The serpent in the garden

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I have heard claims that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was not Satan. The strange thing is, I have never heard anyone really expand on this belief. If it was not Satan, who or what was it? Does anyone actually believe that it was just some random reptile? I’m guessing most mainstream Christians will agree it was Satan, but I would like to know what people think whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.

Thanks,
JK
 
I’m probably being really dumb here but the whole snake being the devil thing confuses me… I thought Lucifer was thrown out of heaven long after the Adam and Eve story? :confused:
 
and its curse to have to always crawl on its belly seems not to fit Satan either?
 
I must confess that as a Christian, nothing has bothered/troubled me more than the historical “Adam and Eve” matter… 😦
Professor Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania arond 1898 realized that the first chapters of Genesis, in particular the Adam and Eve one, had the origins in Mesopotamiam myths, primarily, but not exclusively, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Accordng to him, Adam is a fusion of Enkidu and Gilgamesh, Eve is Shamhat, the Serpent is Ningizzida. The bejeweled trees of the Sun-god, Shamash Gilgamesh stumbles into becomes for her Eden’s pre-biblical prototype. He wrote extensively on this subject in scholarly professional journals and tomes, and after him several others seem to agree with his view…
If indeed the Garden of Eden is just a spin-off of an older Mesopotamiam myth, and there was no real Adam and Eve, or even the Genesis narrative had a different meaning than the one interpreted by us, the Christians, then the whole foundation of our Faith is meaningless, and the Divinity of Christ is being quesioned 😦
 
minichibi said:
I must confess that as a Christian, nothing has bothered/troubled me more than the historical “Adam and Eve” matter… 😦
Professor Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania arond 1898 realized that the first chapters of Genesis, in particular the Adam and Eve one, had the origins in Mesopotamiam myths, primarily, but not exclusively, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Accordng to him, Adam is a fusion of Enkidu and Gilgamesh, Eve is Shamhat, the Serpent is Ningizzida. The bejeweled trees of the Sun-god, Shamash Gilgamesh stumbles into becomes for her Eden’s pre-biblical prototype. He wrote extensively on this subject in scholarly professional journals and tomes, and after him several others seem to agree with his view…
If indeed the Garden of Eden is just a spin-off of an older Mesopotamiam myth, and there was no real Adam and Eve, or even the Genesis narrative had a different meaning than the one interpreted by us, the Christians, then the whole foundation of our Faith is meaningless, and the Divinity of Christ is being quesioned 😦
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I have also heard that Adam and Eve and the creation story was a rip off of that and another completely different creation myth. I am going under the assumption that Genesis is the original. Even if it was not written down first, it could have been an oral tradition long before the others were around. I don’t see why so many scholars automatically assume that the Jews were the ones that ripped off stories from other cultures.
 
JK8619 said:
I have also heard that Adam and Eve and the creation story was a rip off of that and another completely different creation myth. I am going under the assumption that Genesis is the original. Even if it was not written down first, it could have been an oral tradition long before the others were around. I don’t see why so many scholars automatically assume that the Jews were the ones that ripped off stories from other cultures.
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Or even if multiple cultures have similar creation stories, why that means that only one of them could have come up with it and everyone else must have plagiarized, rather than the idea that multiple cultures coming up with similar creation stories could mean that we all seek God and truth, and can find it in the strangest places.
 
silicasandra said:
Or even if multiple cultures have similar creation stories, why that means that only one of them could have come up with it and everyone else must have plagiarized, rather than the idea that multiple cultures coming up with similar creation stories could mean that we all seek God and truth, and can find it in the strangest places.
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Good point! 👍
 
I would normally agree with you that if an event is true, the it’s more likely that lots of people would be talking about the same account… myths are stories often told based on a historical kernel, but in this case it seems that the Gilgamesh tale is most likely to be the historical kernel, because the story has a completely different meaning and set, and it could easily be corruptible or inverted to fit the “Jewish” worldview. What one is to ask is: what was the interpretation of this story by the ancient “Jews”? Did the Jews believe in Original Sin? Was this story important to the “Jews”? When did “we” start believing in the Original Sin? These are all things to be considered.
 
IzzyD said:
I’m probably being really dumb here but the whole snake being the devil thing confuses me… I thought Lucifer was thrown out of heaven long after the Adam and Eve story? :confused:
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Well, we don’t know when exactly Satan was thrown out of Heaven, given that Heaven does not run on earthly time.
 
Why wouldn’t the story in Gilgamesh be similar to the story in Genesis? The Mesopotamians were children of Adam and Eve, just like the rest of humanity. Wouldn’t their ancestors have passed down the story just as those of the Jews did? The story does predate the founding of Israel, after all; it’s a heritage common to all of us. When a story was written down doesn’t indicate when it was first told, nor does similarity imply causality.
 
Here is the footnote from the Aquinas Study Bible

3:1 The serpent is the Devil, that is Satan, in which serpent is used figuratively (see Rev. 20:2). Some great commentators have suggested that the Devil was speaking through a snake just like how an angel spoke through a donkey to Balaam in Number 22, either way Satan is the tempter here. (John Litteral) CCC 391

3:14 see note 3:1. The animal itself also became the object of the curse for the benefit of humanity. When we see the snake crawling and slithering on the ground, we remember the original curse and understand the extent of the evil caused by sin. As the snake is born to move in this fashion, it received no harm from the curse. (Theodoret of Cyrus)
 
kiyoaki said:
Why wouldn’t the story in Gilgamesh be similar to the story in Genesis? The Mesopotamians were children of Adam and Eve, just like the rest of humanity. Wouldn’t their ancestors have passed down the story just as those of the Jews did? The story does predate the founding of Israel, after all; it’s a heritage common to all of us. When a story was written down doesn’t indicate when it was first told, nor does similarity imply causality.
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Great common sense observation.

I was about to point out that the real, human, first couple, Adam and Eve had many children who had many children who had many…

Like children today, many left the family for greener pastures and like today many chose not to follow exactly the teachings of their parents. Yet, the true events of Adam and Eve’s lives remained until writers “attempted” to record them in order to teach Divine Revelation.

“Attempted” to record the actual event of temptation became difficult because the devil, being a spirit, did not have a physical body.
 
grannymh said:
Great common sense observation.

I was about to point out that the real, human, first couple, Adam and Eve had many children who had many children who had many…

Like children today, many left the family for greener pastures and like today many chose not to follow exactly the teachings of their parents. Yet, the true events of Adam and Eve’s lives remained until writers “attempted” to record them in order to teach Divine Revelation.

“Attempted” to record the actual event of temptation became difficult because the devil, being a spirit, did not have a physical body.
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I’d like to be this optimistic and to think so too, but unfortunately this is enough evidence I simply can’t ignore… i’d really like to hear a convincing counter-argument to this usu.edu/markdamen/1320AncLit/chapters/02gilgam.htm (that is not the original source I researched from, but that is close enough, a simple google for Adam and Eve and Gilgamesh will return a lot of similar pages).

The problem here is that we aren’t talking about a story that is similar, but an original and older story which had a completely opposite meaning from the Adam and Eve’s, it feels lke the story of Enkidu and Shamhat were clearly inverted to produce Adam and Eve. I’d like to hear your opinions on it.
 
minichibi said:
I’d like to be this optimistic and to think so too, but unfortunately this is enough evidence I simply can’t ignore… i’d really like to hear a convincing counter-argument to this usu.edu/markdamen/1320AncLit/chapters/02gilgam.htm (that is not the original source I researched from, but that is close enough, a simple google for Adam and Eve and Gilgamesh will return a lot of similar pages).

The problem here is that we aren’t talking about a story that is similar, but an original and older story which had a completely opposite meaning from the Adam and Eve’s, it feels lke the story of Enkidu and Shamhat were clearly inverted to produce Adam and Eve. I’d like to hear your opinions on it.
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My opinion would be to simply change the ending words in your last paragraph. These words are in red.

“The problem here is that we aren’t talking about a story that is similar, but an original and older story which had a completely opposite meaning from the Adam and Eve’s, it feels lke the story of Enkidu and Shamhat were clearly inverted to” restore the original teachings about human origin, original sin, human nature, and the promise of a Reconciler.
 
Like in said in a previous post, the Israelites/Hebrews/Jews, already had their worldview, already had their history, already knew the truth. They didn’t just simply “borrowed” or “stole” it because they found it cool and wanted to copy it and make it theirs. The “Biblical” stories are anti-myths, the Israelites/Hebrews/Jews simply picked the elements that were in vogue at their time and geography to, like grannymh said, restore the original meaning of human origins in a “catechismal” way.
 
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