The serpent in the Garden

MrPolo · Oct 9, 2010

Hello, my Orthodox friends. What do you think is the sort of presence the serpent had in the Garden? After all, it seems as soon as Adam and Eve sinned they were banned from the Garden because sin was not compatible with the dwelling place of God, no? (Gen 3:23-24). So in what way was the devil "in" the Garden?

Any Church Fathers you know address this question?

(I jotted some ideas down, but wanted to see what others came up with)

ProScribe · Oct 9, 2010

I see the Genesis story as allegorical and anecdotal.

Sphinx777 · Oct 9, 2010

.

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Christ's_Warrior · Oct 10, 2010

ProScribe said:
I see the Genesis story as allegorical and anecdotal.

May I ask why?

prodromos · Oct 10, 2010

MrPolo said:
Hello, my Orthodox friends. What do you think is the sort of presence the serpent had in the Garden? After all, it seems as soon as Adam and Eve sinned they were banned from the Garden because sin was not compatible with the dwelling place of God, no?

No. I don't really see how you could come to such a conclusion reading verses 22-24 of the passage you quoted.

ProScribe · Oct 10, 2010

Christ's_Warrior said:
May I ask why?

Because its traditionally what is understood to be the account of how the world was created and made by God. I read somewhere that it was the bedrock of the Christian faith. There's a particular emphasis where God creates Adam and Eve to live in the garden with Him, then man fell into ancestral sin as a result of the Fall. Whether it can be read literally,allegorically,metaphorically is up to the individual person reading the first book of the Bible.

MrPolo · Oct 10, 2010

prodromos said:
No. I don't really see how you could come to such a conclusion reading verses 22-24 of the passage you quoted.

Ok, fine, but do you know of any ECFs who addressed the devil's presence in "paradise"?

Jana Jiráková · Oct 11, 2010

MrPolo said:
Hello, my Orthodox friends. What do you think is the sort of presence the serpent had in the Garden? After all, it seems as soon as Adam and Eve sinned they were banned from the Garden because sin was not compatible with the dwelling place of God, no?So in what way was the devil "in" the Garden?

Any Church Fathers you know address this question?

(I jotted some ideas down, but wanted to see what others came up with)

But the text doesn´t explicitly say that the serpent was IN the garden. Couldn´t it be, that he talked with Eve from some place outside of the garden, far enough from God´s presence ????
I´m not a theologian, so I don´t know, this is just an idea, but I am probably wrong.

MrPolo · Oct 11, 2010

Jana Jiráková;55876805 said:
But the text doesn´t explicitly say that the serpent was IN the garden. Couldn´t it be, that he talked with Eve from some place outside of the garden, far enough from God´s presence ????
I´m not a theologian, so I don´t know, this is just an idea, but I am probably wrong.

That's along the line of thinking I had. This is what I came up with.

How, if sin is incompatible with the Garden, was the serpent there? Certainly the devil, whom tradition says is represented in the figure of the snake, was not in the Garden in a residential sense as were Adam and Eve. The devil, as pure spirit, certainly did not have the same presence with God in the Garden that pre-Fall Adam and Eve did. The passage should be understood such that the devil's wiles had a certain influence of Adam and Eve, as represented in the metaphor of the snake, but we should not conclude he communed with God in the Garden as did God's children. To support this, consider the devil tempting Jesus in the desert (eg. Lk 4:1-13). In that scene, the devil in a proximate sense is "in the presence of God," but in the spiritual sense he remains eternally distant.

What do you think?

And if anyone else has ECFs on this please post.

Kristos · Oct 11, 2010

I have commentaries on Genesis at home that I will try to consult tonight, but...did the serpent sin before Adam and Eve? Sin didn't enter the world through the serpent, it was the transgression of man - specifically to the law that they may not eat from the tree of knowledge. The serpent did not eat from the tree, but was still cursed by God for his involvement. It would that if the serpent was purely metaphorical, then why was it cursed along with Adam and Eve? Each of the curses are then addressed through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, being reversed through His righteousness and obedience, but not that of the serpent - unless I'm missing something. All things were created by God and declared good, so based on that declaration, it would seem that the serpent belonged in the Garden, but it does seem interesting and perhaps worthy of further investigation, that the serpent apparently remains cursed, unredeemed through the economy of the Son, unless it is Man, who through his fulfillment of the command to be master of the created world to also redeem the serpent...? Perhaps this is the sanctification of the world itself? dunno

MrPolo · Oct 11, 2010

Kristos said:
I have commentaries on Genesis at home that I will try to consult tonight, but...did the serpent sin before Adam and Eve? Sin didn't enter the world through the serpent, it was the transgression of man - specifically to the law that they may not eat from the tree of knowledge. The serpent did not eat from the tree, but was still cursed by God for his involvement. It would that if the serpent was purely metaphorical, then why was it cursed along with Adam and Eve? Each of the curses are then addressed through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, being reversed through His righteousness and obedience, but not that of the serpent - unless I'm missing something. All things were created by God and declared good, so based on that declaration, it would seem that the serpent belonged in the Garden, but it does seem interesting and perhaps worthy of further investigation, that the serpent apparently remains cursed, unredeemed through the economy of the Son, unless it is Man, who through his fulfillment of the command to be master of the created world to also redeem the serpent...? Perhaps this is the sanctification of the world itself? dunno

Do share if you find anything in the commentaries. Also, the devil is real and thus could incur punishment from God....by metaphorical I mean the figure of a talking snake in the Garden to represent the influence of the devil on man, through whom sin entered the world.

I also think the serpent sinned prior to man because man was created on the last day. If I'm not mistaken, Orthodox tradition also sees the angels as having undergone a moral test of some kind prior to the creation of man. The passages Gn 1:1 refer to God creating the heavens and the earth on day 1, and Job 38:4-7 refers to the "sons of God" rejoicing when God created the foundations of the earth.

MKJ · Oct 11, 2010

My church is going to be reading Origins commentary on Genesis for a study group this month - I can't go by maybe I will take the reading next week and have a peek.

I have thought a lot about this. I have often wondered why the snake is really necessary to the story at all. If Adam and Eve are really created with free will, wouldn't that imply at least the potentiality to perceive, on their own, the possibility not following God's command? Isn't that the essence of what it is to be a moral being?

And if we say no, then what about the angels themselves? How did they concieve of the idea of choosing rebellion without someone to put a word in their ear?

Which has made me wonder if the snake is really meant to be something from outside at all - maybe it is an externalization of something from within Adam and Eve?

This idea seems to have some difficulties though - what does God mean then when he curses the serpent? And I have not heard this idea anywhere else, which makes me think it must be somehow incorrect.

But in any case, I don't think we have to think of the garden as a real place necessarily, or at least not a place like we know now. And since the devil is a spirit, he could have imparted his idea in some spiritual way to Eve - the snake image may have been more of a literary image.

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The serpent in the Garden

MrPolo

Woe those who call evil good + good evil. Is 5:20

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ProScribe

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Sphinx777

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Christ's_Warrior

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prodromos

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ProScribe

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MrPolo

Woe those who call evil good + good evil. Is 5:20

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Jana Jiráková

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MrPolo

Woe those who call evil good + good evil. Is 5:20

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Kristos

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MrPolo

Woe those who call evil good + good evil. Is 5:20

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MKJ

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