Adam and Eve Question...Confused?

[jeanne71350]

Hi there,

I’m a Cradle Catholic, and I’ve gone to Catholic school 12 years of my life, so I think that I know a pretty decent amount about the faith. I went to Mass today, and the story was Adam and Eve, and the priest explained it that there was no snake in the tree, it was just Satan, and after Eve ate the fruit, God turned Satan into a snake. I’ve NEVER heard this before in my life. It really confused me. I know that we are not supposed to take Adam and Eve as fact, but should I worry about this? Any help is appreciated

Thanks
J

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I’m not sure what your exact question is.

We are to believe that all human beings are decedents of a first human couple. Beyond that a lot of the narrative in Genesis may well be symbolic in some way. Certainly the serpent seems to represent Satan, as the book of Revelation identifies the dragon, Satan, as this serpent.

Basically my own analysis would be this. Satan tempted the first man and the first woman into sin, and all three were punished by God for their respective parts in the disaster. The inspired author, many millennia later, described this through an “inspired myth”, using the snake to represent Satan because snakes are cold and dangerous yet seemingly debased though having to wiggle on their bellies to move. He continued to run with that symbolism by describing the later enmity between Satan and mankind in terms of the natural enmity between poisonous snakes and humans, since snakes bite us and we stomp their heads. The final victory of Man over Satan was won by Christ and, of course, Mary, which is why you sometimes see statues of Mary with a snake under her feet.

 

[Gethsemane]

The priest likely drew his interpretation from Genesis 3:14, “…upon thy belly shalt though go,” which implies the serpent had legs. Interesting it is said that snakes used to have legs but evolved out of them. Anyways, it’s important to note that the Hebrew word for serpent is “Nachash” which has its root meaning as “to shine.” So in the Hebrew account it’s actually a shining one who tempted Eve. If you have ever seen a snake you know that they appear to shine and that’s probably why we use “serpent”.

The snake though as has been said is a symbol. It wasn’t literal talking snake, but Satan.

 

[rom422]

Hi there,

I’m a Cradle Catholic, and I’ve gone to Catholic school 12 years of my life, so I think that I know a pretty decent amount about the faith. I went to Mass today, and the story was Adam and Eve, and the priest explained it that there was no snake in the tree, it was just Satan, and after Eve ate the fruit, God turned Satan into a snake. I’ve NEVER heard this before in my life. It really confused me. I know that we are not supposed to take Adam and Eve as fact, but should I worry about this? Any help is appreciated

Thanks
J

I am familiar with the story of Adam and Eve. Actually, Satan was not mentioned in the story, but only the serpent. And the idea that God turned Satan into a snake after Eve ate the forbidden fruit - is NOT in the Bible! So, I wonder where your priest got that particular detail in the story.

I am not sure that we are not supposed to take Adam and Eve as a fact. Contrary to the opinion of some evolutionists, I think that we actually came from a single pair of parents, whom I still like to call Adam and Eve. Whether Adam and Eve were created directly or by an evolutionary process is not important to me.

I know that the story of Adam and Eve might sound like fairy tale, but it teaches some very important truths; namely,

1. All of humankind originated from a single pair of parents.
2. Our first parents were originally sinless (in a state of “original justice”). At this state they had some privileges, like immunity from sickness and death.
3. Then our first parents and their loyalty to God were put to the test. This is where the devil played a role in deceiving our first parents. Theologians interpret the serpent as representing the devil, the Father of Lies.
4. Our parents failed the test. They sinned, and consequently, they were banished from their original state. Henceforth they would labor to get their food, and be subject to sickness and death.
5. Finally, God prophesied that henceforth the devil (represented by the serpent) will be in constant warfare with humankind, but that one day he will be defeated by the woman and her offspring (which represents Mary and her son Jesus Christ).

You see, there may be a lot of symbolism here, and some details - like the tree and the fruit - may have a purely symbolic value. But the religious message - the fact of original sin and the promise of redemption - are there for our belief. So I will not call this a fairy tale or a myth. Instead, I call it “religious history.”

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I am familiar with the story of Adam and Eve. Actually, Satan was not mentioned in the story, but only the serpent. And the idea that God turned Satan into a snake after Eve ate the forbidden fruit - is NOT in the Bible! So, I wonder where your priest got that particular detail in the story.
I am not sure that we are not supposed to take Adam and Eve as a fact. Contrary to the opinion of some evolutionists, I think that we actually came from a single pair of parents, whom I still like to call Adam and Eve. Whether Adam and Eve were created directly or by an evolutionary process is not important to me.

I know that the story of Adam and Eve might sound like fairy tale, but it teaches some very important truths; namely,

1. All of humankind originated from a single pair of parents.
2. Our first parents were originally sinless (in a state of “original justice”). At this state they had some privileges, like immunity from sickness and death.
3. Then our first parents and their loyalty to God were put to the test. This is where the devil played a role in deceiving our first parents. Theologians interpret the serpent as representing the devil, the Father of Lies.
4. Our parents failed the test. They sinned, and consequently, they were banished from their original state. Henceforth they would labor to get their food, and be subject to sickness and death.
5. Finally, God prophesied that henceforth the devil (represented by the serpent) will be in constant warfare with humankind, but that one day he will be defeated by the woman and her offspring (which represents Mary and her son Jesus Christ).

You see, there may be a lot of symbolism here, and some details - like the tree and the fruit - may have a purely symbolic value. But the religious message - the fact of original sin and the promise of redemption - are there for our belief. So I will not call this a fairy tale or a myth. Instead, I call it “religious history.”

I seriously doubt the priest meant God turned Satan, a fallen angel, into a reptile in the suborder Serpentes, but rather that the serpent of the story represents Satan, which is the ordinary interpretation of Genesis. As for the Bible, Revelation does describe the dragon in terms that seem to reference the serpent of Genesis:

“The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.” (Rev. 12:9).

Also remember how Jesus called Satan a liar and the father of lies, again likely a reference to this story. And in the Old Testament there is the symbolism of Leviathan. It all comes together.

 

[Crumpy]

It’s hard to understand the point of the priest mention in the OP. What more does anybody get out of his version of the story compared with taking it as it’s written? I don’t know.

I am very opposed to priests criticizing and changing the story of Adam and Eve. A liberal protestant theologian who had a lot of followers, protestant and Catholic, was Rudolf Bultmann. someplace he said that in order to teach the gospel to a modern generation of educated people, the bible had to be “de-mythologized” and then “re-mythologized” in more modern terms, that modern educated people could accept.

I don’t agree. And, I don’t like the casual depiction of scripture as myth, especially from the pulpit, where it can cause so much confusion, exactly like in this thread. Jesus didn’t seem to bother with such a thing. Jesus seemed to take the Hebrew scripture as it was written.

The real question is, what is God trying to reveal to us and to teach us, in his Word?

I may be a minority of one, but I think the priests should preach from the Bible, straight up, the way it’s written. Let’s use the inspired text as our starting point and stay with it.

I have heard that the word that is translated or understood so commonly as “serpent” really means something like “beast” and it is translated as “Leviathan” elsewhere. Traditional interpretations are quaint, but we should not get stuck on them. We need a Hebrew scholar and Hebrew scholarship to give us the best insights into the original inspired text. Yes, the context about the beast crawling around, etc. suggests “serpent.”
And, the much later incident with the serpent and Moses lends foundation to the interpretation as 'serpent."

Overall, I’d forget about what the priest said.

I’ve been reading Jewish commentaries for a couple years, but I haven’t got into what’s called the midrash. That’s also a type of commentary. Jewish writers freely speculate about things that are confusing in the text and they try to fill in details that are not in the sacred text. The Bultmann twist may be what the priest was doing, or maybe he was taking off from Jewish story-telling. Hard to say.

the big deal is always, what is the point?