Did the Serpent Lie?

by CyrusThePersian 15 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  CyrusThePersian

  In John 8:44 Jesus is quoted as saying that the Devil is a "liar and the father of the lie." an obvious reference to the serpent story in Genesis chapter 3. (The Johannine community, responsible for the gospel of John, the epistles of 1, 2, 3 John and Revelation, was among the first to equate the serpent of Genesis with Satan, see Rev. 20:2)

  However, before we accept Jesus' word for it, let's apply a little analysis to Genesis chapter 3. Let's start with v. 4 and 5:

  But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

  OK, here we have what Jesus reckons was the first lie, because we know later in the narrative that the woman, Eve, and Adam as well, did die. But wait! Let's take a closer look. The serpent basically tells Eve that three things will happen if she eats the fruit:

  She will not die

  Her eyes will be opened

  She will be like God, knowing good and evil.

  Author Robert Heinlein once wrote that there are three ways to lie. One is by telling a baldface untruth, anyone can do that. The second way is to tell the truth-but leave out or add to it certain parts so that your listener is unclear as to what is really truthful. The third way is to tell the complete truth, but tell it in such a way that your listener is sure you are lying. The serpent at first look appears to be using the second way to lie, because some of what he says is true:

  In verse 7 the Bible states that Eve and Adam's eyes were opened. In verse 22 God declares, " Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil..." So the serpent is two for three so far.

  That leaves us with the, "You will not die" part. Did the serpent lie about this? A possible answer may lie in the rest of verse 22 and verses 23 and 24:

  Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever _ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

  The question is: Would the serpent have known what God was going to do? According to the story, all Adam and Eve had to do was eat of the tree of life to not die, yet God has now blocked access to this tree. If the serpent knew that this was God's evil plan, then yes, he's a liar. However, there is no indication that the serpent knew of God's plans and for all we know the serpent only knew that eating of the tree of life would grant immortality and that eating of the tree of Good and Evil would open their eyes.

  So the question is: Did the serpent lie?

  DISCLAIMER: I do not in any way believe that any of this horsecrap is in any way true, I merely offer this as a literary analysis, much as one might offer up an analysis of Tom Sawyer's use of reverse psychology in manipulating his friends into whitewashing the fence in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".
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  darth frosty

  My favorite argument NO the serpent wasn't lieing he/it was telling the truth!

  One of the things I love about the bible, you cant get out of the book of genesis without some major flaws to the god/man relationship coming up!
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  processor

  The serpent told them they would be like God in knowing good and bad, the God confirmed afterwards that 'man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad', so the serpent was right.

  God told that 'the day' they would eat they would die, but that didn't happen. They died almost thousand years later.

  (According to the Bible, of course.)
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  adamah

  I've always thought of the story of Adam and Eve as serving as the literary equivalent of the beginning of a typical traffic school, which always begins with the same cliched' gruesome photos taken from traffic accident scenes as if to explain WHY you should pay very close attention on a Saturday morning to dry vehicle codes when you'd rather be anywhere else. The point is that the Torah is 50% dry legal codes ("thou shalt not mix cottons with linens"), with parables of historical characters blended into the Torah to display certain messages offered why paying strict attention is required to avoid making a boo-booh.

  Technically, the serpent was the first-recorded whistleblower in the World, who's greater SIN was disclosing insider-information that he wasn't authorized by God to leak to humans. He spoke truth against power, and didn't lie: we saw which one won out there!

  The part I like is God's bald-faced lie, "the DAY you eat of it, you shall surely die". Note how the serpent uses the term "day" to refer to immediately after eating the fruit ("the DAY you eat of it, your eyes will be opened"), but then God is supposedly using the same Hebrew word for day, but referring to a 1,000 yr day (as 2nd Peter offered in the NT) to account for Adam's death, some 900 yrs later?

  Of course, God's apologetists also will claim God was actually referring to Adam's "spiritual death" etc, which rings as wild extra-scriptural speculation, making excuses for the same character who they believe will exercise control over THEIR eternal fate (AKA kissing up to the boss).

  (Of course, 2nd Peter single-handedly decides that Lot deserved to be declared "righteous", even though the Genesis account went out of it's way to depict Lot as "the prodigal nephew", and closes with Lot living in a cave, committing drunken incest, being spiritually dead to God (dead people were buried in caves; the name 'Lot' even is symbolic, meaning "veiled" or "hidden" from God). The Bible just makes it up as it goes, and believers are given permission to engage in post-hoc rationalizations to find whatever works for them.)

  And of course, neither the serpent nor God offered the important little detail that God Himself WOULD be the DIRECT CAUSE of Adam and Eve's death, by taking actions that led to their deaths (with whole spinning sword to block access to the Tree of Life, being cursed, etc).

  The story has so many continuity errors and logical holes and inconsistencies to it, you could drive a Mac truck through it.

  If anyone can make it through the first 10 chapters of Genesis and NOT recognize it's mythical stories written into Judaism theology and built upon older Sumerian/Greek mythology, then they're possibly: a) brain-dead b) suffering from Stockholm Syndrome c) they don't WANT to see the problems, but WANT it to be true, since they're so heavily emotionally-invested in the story-line.

  Adam
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  Seraphim23

  Genesis doesn’t have to be literal to have truth in it. The creation story is a metaphorical symbolic parable which is kind of obvious to some Christians, just not the fundamentalist types. The tree of good and bad symbolises the law and it being a curse to those enslaved to it, and the tree of life symbolises mercy and the transcendence of law which is what Jesus taught. The lie in question is about human’s relationship with God and that they tend to think that laws grant a way to God by providing a way to be righteous, when the real truth is that God is beyond good and bad, and loves the good and bad alike. The death being spoken of is spiritual death from the point of view of the people themselves and their own conscience as it relates to belief in a God or higher power.

  Hence the Ark of the Covenant that apparently held the stone tablets of the law symbolised the tree of good and evil, and the covering lid of the ark symbolised the tree of life. The holy of holies represents the centre of the Garden of Eden, which is also why trees were part of the decoration of the temple.

  The whole symbolic system points to how humans relate to themselves and a higher power, as well as fundamental aspects of the human condition such as suffering, justice, good and bad, laws and self-worth, identity and judgement and mercy. It also includes the ideas of life after death and how if true that changes the terms of discussion around such topics. The serpent symbolised humans themselves, as well as Adam and Eve did. The lie is a metaphorical device with a deep set of meanings regarding how humans relate to their own relationship with reality as it confronts us. It is easy to show that the creation story is not literally true as with other parables. Jesus` words in John 8:44 should be understood in this light
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  adamah

  seraphim said-

  Genesis doesn’t have to be literal to have truth in it. The creation story is a metaphorical symbolic parable which is kind of obvious to some Christians, just not the fundamentalist types.

  Yeah, this is a well-worn path taken here, no?

  Once confronted with insurmountable evidence proving the sheer impossibility of a Bible claim, believers are forced to back-peddle and claim it's all only metaphor, even cite it as an example of poetic beauty.

  Sure, except they're willing to forget that ancient men ACTUALLY BELIEVED a perfect Adam and Eve existed in a Garden-like location on the Planet Earth, and actually ATE a wisdom-bestowing magical fruit that violated God's command; hence, that's how death was introduced to mankind. THAT'S the purpose the story provided to Hebrews: an answer to the question, "why do humans grow old and die"?

  Heck, anyone who's an ex-JW KNOWS they STILL believe it as LITERAL TRUTH, a HISTORIC account. They still accept THAT explanation, when science tells us death is actually a result of the evolutionary process of life, resulting from oxidative cellular degradation from accumulated photochemical-mediated damage, that prevents aged organisms from passing on their damaged genes.

  Hence the Ark of the Covenant that apparently held the stone tablets of the law symbolised the tree of good and evil, and the covering lid of the ark symbolised the tree of life. The holy of holies represents the centre of the Garden of Eden, which is also why trees were part of the decoration of the temple.

  Huh, and here I thought the Ark of the Covenant symbolized the Ark of Noah, the life-boat that protected the World from God's destruction, just like the covenant. Silly me, just being too stoopid (sic) to keep up with all the run-away use of symbology!

  You apparently have watched Ancient Hebrew scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou's BBC series on Secrets of the Bible, since she made a similar claim of the Garden of Eden being inspired by the interior decorations of the Temple:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ9cvYB7Tes

  (PT 1 of 4)

  Although it's a compelling idea, I'm not completely convinced (although it's as plausible as any other explanation, I suppose).

  Adam
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  darth frosty

  link
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  Seraphim23

  Your right, I did watch that TV series. I do take in new information and change my views accordingly.

  I could have just mentioned Jesus answer to Genesis as being the parable of the prodigal son. If understood this way, the lie of the devil is in what the serpent implies by saying what he says as opposed to what is said. This way one doesn’t have to, but can maintain a literal understanding of Genesis. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it is possible to do.
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  trackregister99

  Yes, the serpent lie.

  God:

  Genesis 2:17* : Lit., "dying you [sing.] will die"

  Serpent:

  Genesis 3:4*: Lit., "not dying you [pl.] will die"

  The consequence of the act was begin to dying. When? the same day of 24 hours or after?. If the serpent was refering to a day of 24 hours, saying that they will begin to dying after the same 24 hours day. the serpent lie, because the same 24 hours day that eve and adam eat the fuit, God do a trial and sentence to begin to dying. Then the serpent was the first liar. Then in both days: 24 hours day or 1000 years day, adam end eve dying die.
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  MrFreeze

  The serpent was a revolutionary, revolting against a horrible tyrant.