in the bible, shall we?

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ok. you might have me there. now show that satan is one of the sons of god. that one you're going to have to look a little closer at. because it's still not applying to anything spiritual. a little more, erm, down to earth. who do we know that built a tower that went to the heavens?mocking somebody for thinking they are divine, and calling them divine are not the same thing. uh, no. that was the king of tyre. this one's the king of babylon. close though! i think you read a little too much into things... and job says "the satan" rather than "a satan." what's your point? it's just refering to a specific one (in hebrew, you use "the" to refer to the specific item in question. it doesn't mean that no other such item exists).

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well, i'll help a little.my major objection is the conflation of disparate elemenents. while the concept of a satan, the snake in the garden, and a few other prophetic verses are related thematically, somewhat, they are not all directly referring to the same thing.this is not your fault -- it's common christian doctrine. part of it is that john patmos strongly associates them in revelation. john draws imagery from multiples sources. he may have implied a bit of the snake in the garden, but he's also clearly using the imagery of leviathan. he uses the terms devil, and satan together. but as purpledawn pointed out, he's probably using religious imagery to refer to something very, very real.the fanatical fundamentalist muslims, for instance, call the united states "the great satan." are we literally the devil, a big red guy with horns? is it possible that john is figuratively using language in the same way?my other objection is the preaching. most of us here have heard it before. we've all read both genesis and revelation. we know the standard interpretation. we're not asking for it to be parrotted to us -- we're asking for some thought. not a sermon.the problem is that there are devils in the old testament, too. lying spirits. there are demons mentioned (satyrs and azazel). there is no head of the devils/demons. there is satan, who by most accounts is a son of god. and there is leviathan, who is a great (mythical) beast, figuratively "king of the sons of pride." and there's a simple snake in a garden that misleads the first couple. and they are not the same things, until revelation. and that's a very, very questionable text, as far as what it means.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 03-15-2006 08:39 PM

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it's not subtle. the serpent is subtle -- not god. god PUNISHED the snake. there was no fight.

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it says the he came "ALSO among them." it leaves it open for the reader to determine if he is part of the group, or an outsider. yes. this is called irony. isaiah is mocking the king of babylon's opinion of himself. i see no such thing indicated anywhere. or, you could just look at it like i explained -- "satan" is an adversary, someone or something that tests. ANY adversary. this is the same problem: providing another instance where you read way too much into a rather simple meaning does not support you reading way too much into a different verse elsewhere. besides, does "for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men" sound like something jesus would say to ultimate evil force in the galaxy, or to a very human friend? what in text supports your reading? besides tradition, and the stories we've all heard? and when god appears to job (another gentile, i might add) he asks job where he was the foundations of the earth were set. it's the same kind of statement -- obviously the king (or prince) of tyre was NOT any of those places. it is meant as mockery. exactly. certainly the king of tyre was not, either. why, then, do you suppose it is addressed to him? really?what were the cherubim that covered the ark of covenant? yet this is neither a plain reading of the text, nor does it fit with several thousand years of jewish thought. remember -- there is no rebellion of satan in judaism.and it is a tricky and decietful god who hides his meanings, and addresses prophecy to people who are not involved. god has enemies? see, that's the bit i'm not sure about. WE have enemies. and WE have adversaries. and there are those that test and tempt US.but not god.

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and you understand, then, that not every instance of someone or something testing or tempting a man is "the" satan? for instance, the snake, and peter? yet we do have angels in the old testament, don't we? "the angel of the lord" is one we see quite frequently. yet the only thing we see close to rebellious angels are the sons of god in genesis 6. it's this story that spawns one of the earliest fallen angel legends, actually, in the book of enoch.

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(serpents, plural)

i see nothing in the grammar that requires it to be read either way. no.it might be drawing on another myth. but it's not revealing anything. it's a prophecy regarding the king of babylon. why do fundamentalists require that everything has a second meaning? when one understands the close relationship that tyre (phoenicia) and israel had, maybe it's not such a mystery. even ignoring the historical alliances, and the sharing of religions (something the bible speaks rather strongly about...), just look at the hebrew alef-bet. it's phonetic. half the characters look the same, only rotated.do you really think that the extra little bit of religious mockery wouldn't have been understood? ok, look. you're really reading a lot of tradition and dogma into this, and missing what's there. we've been through this before. it refers to aaron, moses, the ark, the tabernacle, and cherubim who protected eden after adam and eve were kicked out. i don't know how you can take this imagery, and pretend it refers to something else. i wonder because it makes no sense. not even in light of the new testament. revelation is prophecy, and does not change the plain reading of other passages. it is not an excuse to read whatever you want into whatever verse you want. i suppose the big fish that swallowed jonah was really satan? how about goliath. was he satan? how do you tell what is a "satanic conspiracy" and what is just simply what the bible says?hey look, god calls ezekiel "son of man." maybe ezekiel's really jesus. and, yes, that is the basic meaning of the passage. have you never heard of the concept of the divine right of kings? the term is rather new, but kings have claimed to placed on their thrones by god (or BE gods) for thousands of years. look at psalm 2 -- oh wait, no, we won't agree on that one either. then why does the story you propose so exactly mimic milton's, as opposed to the content of the bible? you missed the basic meaning here, too. the cherubim on the ark of the covenant were *drumroll*graven images. idols.so your question as to why god would use figurative references to graven images to an idolatrous king make very, very little sense. now, i'm sure you'll come back with the standard "oh no, those were commanded by god, so they're ok" or maybe "yes, but they didn't worship them," but the fact remains that they are, indeed, graven images. and most idols in mesopotamia were NOT worshipped. rather, they were representations of the person who owned them so they didn't have to be in church continuously, vehicles for an aniconic god (cherubim and golden calves), or the offering itself.israelite culture regarding graven images was not all that different than their neighbors. but "idolator!" was a good insult to sling around. notice that even moses' bronze snake eventually gets trashed as an idol? it was made by the commandment of god too. so god, who loves prophecy, kept secrets? careful there -- you're implying that jews are somehow inferior in mental capacity. people don't take well to that. (and given the many different viewpoints i've heard, they tend to know what their talking about far more frequently than do christians) god has ONE name, and ONLY one name. he has a few titles, and a few nicknames, but only one name.

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right, but this is a bit like god saying "joseph's dead" and there being a cryptic message buried inside that really says something entirely different. well, you should be more careful in the future. people can take offense when other claim to be capable of understanding more than they can. and how do you sort out what is and what is not revelation? what do you do when the newer interpretations and re-definitions don't fit the plain meaning of the older established texts? what's happened here is that you missed out on a good hebrew pun.god's proper name is a conjugation of the hebrew verb:

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lehyot, to be. so when god says, "I AM that I AM", he is saying

eheyeh asher eheyeh. when god calls himself "I AM" it is just the first word of that phrase. the verb "be" in present tense is:

hayah. god's proper name is:

that's YaHUeH. he that is. not "jehovah" and not anything else. yahweh. the other "name" is a play on his name, like a nickname. only more of a pun.the other el- "names" are all titles. elohim is a title.

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and then the rest of your post say nothing about moses's staff transforming into a serpent. (just the standard preaching)i would however be interested in your thoughts on why god uses a serpent in this instance? the word in hebrew, btw, is the same word from genesis 1, taniynm. does moses's staff turn into a whale?god also uses a graven image of a serpent in numbers, as you mentioned. why does god keep using serpents?

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when god kicks adam and eve out, he places gaurds at the gate:

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Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

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since the imagery in the passage of ezekiel is that of protectorship, the cherub he refers to is probably one of these. it brings up an interesting point, though, and one which people usually overlook. if this cherub is satan, satan cannot also be the snake. why would god set up someone to protect the most precious thing on earth, if that someone just got done betraying his trust?in other words, at best, it's one or the other. if ezekiel 28 refers to satan, genesis 2 does not. and vice versa. no. not really. it sounds exactly like the cherubim that god placed to keep man out of eden, to protect the tree of life. but you raise a good point. i was not aware of the similar mythologies of other middle-eastern cultures. it would further explain why a bunch of hebrew sounding mythological references were addressed to the king (or prince) of tyre: maybe the imagery was common. well, it is eden, it says so. but i have another thought: maybe this is about politics. i mean, entirely about politics. look at how ezekiel refers to assyria a few chapters later:

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Eze 31:9 I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.

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the whole chapter uses references to a forest in eden, which is in lebanon (according to ezekiel). now, part of the problem is that ezekiel is very cryptic. plain reading only reveals so much. we can read the bits about the head-bone connecting to neck-bone and so forth, and miss that it's actually about bringing israel back from exile. so taking a plain reading, and trying to wedge it into some later prophetic reinterpretation won't work nicely. you have to know the context.the problem is that i don't know the context. but my impression is that "eden" is being figuratively used (throughout the book) to refer to middle east as a whole, including phoenicia and assyria. the bits about falling from favor, or betrayal, may in fact be ezekiel saying that they're going to end an alliance where tyre was supposed to protect israel.but that's just a stab in the dark -- i haven't really researched much about ezekiel, so i don't know. but i think it's more consistent with what's on the page than trying to fit demons and devils into it.anyways. back on topic. right, and i think i mentioned before that i agree the symbolism and imagery is definitally very similar if not the same. the problem is that there is no ultimate evil deity in early judaism. maybe pre-judaism in semetic tribes (there are suggestions of polytheistic origins). but when biblical judaism first forms, there is only ONE god, and he is good, bad, and everything in between. and very human. the concept of increasing divinity and foreigness to mankind works its way in, and then the need for god to use messangers (especially for tempting) follows from that. and from there, we get the modern satan/lucifer, and opponent to god himself.but when they wrote down genesis, it was just a snake. and it was put there by god himself. remember, eve tempts adam, and god put her there too. connotations and symbolism, yes. in the story, he's just a snake. he is a satan, but there is nothing in the story to suggest that he is at all supernatural. it might be possible that the hebrews viewed snakes as half-spiritual creatures, but we lack that context. and if that's the case, then every other snake is also the same way too. and i'm not sure how well that fits. do we need an explanation of why we don't like evil spirits?

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i don't see this particular cherub falling, no. i see the king (or prince) of tyre falling. one image is used as a metaphor for what he was. actually, several images are used. and then the description of his coming falling -- it need not pertain to the metaphors used. i'm not sure, but go for it. i'd be interested. but the serpent is not a cherub. at best, maybe we could draw a connection between the seraphim and the serpents. the serpents that god sends in numbers (which i hope SOMEONE will get to eventually) are ha-nachashim ha-saraphim. but that's probably just a coincidence: "saraph" just means "burning." (strongs misidentifies this as a noun, and links it to the seraphim btw. clearly, it's being used as an adjective. don't trust strongs...) anyways, seraphim are the wrong kind of angels altogether. ...well, an "agent of" satan might be an acceptable modification "a satan." but i think it's a bit of a stretch. and it betrays a fundamental meaning of genesis 2 and 3. god created the garden as a special place. he made is specially for adam and eve. why would he put something there that they weren't supposed to have? he could have just as easily NOT put those things there. god's not dumb.god put the tree of knowledge there, and god put the snake there. what we have is god testing man -- or at least presenting a very curious choice to him. do we follow reason, or do we follow orders? should we follow the one who lies to us out of love, or the one who hurts us with the truth? there may not have been a right answer to this question. without man becoming free and independent and self-aware, where would christ ever come in?but the snake and the tree were both in the garden for a reason. to think that the devil somehow crept by god's watchful and protective eye is about the same as saying that god really didn't know where adam and eve were when they hid.(which i think you claimed before. at least you're consistent. ) because ezekiel's common and universally acknowledged mode of writting is metaphor. there have been threads here about reading genesis as metaphor -- and i agree somewhat. there ARE metaphoric levels to it. the problem is that ezekiel makes very little sense read literally. clearly, assyria is NOT a cedar in lebanon. and clearly, the king (or prince) of tyre is NOT a cherub. conviently, ezekiel spells out at least part of what he's talking about in the literal text. there are bits that SAY "this is about assyria" or "this is about the king of tyre."ezekiel cannot be read 100% literally, without discounting these kinds of references. genesis can be. well, certainly not that "you are a man" part. and actually, there are only two lines that directly refer to the cherub in eden. and those are the lines that SAY "you were in eden." the next bit after the eden part refers to the high priest of israel (the stones), then the tabernacle, then the ark of the covenant, and then moses. most of THOSE references are from exodus, not genesis 3.as for "stones of fire" i'd be interested in your thoughts, because i'm still baffled. i've heard suggestions that ezekiel was working with different/earlier texts...so who is he being compared to? aaron, moses, an angel, and several inanimate objects. i know you of all people don't mean it this way, so i won't take offense at it. but i find that sort of bit condescending. trust god on what? do you have a direct connection to god that i lack?i don't trust in my skill of interpretting at all. personally, i find this place a GREAT way to test it. but a lot of christians on here like to claim that they have some special and personal revelation from god where he reveals everything they ever need to know (which isn't actually all that much). i've been a christian for a while now, and i find that attitude about the same as a know-it-all teenager. usually, there's a lot they don't know, and a lot of experience they lack.i think god wants us to question. he said "seek, and you will find." the things that are handed to us -- well, maybe those of are of the devil. i know when i go church, it sure feels to me like a lot of people are being led astray... and human beings. to no end, of course. not even god could stop our misbehaviour, all he could do was forgive us for it. well, i'm sure he could have, but he didn't.but the running theme of the old testament is just how disobedient and "stiff necked" even god's chosen people are. every step of the way, they kvetched. they were quick to follow foreign gods, and forget their heritage.so seeing someone fall from grace is not neccessarily a sign of something spiritual. every single king of the kingdom of israel was unrighteous, and so were most of the kings of judah. nearly every historical character in the bible fell from grace. only two were ever perfect: david and enoch. god took enoch, and david... well, you know what happened with david. ah, it's, erm, subtle.

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Gen 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent ... dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

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snakes constantly lick the ground. keeps them from using their tongues to tempt man. because, inclosed in the curse is an etiology. it describes what defines a snake: it crawls on its stomach, people don't like it, and it licks the ground. these things don't fit anything OTHER than a snake.now, like i said, it might be a possibility that the hebrews regarded ALL snakes as demi-spiritual animals, earthly representations of evil spirits. but the snake is definitally a snake. we lack the context to say that it was something else, although they might have read it differently at time.

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ezekiel uses "you" throughout to refer to the king. not the cherub. the image changes. the cherub itself is only mentioned once, and it's the reference to the ark. it says "you were this, you were this, and you were this." and "these" are not all the same thing, but the "you" is. the "you" is the king of tyre -- and it is the kind of tyre who will fall. it says nothing about the cherub falling.notice when the cherub is mentioned again at the end, it's garbled together with the other imagery, and the fall is in FUTURE tense? i think it's a mistake to start including the talmud. what was the joke about 2 rabbis having 3 opinions between them? there's a lot of fun stuff in the talmud that has very, very little to do with the bible. like that whole bit about lilith. looking at it is just looking at the opinions, interpretations, and ad-hoc ideas of others.and we know that some people read the garden snake as satan. we know some read him as a representation of satan. we know some read him as an agent of satan. we know snakes are associate with evil spirits -- and we know this is a later tradition imported from zoroastrianism. and so when this opinion pops up in places like the talmud, we know why.the question is what the people who wrote genesis thought, not what various different readers of it thought. i'm not especially set on it. but the problem is that people just go reading things into the text willy-nilly, trying to retro-fit their current mythology onto a book that was never written to present the story they want told. my philosophy is pretty simple:first, we read what's on the page. and on the page, he's a snake. and there are a lot of signs that point to him being a snake, and nothing more.once we've got the literal meaning down, we can go interpretting it. we can interpret it on one level and say "look, it's a story about why a snake is a snake, why women do this, why men do that... etc." and we'd be right. and we can look at it on another level, and say "it's a story about morality, choice, and responsibility." and we'd still be right.and we can look at it on yet another level, and say "it's about how god tests us, and the snake is a representative of satan, adam is representative of all mankind, and eve all women." and we'd STILL be right.but to go back and read it and say "the snake IS satan, and there's all this stuff about opposing god and christ-prophecy" etc kind of ruins the other meanings. the standard christian reading, for instance, tends to miss the point that no matter what satan tells us and whether or not it's the truth, our actions are our own responsibilities -- they're busy blaming adam for all our problems. which is funny, because adam blames eve (or rather, god putting eve there), and eve blames the snakes. shifting blame is utterly against what the story means. there is no "the devil made me do it" here. that's jumping to conclusions though. we don't see a cherub in eden before "the fall." why wasn't adam the cherub? i'm not being funny, either. look who god set up in eden to take care of it BEFORE the cherubs that are explicitly mentioned:

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Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

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adam is the care-taker of the garden. there's nowhere that you can fit the snake in here, either. the garden is made AFTER man, and man is placed in the garden as soon as it is planted. so if there's an "cherub" looking after eden that's not the ones the bible actually talks about, and we're being fast and loose with what constitutes a cherub here, why not adam?adam looks after the garden. adam betrays god's trust. adam is kicked out. sound similar to the idea of ezekiel 28? it does to me. why do we need to read a story into it that isn't on the page when the one that is matches far, far better? no offense, but that's just silly and missing the point. god creates eden especially FOR mankind. in genesis 1, god creates everything preparation for the ultimate creation: mankind. in genesis 2, god makes a specific man, and the creates everything he needs as he goes. the garden is one of those creations.would you put rat poison in your child's playpen? yes -- in relation to numbers, not genesis. (close, though...) exactly. well, i think the idea is that god was trying to find out if he could trust us to do something that doesn't make sense, just because we trust him. the idea was that he could not -- we betrayed that trust. well, i don't think god would curse someone or something for following his orders. but what's wrong with cursing someone for following reason? the serpent is, afterall, the right one. the tree doesn't kill them. and the serpent apparently makes a pretty good case to eve. and it is the tree of KNOWLEDGE. but that wasn't the choice they were given, was it? they were given the inaccurate but morally correct word of their creator, vs the accurate and immoral word of some puny snake whom they owed nothing to. i meant the whole dying-on-the-cross salvation and absolution-of-sins bit. (and yes, i do. but that's a different thread i think. we're already pretty far off topic) i'm saying that multiple metaphors are being used for the king of tyre. one is probably adam, another is aaron. another is moses. another a cherub on the ark of the covenant. and another is the tabernacle. if we recall, adam was kicked out of eden, neither aaron nor moses were allowed to enter the holy land, the ark of covenant was lost and the temple was destroyed at about the time ezekiel was writing.i'm saying that it's not all one metaphor, for some uber spiritual evil force, but multiple ones for well known biblical figures. right, but it never says the CHERUB was in eden. it says "YOU" were in eden -- using adam as a metaphor. it says "YOU" were a cherub, using the ark of the covenant as a metaphor. what you're trying to do is equate the metaphors, and make it all one great big metaphor instead of a collection of smaller and rather obvious references. the "fallen cherub" sits on top of the ark of covenant. which, btw, is still missing from what i hear. he's a physical object, made of gold. i think the qabalists have an angel per sphere of the heavens. but it's no suprise that we see angels associated with "the heavens." the problem is, why refer to something heavenly when all the other references are very down to earth? if you could show that the "stones of fire" have to be heavenly objects, you MIGHT have a point. might. that does not appear to refering to anything angelic either. it is a similar mock. the similar reference to christ is probably intentional. christ *IS* what the king of babylon claimed to be.

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Eze 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God;

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Gen 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

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Eze 28:13 ...every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold:

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Exd 28:3 ...they may make Aaron's garments to consecrate him, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office.

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Exd 28:15 And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work;

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Exd 28:17-20 And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row. And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond. And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst. And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.

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Eze 28:13 ...the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

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Exd 35:11 The tabernacle, his tent, and his covering, his taches, and his boards, his bars, his pillars, and his sockets,

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although it might be referring to saul and david...

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1Sa 18:6 And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of musick.

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1Ki 1:40 And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them.

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david, as we know, was also a musician.

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Eze 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so:

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Exd 25:20 And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.

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israel and tyre... ?

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Eze 28:14 ...thou wast upon the holy mountain of God;

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Exd 3:1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

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or maybe even:

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Psa 2:6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

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and i still don't know about the stones of fire. but the above things are clearly references to adam, aaron, moses, and the ark. the more questionable ones might be the tabernacle or saul and david. none of these are satan, and they are all different things. it's a mistake to read a SECOND and more mysterious metaphor into all of these. exactly. we don't need a devil to sin, or to fall from grace. we just need our own human nature. i don't think the serpent was following god's orders. neither was eve. but yes, there is a humbling aspect. as there is when one puts their foot in their mouth (figuratively). but when one HAS no feet to put in their mouth.... well, like i said. we may be lacking some social context. pigs are also unclean -- and in one instance in the new testament, we find demons in pigs. jesus put them there.but unclean animals and unclean spirits are different things. and yes, we can find talmudic stuff that says that unclean spirits take the forms of unclean animals (like, uh, women...) but how are we going to sort out the traditions and superstitions from the religion and the text?

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