Snakes in the bible

A highly visual survey of the many aspects of snakes and snake symbols in the Jewish bible (Old testament). The key role of a snake cult, the snake in the Garden of Eden, the rod of Moses and other topics like Lilith in the Kabbalah are discussed. Religious beliefs are not assumed here.

1. Snakes in the bible Dave Shafer CHJ

2. Exploring these curious and interesting themes about snakes in the Jewish bible (Old Testament) can be fun whether or not you believe that these people ever existed or the events ever happened. We would not think to get the most out of Shakespeare or Homer without some background context about the customs of the world their characters moved within as well as the world of the authors . And there is a huge body of literature about the works of Shakespeare, Homer, and the biblical authors that considers it irrelevant whether or not true events are described . Nothing here is concerned with the Christian New Testament, just Jewish writings. Themes: Snakes and Religion Snakes and medicine Snakes and Sex A Snake in the Garden of Eden

3. Some recent archeological finds as well as translations of ancient texts from surrounding cultures have made the material presented here much more plausible than skeptics might think.

4. Snakes and religion

5. Egyptians had many gods and very important ones were the snake god Apeps and the cobra goddess Wadjet The symbol of the cobra was central to images of the Pharaoh and his crown and surroundings. It appeared everywhere in ancient Egypt. According to the bible there were many generations of the Jews living in Egypt before the Exodus and they would have been in the midst of a country steeped in religion - and snake statues, snake icons, snake rites and imagery.

6. There was even an ancient Egyptian board game, far right here, based on a coiled snake pattern. When Moses was in Egypt, snake imagery was absolutely everywhere, as well as 37 different kinds of actual snakes.

7. Hollywood and artists love the dramatic scene of Moses parting the waters during the Exodus. Nothing like the actual very shallow Sea of Reeds which was the probable site. Who was Moses and what was his genealogy? Moses father Amram married his own aunt – kind of creepy.

8. And the 12 tribes of Israel Descendents of Levi Moses is a Levite

9. The Levite tribe has a lot of Egyptian names. No other tribe has any, that are mentioned in the Torah. The name Moses is usually given a Hebrew derivation but there is an equally valid Egyptian language one. He was, after all, raised in the Pharaoh’s household. Maybe only the Levites were ever in Egypt, and not the other tribes. But there is a more likely possibility.

10. All the Levites were priests. Perhaps some were originally Egyptian priests who followed Moses out of Egypt in the Exodus, hence those Egyptian names among the Levites. The 10 Plagues must have impressed them quite a bit.

11. The tribe of Levi has a name that could be the same Hebrew word root as the Levi athon – the giant sea serpent that God created in the early days of the Creation (Genesis 1:20-23). Later God killed the giant serpent Rahab in an epic battle, Isaiah 27:1. Two possible “Levi” name derivations are from one root meaning “joined” or another meaning “coiled”. There may be some good reasons to link the Levites and snakes, aside from this linguistic connection. Moses and Aaron were Levites and the Rod of God (Moses’ almond branch staff) was turned into a snake twice in the Torah .

12. God turns the Levite Moses’ rod into a snake (Exodus 4:2-4) and Levite Aaron does the same. Pharaoh’s magicians respond with their own snakes (Exodus 7:9-12). Snakes were sacred to the Egyptian God Thoth. Maybe these same magicians left Egypt with Moses, as co-priests with the Levites, hence the Egyptian names among the Levites .

13. “Levi” / “Leviathon” = Joined or coiled 1 st American political cartoon Serpent joined at mouth and tail Minoan snake handler Maybe the Levites were snake handlers and became head of the snake cult that Hezikiah purged in 2 nd Kings 18:4, destroying the brass snake idol that Moses made.

14. This proposed connection between the Levites, like Moses, and snakes explains a lot of otherwise mysterious biblical details - like the copper snake that Moses made. That is discussed next. This also shows how important it is to put biblical details in the context of the surrounding cultures, like Egypt and Canaan, which helps explain some textual puzzles in the bible.

15. Snakes and medicine

16. In the book of Numbers 21, 5-9 we read about the Jews wandering in the desert after the Exodus. To punish them for constant kvetching God sent a plague of “fiery serpents” to kill them off. This would have been the deadly Palestinian viper, the most poisonous snake in Israel today, which lives in a rather small area of the Near East. The obvious meaning of “fiery serpents” would be a dragon, but the text implies many and biting, not roasting, people. An alternate reading is “burning serpents” which may refer to the feeling the venom produces on the body. These vipers are, today, greatly feared by the desert Bedouins.

17. The bible then says that Moses intervened on behalf of his dying people and that God told him to make a copper or brass serpent and mount it on a pole. All those bitten who looked at it would then recover. This story directly violates the commandment against making any graven images, a big no-no. But I guess if God tells you to do it, it doesn’t count. It is not clear why the snake idol was made of copper or brass. One theory is that that metal matches the color of that kind of viper. And what then happened to that snake idol after its use was finished of curing people of their fatal bites? I’m glad you asked. It led to a snake cult that lasted for many hundred of years, with its center in Jerusalem. The biblical Jews have always worshiped more than one god.

18. Archaeologist have found many copper snake idols throughout the Near East, due to an ancient religious snake cult. Some date to the time of Moses. The copper snake that Moses made may simply have been something that everyone already knew about and not something started by Moses. About 800 years after Moses King Hezikiah of Judah went on an idol smashing spree (2 Kings:8) and cleansed Jerusalem of the snake idol Moses had made as well as destroying many wooden idols to Asherah (wife to the Hebrews’ god Yahweh). Archeologists have found many Asherah idols in Israel. Through most of the history described in the bible the Jews were polytheistic, although with Yahweh always as the supreme deity.

19. As a mark of reverence for the serpent, it was reported, the snake took part in the sect's communion service. The following was reported by Epiphanius (fourth century Church Father) who called the service abominable. “The snake was kept in a chest. At the beginning of the service the snake is summoned out. He then rolls among the loaves of bread which are on the table after which are broken and eaten. Following this each of those present kiss the snake on the mouth for it has been tamed by a spell. They have then fallen down and worshipped the snake as a part of the Eucharist service”. Religious snake cults existed throughout the ancient Near East and there are biblical hints of it too. The Ophites were a bizarre early Christian heretical sect, devoted to a snake god, and elements of it already existed within Judaism. They thought the Jewish God was an evil influence and power from which mankind needed to be liberated. From this point of view the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a benefactor to mankind when he urged Adam and Eve to revolt against such a God. Therefore, other enemies of Jehovah in the Old Testament became heroes of the sect.

20. In Exodus 4:24 we read that very soon after God had sent Moses from Midian to Egypt, to address the Pharaoh, “The Lord met him and sought to kill him” This is one of most puzzling passages in the whole bible. A late rabbinic midrash commentary on it says that God or an angel of God took on the form of a giant serpent and swallowed up Moses up to his waist (genitals). This alerted his wife Zipporah that the threat was related to circumcision and she resolved the situation. This is a link between snakes and sex (genitals) that is explored later in the next section. It also taps into the religious snake cult imagery. What counts for us here is not if this biblical event (God trying to kill Moses) ever happened, or even if the bible passage has been correctly translated or understood. We are interested in how this event, imagined or real, was seen by ancient commentators and what imagery they used to talk about it – like this snake midrash and other accounts in Ginzberg’s folklore book “Legends of the Jews”. This is all a detour away from explaining why the copper snake idol that Moses made cured the people bitten by deadly snakes. We will now return to that topic and the role of snakes in healing. Notice the snakes in the nurses logo, twined around a staff.

21. Many cultures associate snakes with healing and medicine, in addition to their sometimes deadly characteristics. One reason for this is that it was a common belief in earlier times that snakes were immortal. Several times during their lifetime a snake sheds its skin and emerges with a youthful appearance. It seems to never die. Hibernating animals were also viewed as having defeated death. Hence snake’s role in ancient medicine and healing. For several millennia there was a religious bear cult throughout northern Europe, based partly on the way a bear seemed to survive a winter in a cave with no food or water while hibernating and then miraculously come to life in the spring.

22. The twin snake staff was sacred to the Greek god Hermes and is his symbol. Hermes and this symbol have nothing to do with medicine and its very widespread use is based on a mistaken understanding. The correct symbol for medicine is the single snake staff that is the Rod of Asclepius, Greek god of medicine and healing. It is sometime used correctly, like by the AMA.

23. In Exodus 15:26 God says to Moses that if they will obey his laws and commandments then he will not bring on them any of the diseases (plagues) he brought on the Egyptians for “I am the Lord your healer ”. The Egyptians wore amulets and talisman to ward off disease or evil. An Egyptian medical patient would wear a headband with the name written on it of the god being invoked for protection and healing. Does this suggest anything to you? The word “ tefillin ” is not in the Torah. The word used there is “ totafot ” and has a puzzling linguistic origin. Some experts think it is an Egyptian loan word. What is clear is that early Judaism was strongly influenced by their stay in Egypt and then later by their neighbors the Canaanites . Egyptian medical snake amulet Medical folklore from Egypt would have been carried by the Jews into their Exodus journey out of Egypt.

24. Navaho healing ceremony with snake In magical thinking a snake’s power to cause death is linked to a similar ability to ward off death.

25. Snakes and Sex

26. Snakes as sexual symbols In Western civilization any time a snake is shown or described as having contact with a man it is always a dangerous hostile one, like in the Greek myth of Laocoon and sons struggling with a python. Or Hercules slaying the Hydra. By contrast almost all contacts between women and snakes are of a sexual nature, sometimes of a dangerous type. Here is an example. In ancient Egypt the pharaoh Cleopatra killed herself in 30 BC by having an asp or cobra bite her. The classical authors back then, like Plutarch and Suetonius, clearly state that she was bitten on her arm. Yet almost all artists have depicted this scene, a very popular subject, with the asp biting Cleopatra on the breast – linking the snake to sexual imagery. Some take it a step further and have the snake bite her on the nipple!

27. Cleopatra gets bit on the nipple The phallic shape of the snake and its head make it inevitable that it would come to be associated with sex in myths and religion.

28. Cleopatra did research on poisons, using slaves, and was an expert on what the bite of an asp or cobra could do. To this day people die in Egypt from snake bites in considerable numbers. Both in Egypt and back in Israel the ancient Hebrews were very familiar with poisonous snakes.

29. In medieval Western Europe, especially France, there was the myth of Melusine . She changed from an ordinary woman each Saturday to a woman who was a snake from the waist down, the sexual part. When she married she had her husband promise to never enter enter her chamber on Saturdays. In some versions she was a fish on the bottom half instead of a snake. Her husband spied on her one Saturday and discovered her secret. The symbolism of a half woman, half snake person is ambiguous. But it skirts the edges of a much more direct image – that of a snake and woman having sex. This was of considerable Jewish interest in the Babylonian Talmud and in commentaries on it, like the Mishnah. The rabbis thought that in the Garden of Eden the Snake and Eve had sex before Adam did.

30. The Greek goddess Lamia and also Echidna are just some of the many worldwide mythical figures that combine a woman and a snake into one body. Often there is a link between the danger from a snake and the perceived danger from a woman’s sexuality. Medusa head with hair of live snakes. Medusa gets them all straightened out at the hairdresser.

31. There is much art from the medieval and Renaissance times that shows the snake twined about a tree in the Garden of Eden and urging Eve to eat the forbidden apple. But this is not correct. The text of Genesis clearly states that God condemned the snake to crawl on its belly, as punishment, but only after Eve has tried the apple. The two paintings on the right have it wrong, showing the snake looking like a snake. The painting on the left is correct. The snake was some other kind of creature first , when it tempted Eve, and then later was turned by God into what we now know as a snake’s body, with neither arms nor legs and crawling on the ground.

32.   If you like creepy snake/woman paintings you will be hard pressed to find any better or creepier than those by the German painter Franz Stuck from around 1900. The one on the left, with Eve and the Snake is called “Sin”. The one on the right is called “Sensuality”. He seems to have had a thing about snakes. And nudes.

33. This creepy painting by Franz Stuck from about 100 years ago conveys both the menace and the sexuality inherent in the snake/apple gift that Eve is offering Adam. But it also has the timing wrong, with the snake looking like a snake prematurely, before God’s punishment.

34. The ancient Mediterranean region shared many common themes in their myths and religions. Eve and the snake having sex is not at all an odd idea. In Roman mythology Jupiter seduced Olympia, shown here in a 1530 painting, in the guise of a snake. In Greek mythology Zeus rapes his own daughter Persephone, after first turning into a snake The painting on the right, titled “Persephone” is by Thomas Hart Benton Notice Jupiter’s lower body, with tail

35. Probably the most explicit link between snakes and sex occurs in the Greek story of the sage Tiresias. He saw two snakes mating and beat them apart with a stick. This displeased the goddess Hera who then changed Tiresias into a woman. He lived as a woman for 7 years and had children. With first hand experience of both sexes he declared that a woman’s sexual pleasure was 10X greater than a man’s. Later he again beat apart coupling snakes and was changed back into a man. Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando” was inspired by the story of Tiresias.

36. In some versions of the Greek Tiresias story he, after his encounter with the coupling snakes and being changed into a woman, was a prostitute for 7 years. Returning now to the bible the name “Rahab” occurs twice. In the book of Joshua it refers to a woman, Rahab, who was a prostitute. It is also the name of a giant sea serpent, Rahab – the Leviathan – mentioned in Job, Isaiah, and Psalms. Another snake/sex link.

37. We already discussed earlier the biblical serpent Rahab the Leviathan, defeated by God in an epic battle at the dawn of Creation , similar to the much older Babylonian creation myths. In the Gemara (about 1600 years ago) part of the Babylonian Talmud there is an odd section (Shabbat 110a) where the rabbis debate various aspects of snakes having sex with women. They seem convinced that this is a high priority with snakes. They give a method of coaxing a snake out, after it has entered a woman, by having her crouch over a small fire into which certain herbs have been thrown. When the snake emerges it is to be grabbed with tongs and thrown into the fire.

38. In that same Talmud passage the ever practical (??) rabbis advised a way to protect oneself from snakes at night – put a big barrel under each bed leg to elevate it and tie a cat to each barrel. Why didn’t I think of that?

39. A snake in the Garden of Eden

40. The Garden of Eden had many animals and plants but all it is known for, for most people, is Adam, Eve, and the Snake. Equally important are two trees, but we will first focus on the trio of the couple and the snake.

41. The ancient rabbis must have had a lot of time on their hands because they speculated endlessly about the Adam and Eve story, which only takes up a few lines in the bible. There is a tradition among these commentators that there is more to the simple story than meets the eye. In the text the snake first occurs talking to Eve (a talking snake – who knew?). There is an imagined back story here where Eve and the snake had sex before Adam. Furthermore her son Cain had the snake as his biological father . When Cain kills his brother Abel he is showing his evil genetic background. The rabbis speculated that since Adam lived for a while in the garden before God created Eve to be his companion, that he had sex with all the animals during that time before Eve.

42. Satan or Lucifer is supposed to be a fallen angel, expelled from heaven, shown here by at left by Gustave Dore. There is no mention of Satan or Lucifer in the Old Testament. One Hebrew word in Isaiah 14:12 which means “morning star” = Venus came to be much later interpreted as meaning a fallen angel and the character of Satan was then created, but the text itself never says this. In the book of Job, Christian translations have Satan talking with God about Job but the actual Hebrew only refers to a nameless accuser. Satan is not an important concept in Judaism but it is in Christianity and Islam. The Snake in the Garden of Eden is only linked to Satan in Christian or late Jewish Kabbalah traditions.

43.     The Book of Baruch, around the same time as the Book of Maccabees (story of Hannukah), 50 BC (neither is in the canonical Hebrew bible) -  claims that the Serpent had sexual relations with both Adam and Eve. A Jewish tradition, also found in some Gnostic texts, holds that God originally created Adam as a hermaphrodite (Midrash Rabbah , Genesis 7:1) so that Adam was both male and female. God later decided that "it is not good for 'it' to be alone," and brought the feminine Eve out of Adam, leaving Adam as masculine only. Original male/female Adam (It’s tough going on the gym treadmill)

44.   After Eve gave birth to her first child Cain she said “I have gotten (created) a man (child) with Yahweh (the Lord) Genesis 4:1 No matter how you slice it there is no mention here by Eve of Adam. It was, in Eve’s view, she and God who produced a child. Those ancient rabbis and commentators who thought that Eve had sex with the snake and that Cain was the result of that union could find Eve’s words here (no mention of Adam) significant. But the situation is much more complicated tha n this. There is a long Jewish tradition that Eve was the second wife of Adam and his first wife was Lilith, who is mentioned just once in the bible in Isaiah. Furthermore Lilith was closely identified with snake imagery in surrounding cultures. She is described as a demon in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

45.   The classic James Thurber cartoon here show’s Adam’s situation. In the Jewish legends God makes a woman at the same time as Adam, as equals, and not from his body (rib). That is actually the first of the two creation stories in Genesis. In the Jewish legends, but not spelled out in the bible, she is Lilith - not Eve - and she and Adam quarrel. She refuses to be treated by Adam as under her. Literally under her physically, as during sex – when she wants to be on top. She storms off, leaves Adam, and becomes a night demon. In the second creation story in Genesis Eve is created from Adam’s body (rib). The rabbis back then, not known for close observation of Nature (Woody Allen: “Nature and I are two”) declared that all creatures copulate in a belly to back position with three exceptions – people, snakes, and fish. Again snakes and people are put in the same sexual category.

46.   In art Lilith is usually shown is association with a snake. God called Eve “Woman” but Adam gave her the name “Eve”. This is usually translated as meaning that she is the mother of all living things. That is nonsense! At that point she was not even the mother of a child. Her name Eve is “ Chavvah ” in Hebrew. The translation of c havvah as ‘life’ becomes more interesting when it is noted that in the cognate Arabic and Aramaic languages the word havvah (and which sounds as a pun of chavvah ) means ‘serpent’ (in Aramaic hiwya ). Snakes alive! They are everywhere! So Lilith and Eve and snakes (and also sex) are always closely associated. Lilith becomes a night demon (incubus) after leaving Eden and preys sexually on sleeping men.

47.   God (Yahweh) had a wife – Asherah , who was a fertility goddess. Archeologists in Israel have discovered numerous statues to her as well as household icons but almost all mention of her has been kept out of the bible. King Hezekiah around 700 BC had Asherah poles destroyed to purify the religion and make it have a single deity. Ancient mold for making Asherah statues Asherah was a fertility goddess and her statues seemed to have been sacred trees or wooden pillars. She was called the Mother of Heaven. Sort of like Eve being called the mother of all living things. Eve, Lilith, Asherah , the snake, and the Tree of Life are all connected

48.   Asherah was the wife or consort of the Canaanite god Baal and the Israelis seems to have adopted her as the wife of their own god Yahweh. She was a fertility goddess and her rituals had three main elements in the Canaanite religion– 1) Ritual prostitution, 2) snake worship and 3) human sacrifice – specifically child sacrifice. The bible has many statements that show that Yahweh expected all first born, whether animals of the flock or human children, to be sacrificed to him. Eventually this changed and the story of Abraham and Isaac shows a shift to having an animal substitute sacrificed. The Canaanites had a god Moloch that was specifically a god of child sacrifice. Children were tossed into a large fire as part of the religious rituals. The bible has many exhortations to the Israelites to stop doing this Canaanite practice, as the Jewish religion evolved and moved away from Yahweh’s earlier demand for it. Scholars agree that the practice continued until relatively late biblical times in Israel. In Israel the child sacrifice was carried out at special Asherah poles or statues, that were everywhere. Later on the bible rails against this and forbids the building of Asherah poles anywhere near altars to Yahweh. The relevance of this to snakes will soon be clear.

49.   Child sacrifice was widespread in the ancient world, especially in times of crisis. The Trojan War couldn’t get started because the Greek ships were all becalmed for many days and couldn’t move. The Greek commander sacrificed his own daughter to break this impasse. The Canaanite Moloch sacrifices are not described as being related in any way to a tree but some cultures have a specific tree as a key part. Druid sacrifices were under the sacred oak tree. The Asherah human sacrifice poles may have been living trees (probably the date palm) or wooden pillars carved to represent the Goddess or simply sacred poles. Maybe symbols of the Tree of Life. Date palm Druid sacrifice

50. Probably every culture has a Tree of Life image. The two at right here are Muslim ones from Turkey and Khazakastan . It always represents the life principle, growth, abundance, etc. and has a spiritual aspect. In the Garden of Eden God forbids Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) but does not initially forbid them to eat from the Tree of Life (which would give them immortality). As we know, the snake tempts Eve to eat an apple from the forbidden tree.

51. In Judaism there are several important Tree of Life symbols. One is the menorah, with almond tree branches. One is the tree in the Garden of Eden. One is the burning bush that Moses sees when God first talks to him. The mystical Kabbalah teachings in the Zohar have the Tree of Life as a central concept and twisted around that Tree of Life is a serpent. The menorah’s almond tree and snakes are both sacred to the Egyptian god Thoth. When Moses is at the burning bush God tells him to throw down his rod (of an almond branch) and it turns into a snake. So snakes and trees, especially the Tree of Life, are closely related.

52.     The mystical body of Jewish texts known as the Kabbalah (from about 1300 AD), with the main book being the “Zohar”, speculates endlessly over what happened in the Garden of Eden. Did the demon Lilith return in the guise of a snake, have sex with both Adam (again) and Eve, as well as tempt Eve with the apple? Was Eve herself originally a snake goddess figure? The name “mother of all living things” for Eve sounds exactly like a fertility goddess – like Asherah , the wife of Yahweh? Etc., Etc. The mystical Kabbalah expanded the entities that they obsess over by deciding that there was a male counterpart to Lilith in the form of an evil Satan-like creature called Samael. This is not in the bible but is in the Talmud (about 600 AD) and the Kabbalah (1300 AD). The Kabbalah claims that Samael was a fallen angel and that he was the snake that had sex with Eve, tempted her with the apple, and then when expelled from the Garden of Eden he shacked up with Lilith.

53. The bible does not say “apple”, just “fruit, and it has been thought to be a fig, grape, or citron , (more likely for that part of the world) but not an apple. God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit for “as soon as you eat of it, you shall die ” Genesis 2:17

54. This creepy painting by Von Stuck inadvertently hits on a key idea. Eating what kind of fruit would make you die “as soon as you eat of it” – (Genesis 2:17)? The obvious answer = poison fruit! Some modern scholars think it was a deadly hallucinogenic mushroom. In any case, it was widely thought in the ancient world that snakes could and did transfer their venom to plants and fruits, especially mushrooms. Von Stuck, 100 years ago, showed this idea here very clearly. It was also widely believed that certain mushrooms could bring the dead back to life = make you immortal – just as the snake was thought to be immortal because of shedding its skin periodically.

55.   In summary, snakes and snake symbols are intimately connected with various biblical topics like Asherah , Adam and Eve, the Tree of Life, healing, the rod of Moses and Aaron, Levites, Lilith, and human sacrifice. Everything seems to be interconnected. For example Lilith, in her demon mode, was a strangler (like a boa constrictor) of children. The same figure, Lilith, that embodied voracious sexuality was also an agent of death. Likewise the venomous snake was also key to some healing rituals, like the copper snake that Moses made. It is rare in religion and mythology for symbols to have just one meaning.

56. The role of snakes in the religion and culture of the ancient world, like this Minoan snake goddess here, or the sacred python at the Oracle at Delphi, the Nagas of India, etc., etc , is a very big one and even this restricted survey here does not begin to do justice to a small piece – snakes in the Jewish bible (Old Testament). Archaeology as well as close textual analysis of ancient texts continue to throw new light on this fascinating topic.