Serpents (Hebrew: נחש nāḥāš) are referred to in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The symbol of a serpent or snake played important roles in religious and cultural life of ancient Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia and Greece. The serpent was a symbol of evil power and chaos from the underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life and healing. Nachash, Hebrew for “snake,” is also associated with divination, including the verb-form meaning to practice divination or fortune-telling. In the Hebrew Bible, Nachash occurs in the Torah to identify the serpent in Eden. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, it is also used in conjunction with saraph to describe vicious serpents in the wilderness. Tanniyn, a form of dragon-monster, also occurs throughout the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Exodus, the staffs of Moses and Aaron are turned into serpents, a nachash for Moses, a tanniyn for Aaron. In the New Testament, the Book of Revelation makes use of ancient serpent and the Dragon several times to identify Satan or the devil. (Revelation 12:9; 20:2) The serpent is most often identified with the hubristic Satan, and sometimes with Lilith.
The story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man represents a tradition among the Abrahamic peoples, with a presentation more or less symbolical of certain moral and religious truths.
In one of the oldest stories ever written, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh loses the power of immortality, stolen by a snake. The serpent was a widespread figure in the mythology of the Ancient Near East. Ouroboros is an ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail that represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life, the eternal return, and the cycle of life, death and rebirth, leading to immortality.
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Author: Wikipedia
Keywords: Serpent, Crooked serpent, Nehushtan, Bronze serpent, Fiery serpent, Brass serpent, Serpent of brass, Dragon
Bible reference(s): Genesis 3:1, Genesis 3:2, Genesis 3:4, Genesis 3:13, Genesis 3:14, Genesis 49:17, Exodus 4:3, Exodus 7:9, Exodus 7:10, Exodus 7:12, Exodus 7:15, Numbers 21:5-7, Numbers 21:8, Numbers 21:9, Deuteronomy 8:15, Deuteronomy 32:33, 1 Kings 1:9, 2 Kings 18:4, Job 26:13, Psalms 58:4, Psalms 91:13, Psalms 140:3, Proverbs 23:32, Proverbs 30:19, Ecclesiastes 10:8, Ecclesiastes 10:11, Isaiah 14:29, Isaiah 27:1, Isaiah 30:6, Isaiah 65:25, Jeremiah 8:17, Jeremiah 46:22, Amos 5:19, Amos 9:3, Micah 7:17, Matthew 7:10, Matthew 10:16, Matthew 23:33, Mark 16:18, Luke 10:19, Luke 11:11, John 3:14, 1 Corinthians 10:9, 2 Corinthians 11:3, Revelation 9:19, Revelation 12:9, Revelation 12:14, Revelation 12:15, Revelation 20:2, Wisdom of Solomon 11:15, Wisdom of Solomon 16:5, Wisdom of Solomon 16:10, Wisdom of Solomon 17:9, Sirach/Ecclesiasticus 12:13, 4 Maccabees 18:8
Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Serpents in the Bible,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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