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Joseph
Francis Alward
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And
the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art
cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly
shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life (Genesis 3:14)
Traditionalists Believe the Serpent Had Legs
Some Bible skeptics, as well as most evangelical
fundamentalists, believe that the passage above means that the serpent had legs
with which to walk about the Garden of Eden before it tricked the woman, and
that afterward the Lord cursed the legs off the serpent.
Some of those who believe that the Genesis writer
thought the serpent had legs, then lost them in the curse, say that…well, the
Mesopotamians had serpents with legs in their myths, so the Genesis
writer is likely to have believed the same thing. Furthermore, Jews traditionally have believed that the Genesis
writer's serpent had legs before the curse, and who would better know what the
writer had in mind than the Jews? they argue.
Besides that, the serpent story doesn't make sense if the serpent didn’t
once have legs, according to them.
However, we cannot know for certain whether the
Genesis writer was aware of the Mesopotamian myths, and thus was influenced by
them, and the Hebrew's opinions are of no more consequence than the opinion of
anyone else, because they cannot have known what was in the mind of the Genesis
writer. Furthermore, it is not true
that the serpent story doesn't make sense if the serpent didn't have legs.
Perhaps the writer did
believe the serpent once had legs, but he easily could have believed that, say,
the serpent always went about on its belly, or he could have believed that the
serpent once got about upright without legs.
These scenarios are discussed more fully below.
The Genesis Writer Believed the Serpent Always Went
on Its Belly
The Genesis writer may have believed that the serpent
had been going about on its belly for the two days since it was created, and
that God perhaps might eventually have elevated it to the status of the other
beasts of the field by giving it legs, if only it hadn't tricked the
woman. The writer may have believed
that when the curse came, it had the force of causing the serpent to continue
to go about on its belly for all of the rest of the days of its life. It's like a blind man who could be cured by
God, but he commits a sin, and is then cursed by losing his chance to be cured
by God. The blind man was suffering
before the curse, just as the serpent was, but to have all hope for a cure
snatched away from him forever is surely a curse. So it could have been with the serpent, at least in the mind of
the Genesis writer.
There is another belief the Genesis writer might have
had which is more likely than the one I described above, in my opinion.
The Writer Believed the Serpent Held Itself Upright
without Legs
The writer may have believed the serpent moved
largely upright through the garden, holding itself vertical in much the same
manner as the King Cobra does, by using its coiled tail as a base on which it
may hold itself erect, and moved across the garden by means of a twisting
action of its coiled tail. After the
serpent tricked the woman, Yahweh took away its ability to hold itself erect,
and the serpent was condemned to spend the rest of its days going about on its
belly.
Once again, we see that there is a plausible
alternative belief the Genesis writer may have had which does not have the
serpent with legs before the curse.
And, again, it doesn't matter that Mesopotamian myths had serpents with
legs, or that Jews traditionally believed that the Genesis serpent had
legs. All that matters is what the
Bible says, and the Bible does not say that the serpent had legs before
the curse, and it does not say that the serpent had its legs removed in
the curse. Why, then, must we believe,
as some skeptics insists, that the Genesis writer's serpent had legs, if there
are plausible alternative explanations?
The notion that the Genesis writer believed that the
serpent had legs before the curse is certainly quite plausible, but it seems about
as likely that the Genesis writer thought the serpent twisted itself across the
garden in the manner I described in the second alternative above, and therefore
the serpent need not have had legs.
Readers
who still doubt that the Genesis writer could have had any other type of
serpent in mind besides one with legs, let them read further.
The Writer Believed It Was A Winged, Legless Serpent
The Genesis author doesn't say that the serpent had legs
before the curse, nor does he say that Yahweh removed the legs when he cursed
the serpent, and the writer doesn't say how the serpent moved about the garden,
so we are free to imagine any mythically plausible form of locomotion beside
walking, as long as it's consistent with the myth.
Those who argue that the Genesis writer's mythical
serpent had legs naturally claim that the serpent got about the garden on its
legs, but there's no textual evidence to support this. Perhaps, then, the serpent was legless and flew
about the Garden of Eden. Such a beast,
for example, is found in the myths of the ancient Aztecs, who worshipped a
winged, legless serpent called Quetzalcoatl.
More importantly, a winged, legless serpent is found in the mythology of
the ancient Arabia; the legless flying serpent in Arabian mythology was said to
have been the guardian of a tree1, just like the serpent in the
Genesis story. The fact that both
serpents guarded trees suggests that the serpents in both myths may have been
based on a common antecedent now lost to history that predated each of them. If this is the first occurrence of a
biblical myth based on a lost antecedent, it is certainly not the last one. Some parallel gospel stories from
Luke and Matthew are believed to have originated from a common source, now
lost, called Q (stands for Quelle, German for "source").
If two or more gospels stories can have a common, but lost, antecedent,
then so could two or more serpent myths have had a common source, now lost.
We are thus
left with what seems to be a quite plausible alternative view of the Genesis
writer's serpent. Just as we are free
to imagine that the Genesis writer's serpent had legs before the 
curse, and lost them in the curse, even though
there's no biblical evidence to support the notion that the serpent had legs,
we are equally free to imagine that the writer had in mind an amphiptere, a winged, legless serpent
that lost its wings in the curse, and was consigned all the rest of the days of
its life to go about on its belly.
The picture at the top right is an artist's
conception of a winged, legless serpent.
At bottom left is an ancient depiction of a winged serpent.
Some Bible skeptics insist that the suggestion that
the serpent in the Genesis myth might have had wings is too unbelievable, even
"stupid," so perhaps it would be worth the time to point out that one
of the most revered biblical skeptics of all time, Robert Green Ingersoll,
seemed not to reject this notion. In recognition of his sublime contributions
to the field of biblical skepticism, the Council for Secular Humanism created the Robert
Green Ingersoll Memorial Committee, which is dedicated to preserving the memory and works of this
19th Century orator. Ingersoll's
lectures are also featured prominently as The Complete
Works Of Ingersoll on The Secular Web.
Excerpted below from "The Works of Robert G.
Ingersoll," Volume II Lectures (1900), is the observation in his lecture, The Fall2, that Dr. Matthew Henry, 1662-1714, English minister
and Bible commentator, allows for the possibility that the devil serpent was a
flying serpent:
Dr.
Henry…insists that "it is certain that the devil that beguiled Eve is the
old serpent… who attacked our first parents was surely the prince of devils…
Perhaps it was a flying serpent which seemed to come from on
high." (Emphasis added)
There is no statement by Ingersoll that he rejects
outright this notion, nor is there any comment by him which would suggest that
he thought Dr. Henry was misguided. If
Ingersoll and Matthew Henry could accept the notion of the garden serpent being
a flying serpent, then what do skeptics who deny this possibility know that
they didn't? For addition reasons to believe that the Garden serpent may have
been winged, but legless, the reader should read the "Genesis Serpent Was
Variation on Sumerian Serpent " section, below.
Genesis Serpent Was Variation on Sumerian Serpent
In
"The
Garden of Eden Myth", Walter Mattfield writes
[B]
behind all myths are historical kernels. In this case the "kernels"
are vestiges of earlier Mesopotamian4 myths reaching back to the 3rd
and 2nd milleniums BCE which the Hebrews later reinterpreted into the Garden of
Eden and its motifs.
My
research has concluded that the Sumerian Dragon-Serpent called
"Nin-Gish-Zida" is what lies behind the Genesis Myth….It
is my understanding that the serpent in the garden of Eden is drawing from this
Sumerian motif. The illustration is from a cylinder seal of Gudaea of Lagash5,
ca. 2100 BCE. (The winged, four-legged
serpent is on the left in the photograph below, taken from the website at http://www.bibleorigins.net/Serpentningishzida.html)
The
Genesis writer gives no clue to how the serpent got about the Garden, so if
it's true that the writer's serpent was the Sumerian one on the seal above, or
some twist or variation on that serpent, then we are free to imagine any one of
the apparently equally likely serpents:
1. The serpent had legs and wings.
2. The serpent had legs, but no wings.
3. The serpent had wings, but no legs.
Consider
the first possibility: If we are to
imagine that the writer's serpent had legs and wings, then in order for
Yahweh's curse to have made sense, the writer would have had to have imagined
that Yahweh cursed off not only the serpent's legs, but also its wings. Thus, the writer would have left off two
important facts about Yahweh's curse:
That the serpent had legs, then lost them, and that the serpent had
wings, and lost them, too.
What
would seem more likely is that the writer imagined only that the Genesis
serpent had one, or the other, of the two types of of locomotion, and that he
didn't tell us about this one attribute, rather than he didn't tell us
about the two attributes. This
leaves us with one or the other of the two remaining scenarios: Either the writer's serpent was a variation
of the mythical Sumerian serpent with legs, but without wings, or else it was
the Sumerian serpent with wings, but no legs.
Thus,
we see once again that there is a plausible alternative to the belief that the
Genesis writer's serpent had to have had legs.
Note
that the serpent on the ancient seal has wings, as well as legs. If one wanted to argue that the Genesis
writer removed the Sumerian serpent's wings, but left the legs, another could
equally well argue that the Genesis writer removed the legs, but left the
wings. Either
way, the curse put on the serpent by Yahweh because it tricked the woman in the
Garden makes sense. Either Yahweh
cursed off the legs of the wingless serpent, or else Yahweh cursed off the
wings of the legless serpent.
Skeptics who insist the Genesis writer must have had
in mind a serpent with legs modeled after the serpent of Sumerian mythology
need to explain what happened to the Sumerian serpent's wings when it arrived
in the mind of the Genesis writer, and then explain how they can be so sure
that the Genesis writer could not have had in mind a serpent that got about the
Garden with wings, and lost those wings in Yahweh's curse.
Footnotes
1. The amphiptere, a winged, legless serpent, was the guardian
of the frankincense tree in Arabian mythology
2. "The Fall":
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/ing/vol02/i0113.htm
3. Blue Letter
Bible: http://www.blueletterbible.org/
4. Mesopotamia was an ancient region of southwest Asia between the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq. Probably settled before 5000 B.C., the area was the home of numerous early
civilizations, including Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria. Source:
Source: The
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.)
5. Lagash is the name of a
Sumerian city-state located by the Tigris River, in southeast Mesopotamia. The
first cities were developed in the Mesopotamian plain, specifically in the
south at about 3500 – 2800 BCE. The
ruler of Lagash was Gudea. Ref: "Lagash" http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/middle_east/lagash.html)