jaywill writes:
The talking snake communicates to people down through the ages that besides man there IS an intelligence....
The fact that a talking snake is used
should make it obvious that the intelligence is not "besides" man - it
is man.
jaywill writes:
Trouble with mankind began when man took in the thought that God did not have man's utmost benefit in mind.
Trouble with mankind began when God created them with the ability to choose.
jaywill writes:
Why was a lying intelligence there ?
It wasn't a "lying" intelligence outside of them. It was an intelligence within them with the ability to choose. God put it there.
jaywill writes:
Why does it seem to possess previous experience with death ?
Indeed, why, if there supposedly was no death before "the fall"? Clearly, Adam and Eve were aquainted with death. They had seen things die - lions eating gazelles, for example. What they weren't aquainted with was
their own death. Realizing one's own mortality is yet another aspect of growing up.
jaywill writes:
Why did it initiate its attack firstly through the woman to get to the man?
Again, "it" is not an external entity. Why did the woman think of eating the fruit first? Well, it was a fifty-fifty proposition. If the man had thought of it first, would it really make any difference to the story?
jaywill writes:
If it KNEW Adam would die WHY did it WANT Adam to die?
If there was a talking snake (tee hee) and if it did know that they would die, what it wanted was irrelevant. It knew that they would die whether they ate the fruit or not.
jaywill writes:
Why was it given NO promise of salvation as Adam and Eve were given?
What promise of salvation? All Adam and Eve are promised in the story is blood, sweat, toil and tears.
jaywill writes:
Why does it totally disappear from the remainder of the Old Testament.
It's a throw-away character. It serves its purpose and then it's gone. The questions in Eve's mind (about God's veracity, for one thing) had to be voiced in some way for the audience. If Shakespeare had written Genesis, it would have been a soliloquy, "To eat or not to eat...."
It's yet another indication that the character is not real.
jaywill writes:
What would have happened if Adam had first taken the tree of life...?
We don't know that he didn't.
jaywill writes:
How come some people when you study the Bible with them SOUND so much like the serpent in Genesis ?
Because the snake is in all of us. He represents human intelligence.