Well yeah. These are just guesses from both perspectives. I think where I was going with this is that the snake itself, if we can at least agree that it was a snake. Maybe it wasn't but we seem to feel it was. The snake was also associated with these Pre-Christian religions. I think we have established that beyond a shadow of a doubt here. So we have both sides. Its also possible that the snake (symbol of Paganism) was twisted and "dethroned" so to speak and associated with pure evil or Satan. Hmmm.

Its a question.

Thus opening the doors to christian based influence? This is agreeable to me, but i still can't figure out why we have religion in the first place... (this one will take a lifetime to figure out I feel.)

i don't justify it past what i have written nor is it my concern whether anyone takes it to heart, i really could care less about where te snake/animal comes from i'm not a christian nor do i give myself title in any respect though others may. if anything i'm a truest no more no less. i try to look for truth and find it if possible, if not i move on. i've been on here long enough and have been in different cults and religions enough to have seen/heard most of whats out there though i donot claim any higher knowledge than others. i see your pretty new here go read some old post where i have engaged otheres on religious issues over the last several months this may give you a better idea of my take on things if your really interested.

Well not really. I think (only my opinion) that man has always been fearful of death. Religion and spirituality is a way to ease discomfort and explain the unexplainable. You have to remember to these early people, just about everything would have been mysterious or frightening. The two topping the list would have been death and birth I would imagine. That leads us down the religion path. How does life come into the world? How does it leave. Reincarnation? Rebirth? How? These are the possible sources of these early people's belief systems.

That is all I was asking. I was not challenging the validity to your stance...



This being the only reason I asked. No hard feelings.

Correct me if I am wrong but prior to christianity, It is my understanding that death was worshiped as it brought life. Like the burning man etc. Where did the fear come from? Conditioning? and by who and when exactly? Those are some questions for the ages.

That I dont know. Even if death was not "scary" per se, it still probably would have been a little bit strange and wonderful. Then you have the whole idea of a soul and possible rebirth I would guess. It might also be dependent on how one died. But either way, people died and they were gone. Poof.

I dont know if you believe in Creationism or Evolution and I don't want to go down that road. However even as far back as the Neanderthal people, we have unearthed their various burial locations and found presumably entire families buried. Sometimes they made big rock mounds. Dome shaped. They would lay bodies in certain positions and sometimes lay all of their tools, weapons and even toys in with these bodies. You could interpret this as them having a belief in an afterlife of some kind and that this person would be needing all of his things again.

So, I guess that would mean people have pretty much held some kind of belief in something or other as long as we could stop long enough to think about it and ponder what might await us.

ahh - ok - for a long time now it has mainly been discussions between the Cs and the pagans/non believers here. though thats not always the case. so i had to upload a bible and concordence to to be able to talk on a level of definition others were talking on . thats why i stated such.

Anyway, getting back to this whole serpent in the garden issue. I guess I might also pose the question another way. Why did the bible writers feel they needed to utilize the snake specifically as a vehicle for temptation? There are plenty of other animals . A black crow or a big tarantula or a rat or some other animal that might be considered a little "shifty." I would have chosen a rooster personally. I hate roosters and they scare me to death. But seriously, the snake was for all intensive purposes a very significant and highly potent animal as it related to these pre-Christian religions so that's the only reason it seems a little suspicious to me.

Question
The Lord sent venomous snakes against the people when they spoke out against God. Then He told Moses to make a snake, put it up on a pole,anyone who is bitten can look at it and live. So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole, and anyone who looked at it lived.

If God chastised them for making a golden calf and worshiping it, why would he tempt them by saying they must make a snake and put it on a pole to live? Isn't this tempting them to follow false idols? I asked a pastor and he said this foretold Christ's Crucifixion, but how would you explain that to the people of that time?

Answer
Hi!
First off, your pastor is right about the symbolism. However, to address your question, first look again at the passages:

NU 21:4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" 6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

If you look at what God commanded, you will notice that God did not tell them to worship the bronze snake—they were just supposed to look at it. So God was not condoning idol worship here. Besides, looking at the snake did not alleviate their suffering either; it just allowed them to live. They were still being bitten. The snake was a temporary thing, and God still traveled around with them. I don’t believe they were encouraged to worship idols at that point.

TRIBO:


there are many instances of snakes through out the old testament, the one here above is how it was used for good but normally it is seen as evil.

try googleing this - Moses snake symbolism bible

i think youll see alot of options to look at christian/non, maybe you'll find the answer there if so feel free to post.

Im not sure what I am looking at here but I will try googling. The other issue is the "evil" serpent approaching Eve specifically and not Adam. The garden and tree are also symbolic along with the fruit which all have Pagan roots. Im not saying it couldn't be coincidence of course but, its not looking that way thus far.

Man made religions attempt to discredit half the human race by portraying them as "weak" to the influence of "evil"...

Thus allowing said manmade religious leaders to keep said half of the human race subjugated for 1000's of years...

AB

Thats one likely reason that the snake approached Eve in the story. Or, the snake would have been more likely to "negotiate" with the female. We just dont totally know what the dynamic was there exactly. However through out the bible, men take center stage. Most of the time. Maybe not entirely but about 98%. Not this story. Bam. The woman is entirely to blame. She's first and foremost upfront. Thats another reason why its suspicious.

So then there is the implication that the snake would choose to speak with the female because the snake was the representation or embodiment of this Paganism. The snake, the woman, the tree, the garden..so on and so forth. Eve would have not been afraid of the serpent. Its only one possible interpretation of course. It would also make sense that the writers would have been contending with these older religions. What would competitors do in a situation like this exactly? Discredit and vilify your competition as best you can. In this case, the woman, the snake, the garden, the tree, the fruit, the Goddess, Paganism....

Another indicator I just noticed this morning while browsing.

Date Genesis was completed

1513 BCE

Date of the height of the Minoan culture and Snake Goddess representation in Crete

1600 BCE

Whoa....

A university professor at a well known institution higher learning challenged his students with this question. “Did God create every thing that exists?” A student bravely replied,”yes he did!” ” God created everything ?” The professor asked . ” Yes sir, he certainly did,”the student replied. The professor answered, ” If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists , and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil.”

The student became quiet and did not reply to the professor’s hypothetical definition. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted how he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth. Another student raised his hand and said, ” May I ask you a question, professor?” “Of course”, replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?” “What kind of question is this? Of course cold exists. Have you never been cold?” The other students snickered at the young man’s question. The young man replied, ” In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the law of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created a word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”

The student continued, “Professor, does darkness exist?”

The professor responded, “Of course it does.”

The student replied, “Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn’t this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.” Finally the young man asked the professor, “Sir, does evil exist?”Now uncertain, the professor responded, “Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of man’s inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil. To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like
the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is
no light.”
The professor sat down.
The young man’s name — Albert Einstein

Goddess Worship during Biblical times:

Further south, as Judaism, Christianity & eventually Islam evolved, the Pagan religions were suppressed and the female principle was gradually driven out of religion. Women were considered inferior to men. The God, King, Priest & Father replaced the Goddess, Queen, Priestess & Mother. The role of women became restricted. A woman's testimony was not considered significant in Jewish courts; women were not allowed to speak in Christian churches; positions of authority in the church were limited to men. Young women are often portrayed in the Bible as possessions of their fathers. After marriage, their ownership was transferred to their husbands. Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ) rejected millennia of religious tradition by treating women as equals. Women played a major role in the early Christian church. Later, epistle (letter) writers who wrote in the name of Paul, started the process of suppressing women once more.

A feminine presence was added to Christianity by the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE when the Virgin Mary was named Theotokos (Mother of God). But her role was heavily restricted and included none of the fertility component present in Pagan religions. A low point in the fortunes of women was reached during the very late Middle Ages, when many tens of thousands of suspected female witches (and a smaller proportion of males) were exterminated by burning and hanging over a three century interval. Today, respect for the Virgin Mary as a sexually "pure," submissive mother is widespread, particularly in Roman Catholicism.

Just some interesting stuff but I have not researched this particular website.

Hear you out? Why. You demonstrate a clear misundersanding of anything demonstrated in the text - an obvious demonstration of not having even read it.

Apples that contain the knowledge of the world?

Where does it say anything about Apples in the bible - or snakes?

Adam & Eve did not gain knowledge of the world.

And the bible is the antithesis of religion.

Come on - if you're going to join in on the discussion, at least give us the impression you know a LITTLE about what you are talking about.

Hey for 21 years old I wouldn't say I am doing that bad.. I DO know enough about you and your posting habits to disregard what you have to say, and I also know enough about catholics to stay away from them...

bye.

sorry SP, eljays not a catholic, but you are free to disregard his post if you wish.

for me the "snake" as you say and as krimsa says as i have already written may not have been a snake - i think that idea mainly comes from god cursing the "SERPENT"and saying ""upon thy belly shall you go and dust[rubbish] shalt thou eat all the days of your lie""

this shows me 2 things, 1) that originally this "animal"- [which again may be no more than a symbol for something else]was an upright animal or maybe even a quadruped as compared to a "snake" which people assume was a snake at least after god said what i state here. but many reptiles crawl on their bellies and eat dust[rubbish] as he states here. lizards, crocodiles/alligators, etc.. so to take is as it "HAS" to be a >snake< is not quite accurate to say the least. Of course it also bothers me that the animal ""talks"" to people? no other animal talks in the old testament except a donkey that gods spirit fell upon to do so, as far as i know - so that was god accoplishing it, not like here in genisis 3.

This animal - definintely is talking of it's own accord without the aid of gods spirit. are we to take it then that this really was an animal? ""or"" could it have been other than an animal? well it says "all the days of your life" so it is definitely not a spiritual being like a devil or demon which cannot be killed. so it had to have been a living being, but i really dont think it was what would be concidered a regular animal. yet alone a serpent/snake.