The serpent figures in the paradigmatic story of human origins as the Bible’s first cynic. He has strong ideas about the arbitrary nature of God’s decrees and the selfish motive that lies behind them:
But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not 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.’
The serpent has some convenient data with which to work. God in fact does not give a reason for his unexpected ring-fencing of just one tree when he has already given the whole ranch over to the first couple. It seems so unreasonable and, certainly, asymmetrical. It is the kind of thing that raises suspicions. (more…)
Canter Bridge 