The serpent in the Bible is treated as Eve’s partner in crime, a malevolent seducer who is responsible for humankind’s expulsion from paradise. But did you know there are serpents who figure positively in the Bible? There are serpent priests, a feathered serpent and a healing serpent. Check out this passage:
Be ye therefore wise as serpents
Matthew 10:16
Levites were serpent priests as evidenced by the etymology of their name. The root word levi is seen in the name of the creature “leviathan,” the giant serpent. This is reminiscent of the Pythia, the oracle from Delphi whose title is derived from the root word python.
The feathered serpent referenced in Isaiah 30:6 is a seraph, usually translated as a “fiery flying serpent.”
The healing serpent sits upon a pole that Moses carries:
And the LORD said unto Moses
Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole:
and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten,
when he looketh upon it, shall live.
Numbers 21:8
To this day, two serpents rising on a pole is the sign of health and healing found in doctor’s offices in the form of a caduceus.
Why are serpents so reviled then? Clearly there is more here than meets the eye.
One key to the symbology of the serpent in Eden is its connection to seeds. The serpent, like its close kin, the dragon, mythically guards treasure. For the dragon, that treasure is usually gold and jewels. But for the serpent, it is an even more priceless treasure; the Seeds of Life. Seeds contain all-life-potential. They are a primary agent of spreading life throughout our precious Earth, generating continuous cycles of renewal. The serpent, with its shedding skin, is also about renewal. Mythic World Trees throughout all cultures, have a serpent coiled around and protecting its roots.
In Biblical times, there was a Sumerian goddess named Tiamat who ruled the depths of dark cauldron-like seas. She was supremely chaotic, terrifying and yet the quintessence of fertility, giving birth to both gods and monsters. Her best-known form is that of a sea serpent or dragon. Tiamat makes an appearance in the Bible although completely de-goddess-ified. She is named Tehom and Her power has been translated beyond easy understanding. She is simply called “the deep.”
And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep [tehom].
Genesis 1:2
Picture this: The foundations of life formed in Tiamat’s cauldron mixed with watery elements to create magical seeds of “all-potential.” But to develop roots and grow, the seeds needed land. What if the Great Serpent Creator Goddess Tehom/Tiamat shepherded the seeds safely out of the water? What if She then coiled her serpent body around The One Great Seed of Life to protect it? What if She knew that such a magical seed would grow into a most remarkable Biblical/Mythical Tree in a magical garden called Eden? Wouldn’t these stories be tales of pride not of curses?
As the Goddess of the Tree, Eve, correctly claimed the fruit as Hers. By eating the fruit of the Great Tree, Adam and Eve were able to hold and protect the seeds within their bodies and carry them out of Eden to inseminate life on Earth.
As within, so without. As it was in the beginning, so it continues. In the process of human reproduction our goddess sister bodies protect the fertilizing seed as it travels through dark, harsh and stormy bodily fluids to eventually land and grow life. If successful, new life stays protected within our bodies until it is ready for birth. In Egyptian hieroglyphs, the word for goddess contains the image of a cobra once again confirming the connection of the serpent with fertility and seeds.
As we saw in Part 1, the Tree of Life is a namesake to Eve. So, too, is the serpent. In Arabic and Aramaic, languages from the same source as Hebrew (Central Semitic), the words for snake and life are connected – hayyat.
Eve (hawwah) was energized by an aspect of herself (hayyat) to eat the fruit (with its seeds) from another aspect of Herself, the Tree of Life (ha-hay-yim). The three elements; Tree of Life, Eve, and Serpent are a unity of symbols, the Great Goddess in three symbolic forms, working in harmony to protect, nurture and disperse the precious treasure of the seeds.
Mythically speaking, if Eve had not eaten from the tree there would have been no seeds to propagate life on earth. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is considered a tree of duality while the The Tree of Life represents oneness. For birth to occur, we need to leave the oneness of the heavens to experience the duality which allows for human life. The Fall is simply our birth experience. When Adam is warned that eating of the tree will bring death (Genesis 2:17), that is correct, for such is the fate of all life birthed here on Earth. Eve heroically sacrificed Herself, willingly “falling” to earth and mortality so that we as Her children can experience the gifts of life.
Is this a blessing or curse?
How would our lives be different if our birthright knowledge and the foundational religious writings of our culture were best known as the Blessings of Eve instead of some ill-tempered curse? How would the lives of our mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, husbands and wives be different? It is ancient knowledge and it can be our present and our future!
Janet Rudolph is a twice ordained shaman, the latest as an alaka’i which is a Hawaiian spiritual guide. Rudolph has walked this path for over 20 years traveling around the world to learn and experience original teachings from differing cultures. Using a technique she calls “spiritual forensics” which includes cross-cultural explorations and ancient Hebrew translations, she has delved into the Bible’s pagan roots to uncover its hidden magic. Rudolph has written two books on the subject of ancient Biblical teachings. One Gods: The Mystic Pagan’s Guide to the Bible and When Eve Was a Goddess: A Shamanic Look at the Bible. A third book, When Moses Was a Shaman will be out in 2019.
feminismandreligion.com 
We could also add that as women were the inventors of agriculture, they controlled the cycles of seedtime and harvest, storing seeds from the harvest until it was time to plant them again. I also like to think of snakes as “good little housekeepers” working with women to protect the stored seeds from mice and rats.
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As above so below, as within so without. Mythically the serpent protects the seeds and manifesting they do the same. Mad awesome Carol. I never thought of that angle. Thanks so much for making that connection.
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In that story, Eve and the serpent bring knowledge to humanity, saving them from ignorance…definitely a heroic action!
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Amen to that thesseli!
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Thanks for your posts. They reinforce my amazement that anyone actually believes anything written in the Old Testament, which is ahistorical (there’s no Egyptian record of an Exodus, there was no United Monarchy), written by three or four propagandists, and generally misogynistic. If only “believers” would carefully read and believe the Sermon on the Mount! (I know that’s not in the Jewish Bible, but why not read ahead, so to speak?)
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Thank you for your words Barbara. Yes, it amazes me as well and yet the Old Testament is such a powerful force in our culture. How can we change this? LOL yes to reading ahead. I think I would add “understand” to your “read and believe the Sermon the Mount.” I don’t know to much about it but haven’t even those words been used in a negative manner?
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Yes, believers in that holy book should read, pay attention to, and understand the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is true Christianity. Standard-brand Christianity was more or less invented by Paul the Misogynist. Hooray for Jesus, who I bet would have understood and liked Eve. (Maybe it’s time for us all to reread Elizabeth Cunningham’s Maeve books with their picture of Jesus.)
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I remember being subtly warned in my archaeology courses in college to never, ever mention (outside of class) that there’s absolutely no physical or historical evidence of the Exodus, and that the closest thing to it was the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt.
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Sad that you were warned this could not be discussed thesseli. There actually is one very tantalizing reference to a Moses doing some liberating of his people by removing them from their situation akin to slavery. Below, I have cut and pasted from a footnote in my book One Gods.
The only mention of anyone named Moses found in Egyptian documents (or in any extra-Biblical literature) is from Egyptian priest and historian Manetho who wrote in the 1st century BCE. Unfortunately only a few and fragmentary original writings from Manetho still exist. Most of what we know of his writings comes from the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus who reportedly had access to Manetho’s original texts and quoted his histories. Josephus lived in the first century CE. A Josephus rendition of a Manetho story is about a priest by the name of Osarseph who was considered a liberator of his enslaved and oppressed people. Before leading his people to freedom, Osarseph changes his name to Moses. This is from Manetho by way of Josephus:
“It is said that the priest who framed their constitution
and their laws was a native of Heliopolis,
named Osarseph after the god Osiris, worshipped at Heliopolis;
but when he joined this people he changed his name and was called Moses.”
quoted in Greenberg, Gary, The Moses Mystery, Pereset Press, 2008; 169-175. (Hereafter Moses)
There are major differences, however, between Manetho’s story and the Biblical story. A significant one is that the people that Osarseph/Moses liberated were lepers. This is particularly interesting for many reasons, one being that the topic of leprosy is dealt with many times throughout Exodus.
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Also . . . I have a book coming out in about a month, When Moses Was a Shaman. In that book I discuss at length some possibilities regarding the spiritual nature of Exodus and the journey/quest of the Habiru people to found a new religious belief. Rabbi Gershon Winkler calls the Habiru people “boundary crossers.”
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Oh Barbara, too funny, Yes I agree that Jesus probably would liked Eve. I will check out those Maeve books. I only found this site about 2 months ago and my reading list is fast expanding (that’s a good thing!).
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I love re-framing Biblical stories. Thank you for these posts!
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Yeah Judith Maeryam. I love re-framing them as well. Perhaps though I would express it as uncovering them.
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This is an amazing post and so reassuring in so many ways…lots of serpent validation — women and serpents have a long history together and mythology is rife with stories of serpents carrying the people to earth and giving each tribe everything they needed Yakumama and Sachamama (water and earth) are the serpents in the Amazon… These two stayed with the people – but it was the serpent from the milky way that brought the people to earth.
Here in Northern New Mexico we honor Avanyu, the serpent of the waters – the one who brings the blessed rain to the people so the crops will grow…
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Thank you Sara for your contribution to the theme of serpents. I love that about Avanyu and that a serpent from the Milky Way brought people to earth. There is a rabbinic tradition that says that creation occurred within the skin of the serpent. I have spent many years researching and musing about this. I have to believe that the importance of serpents is key to much spiritual knowledge.
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me too!
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The Garden of Eden story demonizes both women and serpents, both of which were important figures in some of the faiths of surrounding cultures (like Egypt and Minoan Crete). That story is also in line with gods and hero figures of still other cultures killing snakes and female figures — Apollo killing the Python, Marduk killing Tiamat, the Hittite storm god killing Illuyanka, Indra killing Vritra, etc.
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Thank you thesseli, good points and examples. I don’t know that much about the Hittite storm god or Indra killing Vritra. I look forward to looking deeper into that.
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Another wonderful post, Janet, and yet again, you carefully tease away the tangles of distorted patriarchy to show us the treasures within, just waiting for wise sages such as yourself to gift them to your community. Just lovely.
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Oh thank you Trelawney, you brought tears to my eyes. Not only a wonderful compliment but poetic as well. Can I quote you on that?
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