Created in God's Image by Anthony A. Hoekema

Author:Anthony A. Hoekema
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Spirituality
ISBN: 0802808506
Publisher: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans ; c1986.
Published: 1986-02-27T20:00:00+00:00

Was There a Speaking Serpent?

In our earlier discussion of the historicity of Adam and Eve and of the Fall we concluded that Adam and Eve were persons who lived at a certain time in history and that the Fall was a historical event. But this does not fully answer the question of the interpretation of the narrative of the Fall (Gen. 3). While we grant that the Fall occurred at some time in history, should we therefore interpret literally all aspects of this narrative? Or should we interpret some aspects in a nonliteral or symbolic way?

The first thing we should note is that the literary genre of Genesis 1 to 3 is different from the types of literature found in other parts of the Bible, particularly in other historical sections. Ordinarily, Bible writers wrote history based on what they or their informers had witnessed or experienced; sometimes they even had access to certain written documents. But there were no actual witnesses to some of the events described in Genesis 1, such as the creation of the universe and what happened on each of the creation days, the forming of the man from the dust of the earth, and the formation of the woman from Adam's rib. Also, it seems highly unlikely that there was an oral tradition going all the way back to Adam from which the writer of Genesis 1-3 could draw information about the events described in those chapters. According to recent scientific evidence it seems that human beings have been on this earth for possibly hundreds of thousands of years, making it extremely improbable that there could be a dependable oral tradition going all the way back to the beginning. Further, according to Joshua 24:2 and 14, the true knowledge of God had been lost by Abraham and his father before they left Ur of the Chaldees; hence the chain of a true tradition about these early events, if there was such a tradition, would seem to have been broken. Since the writer of Genesis 1-3, therefore, could not consult eyewitnesses to the events he described, and since there was apparently no dependable oral tradition to which he could appeal, we must conclude that the literary genre of these chapters is different from that of other historical sections of the Bible.

This does not mean, however, that what was written in Genesis 3 is not history. The narrative of the Fall in Genesis 3, as we have seen, must be understood as describing an event that happened in history. But the narrative involves a different kind of history-writing than is found, say, in Kings or Chronicles. This raises the question about the literal or nonliteral interpretation of the various aspects of the narrative of the Fall. Must we interpret the serpent literally? How about the speaking of the serpent? How about the two trees: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17) and the tree of life (Gen. 3, 24)?

There have been and are theologians

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