Nachash, Why'd It Hafta Be Nachash? - Episode 031

Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and in this episode I'm going to continue the reading series I've been doing. Geoff Johnson and I didn't quite read through all of Genesis 2 last time, but I've got my good friend Michael Norton here to read Genesis 3 with me.
 Michael's currently in seminary, and he is a fellow certificate holder from the AWKNG School of Theology. Michael has also written a devotional book centered on the concepts of the divine council worldview of the Bible. It's very inexpensive. You can find it on Kindle, and I highly recommend it. He also has a podcast called My Mysterious Bible, where he tackles tough passages. And he does it in bite sized chunks, so both his book and podcast are really easy to digest. I will be linking both his book [00:01:00] and his podcast in the show notes.
So we're going to be reading the first few verses of Genesis 3 together, and focusing a lot on the serpent figure and other interesting things we come across. Again, there's just so much to talk about that it's hard to get very far in our reading, but I don't see that as a problem. It's okay to take our time.
In any case, let's get started.
 All right, I am joined this week by Michael Norton, who is going to be reading Genesis 3 with me, and I'm very excited to do this reading of this chapter. Of course, everyone loves or hates... Or has some sort of opinion on the chapter that we're going to be reading today. I'm going to be reading the net Bible, the new English translation, and Michael is going to be reading the new King James version. Let's just go ahead and have Michael on here, and he's going to introduce himself and tell a little bit about himself. 
Michael Norton: Hi there. My name is Michael Norton, as Carey [00:02:00] said, and, I am a graduate of the AWKNG School of Theology along with Carey. That's where we met. And I am currently a student at Stark College and Seminary locally where I live. And, I am involved in youth ministry. I've written a book called the divine council worldview, a devotional introduction based upon the first couple of semesters of AWKNG School. I have recently started a podcast and that's a bit of an adventure. Kudos to Carey for doing it so well. 
Carey Griffel: It is an adventure and I have been enjoying your episodes.
Your, your podcast is called...
Michael Norton: my Mysterious Bible. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah. And I will be linking that and Michael's devotional book in the show notes for everyone to check out. I highly recommend both. They're not long. They're very digestible. Very good for devotional reading and for [00:03:00] regular Bible study. So, encourage everyone to check all of those out. And we are just going to kind of jump right into the reading of Genesis 3.
And again, I will be reading from the Net Bible, which is the New English translation. It is a very accessible version that you can read free online. You can just go to netbible. org, N E T Bible dot org. That's where you can find the net Bible and it has very extensive notes. so for the Bible student, this version is a very good version to be reading, especially alongside another traditional version, because it has a lot of things that are a little bit different that's going to pop out at you and you're going to say, why is it like that? And then you're going to go research those things and you'll know way more about your Bible after doing so. 
All right. So I'm going to be starting in verse one, and I'm not sure how far we'll get but we'll see. No promises when we start out. No [00:04:00] promises.
 Now, the serpent was shrewder than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, is it really true that God said you must not eat from any tree of the orchard? I'm going to leave it at that and hand it over to Michael.
Michael Norton: Okay. And I'll be reading from the New King James. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Carey Griffel: Alright, so immediately we have some differences in our translations. What pops out to you, Michael, at first?
Michael Norton: Well, it's just such a different style. I mean, being two modern translations. , it's still a very, very different style with the new King James being so beholden to the King [00:05:00] James. And it's different, but it's still basically the same thing. The serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which Lord God had made versus was shrewder than any of the wild animals. I think shrewder is a very interesting choice of words to me anyway. what are you seeing here?
Carey Griffel: Yeah, the difference between that is the first thing that kind of pops out at me. so I don't know, would, you say that cunning and shrewdness are two different things? Is there any kind of subtlety between those in your understanding? 
Michael Norton: They're similar, certainly. they're not identical though. 
Carey Griffel: the King James version, the original King James version says that the serpent was subtle, was more subtle than any beast of the field. 
Michael Norton: Subtle. More subtle. I think I like the original King James, shrewd is just, has a different connotation, you know, [00:06:00] than, than cunning or subtle. 
Carey Griffel: And a lot of other versions use crafty crafty.
Yes. Yeah. Like I said, the new English translation has some extensive notes. So let me read what it says about shrewd.
 the note that it has under the term shrewder there says, There is a word play in Hebrew between the words naked and shrewd. The point seems to be that the integrity of the man and the woman is the focus of the serpent's craftiness. At the beginning, they are naked and he is shrewd.
Afterward, they will be covered and he will be cursed.
It also says the Hebrew word basically means clever. This idea then polarizes into the nuances cunning in a negative sense in Job 5:12, 5:15 and prudent in a positive sense in Proverbs 12:16 and a whole bunch of other proverbs. This same [00:07:00] polarization of meaning can be detected in related words derived from the same root.
The negative nuance obviously applies in Genesis 3, where the snake attempts to talk the woman into disobeying God by using half truths and lies. But since God's original creation was good, the serpent's natural sagacity has been perverted and exploited. The second comment shows that he used feigned ignorance for the first. He was aware of the emphasis on surely dying, and aware of knowing good and evil by the tree, ideas Eve had not mentioned. He showed knowledge beyond the capacity of animals. He lied and so was disloyal to God. These facts indicate control of the serpent by a supernatural being. Okay, so that jumps into a whole lot of information, just from that one word.
Michael Norton: oh, that's a lot from that one word. I had kind of put that in my notes in preparation, that, [00:08:00] uh, Arun means cunning, crafty, and clever, and can also mean prudent. I don't know if I'd apply that to the serpent in Genesis 3, but... But all the rest certainly fits. Right?
Carey Griffel: it's really interesting. You have the negative and the positive. And somebody first reading this might not know Which use of the term to even apply to the serpent, especially because we have the creation that is supposed to be all good. We don't have any indication yet of any bad guys in the text. 
Michael Norton: That is absolutely true. That is absolutely true. There's a, well, it's, that's a very interesting point because this is a perfect ideal setting, you know, where this shrewd, cunning serpent is unhappy. But they're in a perfect ideal setting. This is, this would be foreign to them. You know, this, this craftiness, this shrewdness would be foreign to Adam and Eve in [00:09:00] my opinion.
Carey Griffel: I think you're right. And I wonder how much the shrewdness factor applies to what we'll get into about the knowledge of the good and evil of the tree. Like, what does that even mean? I think this might help us a little bit in understanding the meaning of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Michael Norton: Yeah. Yes. I'm, I'm tracking with you there a hundred percent.
Carey Griffel: but we kind of have skipped over who the serpent is entirely. because , this word here just is the one that pops out. We're so used to seeing the serpent. We're so used to thinking about the snake in the garden. That sometimes we don't realize how strange this really is in certain ways. 
Michael Norton: yes, it's absolutely strange because there's no indication that talking animals were a norm in the Garden of Eden.
So this talking serpent is is a strange thing to wrestle with.[00:10:00] 
Carey Griffel: And I don't think any versions say snake. I think they all say serpent, as far as I know. 
Michael Norton: As far as I know, that is correct. , it's all serpent from the Hebrew word, nechash, as, , you know, we've learned. 
Carey Griffel: Well, there's got to be some version somewhere.
Let me see. Oh, the Bible in Basic English. I don't know what that version is. I'm looking at Blue Letter Bible and it has the Bible in Basic English and it uses the word snake. It says, now the snake was wiser than any beast of the field. 
Michael Norton: Hmm. That's a, that's an interesting way to translate it. Hmm. It changes some of the connotation.
Carey Griffel: It does. And the word wiser there, it's like, that's not negative. That's pretty positive.
Michael Norton: No, no, it's not negative. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah, it's, it's, that's not giving any indication that this word can have both a negative and a positive connotation. Whereas I do think we, we [00:11:00] understand that both cunning and shrewdness can have some sort of utility in the real world, it's not necessarily a negative. 
Michael Norton: Unless it's turned that way, you know, with bad intention. That's, uh, it doesn't necessarily mean negative. 
Carey Griffel: it's all about the motivation and your goals and what you're trying to accomplish. 
Michael Norton: Absolutely. Absolutely. 
Carey Griffel: So the word serpent, that's the word nechash in Hebrew.
Michael Norton: Correct. would you like me to say a few things about that or? Absolutely. So, uh, and I have this in my notes too. The Hebrew word for serpent may be connected with either the adjective slash noun, meaning bronze, suggesting that something is shiny, or the verb meaning to practice divination or as a noun, it just simply can mean [00:12:00] serpent.
Two things are said about the serpent. First, a word about his character. He's crafty. He's subtle. This is a neutral word in the Old Testament and may either be commendable or reprehensible. Second, there is a word about his origin. He was made by God. This point is stressed to make it plain that the serpent is a divine being, but he is not co equal with God.
So, uh, I don't know how deeply you want to get into the nechash, but,
 but. Let's do it. Okay. Okay. Uh, so the nachash is a serpent, but he's obviously a divine being, and the Garden of Eden is sacred space, and there are guardians of sacred space called the cherubim, and they have animal-like characteristics. There's a subset [00:13:00] of the cherubim called seraphim, and a seraph is a snake-like a serpentine cherub.
And it would make perfect sense that, since we know that the devil is a cherub, and he is a serpent, that he would be one of these serpentine cherubs, known as a seraph. And that's just... It's probably going to be new to a lot of people who are listening to your podcast, but it's a pretty straightforward and I think it makes a lot of sense way to approach this serp, this talking serpent who is a cherub and, it's not just a snake.
Uh, I mean, we can obviously see that. So that's just something for, for, you know, the audience to research and mull over for themselves. 
Carey Griffel: And what are some of the ways that we know about this kind of imagery from the ancient Near East?
Michael Norton: That's an excellent question. Um, [00:14:00] the Seraphs come from Egyptian iconography of these beings.
And there's, of course, Egyptologists have recorded all types of, you know, pictures and ancient writings on, on these, this is the, this is the way they were perceived in Egypt. Now that is carried over into the Bible and of course, Egypt and the ancient Israelites had interaction as we know. So it carries over into the Hebrew Bible and into Hebrew thought and iconography.
So that I think is basically where we're getting this Seraph imagery from. Does that make sense? 
Carey Griffel: Totally. So I think that a lot of the context of the earlier chapters of Genesis is very rooted in Mesopotamia, but I think there's a lot of these little seeds that we can see that are also very [00:15:00] connected to Egypt.
Michael Norton: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's correct. They're, they are part of their environment of, of their known world, which is the ancient Near East and they interact with these other cultures. And, you know, of course we have the stories, , of them being enslaved in Egypt that comes later, but, you know, they, they have a lot.
Of course, the Bible is probably written after that point, so there's, they are very, very familiar with. All things Egypt, especially, and, and the other cultures around them as well.
Carey Griffel: I recently heard somebody who wanted to make the connection that the serpent in the garden had something to do with the imagery of kingdom and empire in particular. And I don't think this person had any reason for thinking that in particular, as far as like the imagery of the snake, I was trying to get into the idea, well, where do you, why [00:16:00] do you think, particularly, that the snake would have something to do with empire and the idea was, well, you know, Egypt had snakes and Egypt was an empire. That's not really how these kinds of imagery are supposed to work. No, we, we don't need to be bringing in our own modern ideas or. You know, making connections in the text and then saying this is what it means to me, because that's what I see. What we need to be doing is looking at the ancient imagery of all of these things and seeing how those things were understood at the time.
and there's plenty of that to go around. There's so many imageries. You have temple carvings of these creatures and things like that. So that's how we know that this was probably the context of the serpent in the garden because this was the imagery of the time and the way that they would have been understood at the time. [00:17:00] 
Michael Norton: Absolutely. That is 100% correct. That, uh, that this is absolutely the most logical way to understand the serpent and language about the rebel in Genesis three. It is to take it back to that context. And it's, and it, it really.
 It seems just to make sense to me to approach it this way and, and not read into it some other meanings , that are a stretch, like the one you, you mentioned, you know. 
Carey Griffel: Yes. What about the fact that both of our versions indicate that the serpent is in fact, an animal, it, it calls that out specifically.
Michael Norton: Yeah, it does. It does. And that's an interesting, that's an interesting point because, it is a serpent, but obviously isn't a garden snake we'd run across or even. Any, any type of same group [00:18:00] we're going to run across because it's crafty. It's intelligent. It's articulate. It has an agenda beyond just this next meal.
 It has several layers of meaning, but. I do believe that it is a divine being just because of all those things. It has this intelligence, and then there's the, the triple and entre of the word to begin with. , so that's lost in, in our translation unless you go researching and looking for that data or, are blessed to you know, come across it. And, and of course, like we did with Dr. Heiser, , you know, that, the plain reading would say now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field. , and I can see where people are going to latch onto that, but I, I can't just take that alone and ignore all the rest of, the description here. and like I said, especially with the, multiple meanings of the word[00:19:00] , that it is just a simple use of the field and where do you land on that? 
Carey Griffel: Yeah. So I think that this is something I've thought about a lot before and I've talked to people a lot about it so that I'm trying to work through all of the ideas and I'm trying to think about the different perspectives that we can have on this.
So, up till this point, no other spiritual beings are mentioned. We know that they have been created. We see in Job 38 that the sons of God are already in creation. So there are already spiritual beings, but that's not the point of the text. Once we get to Genesis 2, and even in Genesis 1, the epitome is humankind and the creation of people.
So there's no focus on the spiritual realm. And so we shouldn't really be surprised that they're not mentioned [00:20:00] anywhere specifically outright Because it's not the point of the text. The text is very tightly written and everything in it is geared towards the purposes of what these chapters are.
So up till this point we have no mention of spiritual beings So if we suddenly have an angel or some being of light up here or whatever, and it's described that way, well, where did that come from? Nothing has led up to that. And also I think the main point of this is that Adam and Eve were shown to have dominion on earth, right?
They were shown to have dominion over everything on earth. This being? The serpent? He is on earth. He is appearing as a creature, who should be subject to Adam and Eve. so I think the point of the text is that [00:21:00] instead of listening to the serpent, Eve should have engaged her dominion over it. Because he was in her realm where she had dominion over the serpent. 
Michael Norton: Yes. You're absolutely correct. Absolutely correct on that. 
Carey Griffel: Now, if he had been described as an angel or whatever, then there would be question. Does she have dominion over that kind of a creature or not?
Because he belongs to the spiritual realm, but described as he is, it is 100% absolutely clear that she was the one who should have had dominion over him and not been subject to whatever he said. 
Michael Norton: That is that is 100% correct I agree with you. 
Carey Griffel: And also I think the text is just being consistent with its imagery. I think the serpent is the spiritual being, but I don't think that's the focus of the text It's not like [00:22:00] she should have been in awe of this being or anything. He was just a member of God's creation who, once he engaged in her realm, he was subject to her because they were the ones who are the vice regents of God.
Michael Norton: And since this type of being would have been a protector of sacred space, even as a spiritual being, it may not be foreign to her at all. Right. Cause she's living in sacred space right now. So, I, I know it's, it's such, such an interesting thing to talk about and speculate about and, and frankly, we have to speculate quite a bit on on it just because it doesn't, you know, answer all these questions we have plainly for us.
But, , like I said, in this area of sacred space that we see when they get [00:23:00] cast out, what's guarding the way back cherubs, cherubim, if I'm going to use the Hebrew. , this this is an intersection between heaven and earth, and it's very possible that she's seeing one of these beings is not an uncommon thing whatsoever for her, but of course it is written just as you said, the narrative is written in the natural world, not focusing on the supernatural, even in this intersection of the two in the Garden of Eden. So that's that's very interesting to me. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah, I think that , there's a lot to be said for this part of the like, we're one whole verse into the chapter. So there's, there's just so much here and, we need to talk about it a lot because we are so apart from the imagery in time of Of the natural writers and they would have [00:24:00] understood this naturally. We have to work at it.
Michael Norton: Yes, it goes back to that. This was written in a context that is thousands and thousands and thousands of years removed from us and on the other side of the planet. So We cannot just read it and use our imagination. We need to put in the work to go back and learn the cultural context and the iconography and the literary context of this so that we can even begin to approach it on its own terms and not our terms, you know, the Bible in its own context and not in our modern 21st century context. 
Carey Griffel: So your translation says garden, and my translation said orchard.
Michael Norton: Yes, that's interesting, isn't it?
Carey Griffel: [00:25:00] Looking at various other translations I have pulled up, they all say garden. and I think that's the word that is used in Hebrew, , the natural reading of that is garden. it's used elsewhere in scripture, of course, for paradise. It's the same word for paradise.
Michael Norton: I wonder what prompted the change between the two translations. 
Carey Griffel: It does have a note here in the net Bible. it's not super specific, but it says in Hebrew, it says you must not eat from all the trees of the orchard after the negated prohibitive verb from all has the meaning from any. This construction is also seen in Leviticus 18:26, where the statement, you must not do from all these abominable things means you must not do any of these abominable things.
So, he's specifically talking about all of the trees, pointing that out specifically. So it doesn't say why it chose the word orchard, [00:26:00] but I think because of the focus on the trees of the garden, that's why it's using that word to just kind of put an emphasis on the trees. 
Michael Norton: Yeah, that makes sense. If you're going to focus on the trees, it makes sense to, phrase it that way, I suppose. 
Carey Griffel: Yes, it's just unfortunate when they make these choices to obscure the actual text, because then you're not able to make hyperlinks between this and other places because of the similar uses. So this is why we use multiple translations so that we can kind of get the benefit of people pointing out specific things while also being able to get into the original language, even if we can't understand the original language.
 All right, well, let's move on to verse number two, two, the NET says, the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard, [00:27:00] but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard, God said, you must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.
Michael Norton: the new King James says, And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.
 So, that is pretty straightforward, I think. Did you, uh, notice anything very divergent between the two? 
Carey Griffel: I think they're pretty similar, other than the continued use of the word orchard. So, at least my version is being consistent in that word. 
Michael Norton: Yes, yes. of course, the new King James uses garden.
Carey Griffel: Now, let's just continue on because the, the next point we can make is going to be brought forward, in the text, I think. [00:28:00] In verse four, it says, the serpent said to the woman, surely you'll not die. For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will open and you will be like God knowing good and evil.
Michael Norton: Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.
Okay. So. What does it mean to know good and evil? Uh, at this point, that, that's the kind of the, the big question, isn't it?
Carey Griffel: It certainly is. 
Michael Norton: And I think we were tracking on that a little bit earlier. 
Carey Griffel: It has some sort of connection, it seems, with the shrewdness or cunningness of the snake.
Michael Norton: So there was a being that had the knowledge of good and evil already. And Adam and Eve did not, they did not have this shrewdness. They did not have this craftiness. They did not have [00:29:00] the, you know, these tools and they're confronted with a being that does, and they lacked the knowledge to understand where these, a trap was laid for them they should not have needed this knowledge in Eden. Whereas Satan did have this knowledge and uses his craftiness to take advantage of their integrity. That quality of shrewdness and subtleness is not evil in itself, but the way we see it used here, it was used for an evil purpose. Does that make sense? 
Carey Griffel: Yes, and I think that there's something a little bit later that indicates that the spiritual beings, the Elohim, as I have talked about previously on episodes, do have that knowledge of good and evil that humans don't have. I think there's something we can really say definitively in the text.
Michael Norton: Yes, absolutely. I, like I said, I think my claim here is that [00:30:00] Satan had that knowledge and used it against them because they did not have that knowledge and they did not have those tools that the Elohim had because they were in the state of innocence where they shouldn't need them. They were in this supposed to be a safe place and this sacred space where they shouldn't need them yet, at any rate. So, yeah, I, I think we're in agreement on that one. 
Carey Griffel: Yeah. I mean, we can jump ahead to, to verse 22 in chapter three, which says, and the Lord God said, now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. 
Michael Norton: Yes, that kind of seals it right there, doesn't it? That the Elohim did have this knowledge, and it wasn't meant for [00:31:00] man, yet. 
Carey Griffel: And God wouldn't have been looping in a measly little snake as having the knowledge of good and evil. 
Michael Norton: Correct. 
Carey Griffel: So, the NET Bible, starting in verse 6, it says, When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Michael Norton: Okay. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were [00:32:00] opened, and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
Carey Griffel: So the word wise, is that the same word as cunning or shrewd? 
Michael Norton: I'm not sure. I can look at that though. No, this one is... Haskew. It's a different word.
 And it means, uh, to have success in understanding or comprehending.
 So, uh, it looks like we're looking at two different, two different words here with a slightly different meaning.
Carey Griffel: Okay. So the NET does have a little note here for the word wise. It says desirable for making one wise, the quest for wisdom can follow the wrong course as indeed it does here. No one can become like God by disobeying God. It is that simple. The Book of Proverbs stresses that obtaining wisdom [00:33:00] begins with the fear of God that is evidenced through obedience to his word.
 Here in seeking wisdom, Eve disobeys God and ends up afraid of God.
That good was the tree for food and that desirable it was to the eyes and desirable was the tree to make one wise. On the connection between moral wisdom and the knowledge of good and evil, see the note on the word evil in 2:9. 
So, for those who are getting into the NET Bible, you can see how extensive these notes are and how it kind of interconnects a lot of the passages to help our Bible studies.
 But you can also see that when you translate Hebrew into English, you have to do a lot of kind of word order changing because when you directly change from Hebrew to English, it becomes very strange to understand. It said that good was the tree for food and that desirable it was to the eyes and desirable [00:34:00] was the tree to make one wise,
Michael Norton: yeah, that's a, that's noteworthy because that just tells us how different they're thinking in their language and in their rules of language and, and just how different their thoughts must be from ours. Just because, uh, their language and The structure of it is so different than anything we're familiar with that it just seems almost alien to us when it's put that way, right?
Carey Griffel: Right. Well, and , it's true that, you know, scientists have understood that the way we use language and the way we think are very connected, 
Michael Norton: very interconnected. Yes. 
Carey Griffel: the idea of wisdom is a really big theme in the Bible. And the only way you get wisdom, according to the Bible and according to reality is from God.
And yet here Eve is, she's got this beautiful tree in [00:35:00] front of her and the serpent says, Hey, notice this tree over here. And she's like, Oh yeah, it is pretty cool tree. It looks delicious. And I think it looks like it's going to make me wise. That's, that's an interesting conclusion to make. 
Michael Norton: It is, it is, it is.
Um. I always contrast this in my mind against the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, how the devil tempts him and, and he holds on to wisdom and the word of God to defeat the temptation that the devil is, putting in front of him. Whereas Adam, Adam and Eve didn't, you know, that's always a contrast in my mind.
I mean, it's not fair to compare them to Jesus. That's obviously because we all fall short of that, but because I would have messed up too in the garden, I'm sure I'm sure of it now, but, I, I see those as, you know, something that could be compared to [00:36:00] and studied against each other.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. I love that you made that connection because well, that's one reason people connect the serpent with the Satan figure, right? And that's a whole other subject itself, but it's very relevant to our discussion here. So do you want to talk a little bit about that?
It's a really big subject. 
Michael Norton: It is a big subject, but, uh, of course it's a different time, it's a new Testament time. Jesus has the old Testament. Satan tries to twist the words of God. It's kind of what he did, you know, Hey, God did not surely, you know, God didn't really mean that, you know, you can go ahead and eat.
That's what he's doing in the garden. He tries something similar with Jesus and Jesus stands firm upon, the commandments of God and the word of God. And that is what defeats the devil and sends him fleeing away from Jesus in this wilderness [00:37:00] temptation. So, the takeaway there would be that despite what your flesh says or your mind says or what the devil says, we need to stay rooted and grounded and standing upon the foundation of the word of God in our toughest, most trying situations. 
Carey Griffel: That's all great because I think those are the main points that we should be focusing on here, to be honest. Like, we tend to think, oh, is Satan really a snake? And, you know, all of these other kinds of nitty gritty, very materialistic thinking answers, , but the other thing that we have to understand is that there is that difference in understanding.
 We have the serpent in the garden and we have Satan as we assume a human looking figure who is interacting with Jesus, right? So, you know, are those the same things? And and recently I've talked a lot about Adam and Eve being [00:38:00] archetypes. And we know we have Christ, and Christ is the second Adam.
So we need to be making these kinds of connections. And it's very clear in the temptation narrative. It's called the temptation narrative for a reason. When we use the word temptation, we're thinking of the devil. We're thinking of this situation in Genesis 3 with the serpent who is tempting Eve. So I think we are absolutely meant to make those connections.
Now, the question that we tend to get a little bit confused on when somebody brings up these kinds of ideas sometimes is the ancient person wouldn't have been thinking of the serpent by the name Satan. Right? That, that's, that's a name that comes later who is attached to this being. 
I know I get a lot of questions from people about Dr. Heiser's understanding of the term Satan. In Job, the term [00:39:00] is the Satan, and that's not a name. It becomes a name later in time, which means that the readers of the Old Testament wouldn't have exactly made all of these little connections, but it doesn't really matter that they didn't. The imagery is there, the archetypes are there, the fact that we have evil tempting humanity.
Those are the things that we should be focusing on and not trying to insert later ideas into earlier ideas, but it's not even necessary to do that. Just read the Bible as we have it, where we have earlier revelation and later revelation, where the later revelation is shedding light on the earlier revelation. It doesn't mean that people at the time understood everything that we understand now.
 That's not how revelation works. 
Michael Norton: Right. And even Satan in the Old Testament is not one time [00:40:00] a proper personal noun. And in Job, it's Hasatan, the Satan. And Hebrew, like English, does not tolerate a definite article in front of a proper personal noun. So, it's not until that intertestamental period, that space between the Old and New Testament, that writers of that period start using this term Satan as a description for that rebel from Genesis 3.
You know, this profile gets built up in that, throughout the Old Testament and in that intertestimental period, they started applying this as a term for him and it sticks and it becomes a name by the time of the New Testament. It is a way of referring to this, to the devil, to Satan, to that serpent of Genesis three.
 but like I said, in the Old Testament, it's not one time is it a proper personal noun and [00:41:00] writers and readers and people at that time didn't really have this Satan devil concept that we have today, that's developed later on, we read it back into the Old Testament, like in Job, but it doesn't belong, especially in Job, it doesn't belong there. 
Carey Griffel: Well, and the reason why this matters is because the word Satan is used throughout the Old Testament to not necessarily mean any kind of evil creature or being at all. 
Michael Norton: Yeah , it's even used for the angel of the Lord once because he's opposing someone it's opposition, it's an adversary and that's all that it means.
And in Hebrew, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament is an opposer or an adversary. So, like I said, it's used for an Edomite man. It's used for , even the angel of the Lord. That can not possibly mean the devil. That's just, you know, that's heresy. 
Carey Griffel: Right. Do you happen to [00:42:00] remember where that is? 
Michael Norton: Uh, I could look it up pretty quick. 
Carey Griffel: yeah, let's, pull that up and talk about that for just a second.
Michael Norton: So it's used for the angel of the Lord is in numbers 22 and it's used for an Edomite man in first Kings 11. So both of those obviously cannot be referring , to the devil. 
Carey Griffel: Okay, let's look at the passage in Numbers 22. So Numbers 22 is the passage with Balaam and the donkey and all of that. We have someone who wants to curse Israel and he hires Balaam to do that and Balaam tries and he fails.
Michael Norton: Yes. So, I'll read it from the ESV. But God's anger was kindled because he went and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as his adversary. 
And the Hebrew behind the word adversary there [00:43:00] for the angel of the Lord is Satan.
So, this is clearly cannot be referring to the serpent from Genesis three or the devil figure that we see, you know, into the new, in the new Testament. 
Carey Griffel: So it turns out that the way words are used, it matters and the way words are used can change over time to mean something different than it meant earlier.
 So that's why we need to be really careful with our language here. I don't call the serpent in the garden, Satan, even though progressive revelation has shown it is the same figure. And we can look at the temptation narrative with Jesus. We can look at passages in revelation that talk about the dragon.
And the dragon can really only be talking about the serpent in Genesis. so there are these connections, but we need to be [00:44:00] careful in not imposing the later understanding on the earlier text. And it's perfectly fine that we're just using the biblical language to talk about things, right? We don't have to insert the word Satan into Genesis three, just because that's our understanding.
If we leave the Bible's text to the way that people of the time understood it, then that becomes very helpful in getting our minds into their minds, which is a very difficult process.
Michael Norton: Yes, it is. It really is. 
I think I would say this, that Adam and Eve sought divinity by listening to the serpent and it cannot be achieved by the promises of Satan. So a lot of people today are trying to seek it through pagan beliefs and symbols, and that's the way of death, not life. [00:45:00] I know that that's pretty straightforward, but, the idea is just guard your heart, you know, don't give a place for the devil to come in and nudge you off track and, and take you astray, guard your heart so you can stay in that relationship. You can stay in the dwelling place God has made for you in that fellowship with him and don't let anyone or any spirit or anything nudge you out of that or tempt you away from it or lead you, astray in any any way that's going to compromise your relationship with Jesus and I guess that's that's all I could say about that.
Carey Griffel: It's very practical to look at this chapter and try and see ourselves in it. I think that's what we're supposed to be doing. And I think you can also take this and look at the rest of [00:46:00] scripture and see how pretty much everyone in the rest of scripture also did what Adam and Eve did. 
Michael Norton: Time after time after time, and even the good guys, even David, you know, even the best of our figures in the Old Testament, they make their mistakes as do we all, you know. 
Carey Griffel: and God time after time is the one who comes after us and who is the one to forgive us. I 've seen a lot of people wonder, well, why is David the big figure of the Old Testament?
Why is he so special when he did this and he did this and he did this and we don't like to see that. We don't like that he is regarded so highly in scripture regarded clearly so highly by God, 
Michael Norton: a man after God's own heart, I mean, as he's described. 
Carey Griffel: And yet he sinned. And sinned in terrible ways that, and of course, we kind of want to prioritize sin, right?
 We don't really admit that we do all the time, [00:47:00] but we do. It's like, this is a worse sin and that guy over there, at least I don't do things that he did. So why is he being forgiven when I'm over here struggling with my sins There's a whole lot of worry about our sins and what that means, and a whole lot of worry about other people's sins and what those mean, when we really should be focusing a bit more on ourselves and the fact that God is the one who comes in and rescues us every single time.
Michael Norton: Every single time. Yeah. It's all him. It's always him. 
Carey Griffel: I think also that it's really interesting that the imagery is a serpent because this is an image that we all pretty much kind of understand that there's this primal fear of serpent figures. 
Michael Norton: Also, there may be a polemic element here because a serpent.[00:48:00] was widely worshipped in the ancient Near East, especially in Egypt.
 As an example, Apophis, the ancient, Egyptian god of chaos was a serpent. He was a shadow serpent. , so there were, there was this dark Kind of serpent imagery already present in the ancient Near East. And there was a lot of serpent worship , so I'm not saying that it wasn't a serpent, but there could be a polemic element again, you know, poking the eye to those other, you know, religions and their, their serpent gods as well.
Carey Griffel: It's also the case that serpent imagery wasn't across the board negative. That's true. You know, the, the throne guardian idea, that's not negative. Oh no, no, no. Yeah, so, but, so that's another thing that we need to kind of keep in mind that something that means something in scripture one place doesn't necessarily mean it everywhere.
Like we have [00:49:00] the time where Moses lifts up the serpent staff in the wilderness. We're like, why is that a serpent? Are we supposed to be thinking of the devil there? Obviously not. But that doesn't make any sense. And so I think that kind of feeds into the idea that when the serpent enters the story and he's crafty and he's cunning and he's shrewd. That's not necessarily automatically a negative thing. The serpent being in the garden, even though we think of serpents as creepy and scary, and we want to stay away from them, like, in a primal way, he's not necessarily entering the story as an evil figure to begin with. 
Michael Norton: And those things, the craftiness, the shrewdness, the intelligence, those are gifts that God put in him to serve God with.
But he corrupted them and served himself instead of serving God with his gifts. He was service. He was self serving [00:50:00] and that's so again, probably a warning to us all that, you know, whatever gifts God has given to us, they're for his glory and not ours. 
Carey Griffel: And every gift that we have can be used for either good or evil.
Yes. All right, well, thank you, Michael, for coming in. 
Michael Norton: Thank you for having me on. It's such an honor and a pleasure to, , have been invited on and, participate in this. 
Carey Griffel: If you'd like to come back and we can finish Genesis 3, that would be great.
Michael Norton: Uh, that might be a whole series, uh, uh, that's a possibility. 
Carey Griffel: There's a lot to be said for this chapter, but, , I think we got to a really good place and kind of focusing on what we can see in the text and focusing on the imagery of the ancient Near East, those are really essential for our [00:51:00] Bible study and for just understanding the Bible at large.
This, we tend to think of Genesis 3 as this whole thing in Christianity, right? This is the reason that the world is the way it is. Like, okay, that's cool and all, but what we need to be really reading into it is ourselves. What does this have to say about us? And what does this have to say about God? And how do those things intersect?
And how can we then live better lives because of it? All right, well, I hope that we can have another chat 
Michael Norton: yeah, we'll set that up and make it happen. Thank you. 
Carey Griffel: Great. Awesome. Thank you, Michael.

 Before I close down the episode, I wanted to say a little more about this figure that we know of as Satan. Because I do think this is kind of a tough thing for people who are not used to biblical theology. In systematic theology, what you do is you look through the entire Bible  and you decide what the Bible says about a given thing.

So when you're systematically looking at the Bible, and you're trying to figure out  who this evil figure is, who shows up in Genesis 3, and who may possibly be mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament, though I'm not really convinced of it personally, but who definitely shows up during the temptation of Christ, and who is definitely mentioned in the New Testament, and who is the dragon of Revelation 12,  Then naturally, you don't really have a problem with just inserting the understanding of this figure wherever we see him showing up, right?

 That's a problem for biblical theology, though. And it's a problem because what we're trying to do in biblical theology is get into the head of the ancient writer. And if the original writer did not understand the serpent figure as the arch nemesis of God, And if we import that understanding back into the text  that we're reading in Genesis, then we're not quite grasping the way the text would have been read by the original audience.

That's not to say that we're wrong to say that it's the same figure,  but entering upon our reading with that understanding  means that we're really not being faithful readers of the text  that's right in front of us.  I know that's kind of a different paradigm of reading scripture than we might be used to.

 It's the same thing in the book of Job. I'm not saying that the Satan in Job absolutely cannot be the serpent or the devil.  I think it's possible,  but I don't think the writer would have been thinking that, and if the writer wasn't thinking that,  then should we be reading the book of Job as if this is the devil?  You see, there are two different authors of the Bible,  of every book of the Bible. There's God, and God obviously knows everything, but there's the human author, and the human author didn't know everything, so his readers didn't know everything either.

 And though we know more than the Old Testament readers knew, because we have the revelation of Jesus Christ, that doesn't mean that we should import our understanding back into what we're reading, because the point of our reading is to understand what the author is conveying. 

So how did we get from the Old Testament to the New Testament in this new understanding of who the devil is? Well, we like to call the time between the Testaments the Silent Period. But it wasn't silent. It had a lot of writing going on. And there was a lot of thinking being done. There were dots being connected, just like we do today.

 Also, when I say that Satan doesn't show up elsewhere in the Old Testament, that might not be quite right. We have two passages where human kings are being compared to what might be the serpent from Genesis 3. There is some debate about this, at least as far as one of the passages in particular.  these are Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.

And I'm not going to go into those in detail, but you will be able to find some information online. And also, if you just do a search, For Naked Bible Podcast episodes regarding those, you'll find some really good data about that.  beyond the Old Testament, for much more than that, we really do need to get into Second Temple literature to see the progression of this figure.

And the data is a bit messy, to say the least.

Part of that is because the terminology is hard to follow. There are many, many terms and names, which may or may not apply to the same figures. So, it's hard to tell if a writer is talking about or thinking about the serpent figure or the devil or not. And in the New Testament, even Satan is called more than just Satan.

Oh, and you might be thinking also about the term Lucifer, right? That's a very common name for Satan today. But the term Lucifer came after the New Testament. That's from the Latin translation.  So when you have translations of languages and ideas that are kind of being shaped and directed in certain ways, it becomes very hard to sort it out.

Just as an example,  in the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have the term Satan that shows up, and it's clear that it's not just talking about the main devil. It's like a category. It says, let no Satan or unclean spirit have dominion over me.

So, here, it's like Satan is used in the same way we would use the term demon, or the kind of evil spirit that would, we would say, possess someone, or something like that.

 Of course, we could also read that as, as actually talking about the devil, and saying,  Satan himself, or an unclean spirit.

  But whether we have a personal name or a category, it's kind of hard to tell,  because we don't now have the definite article present. It doesn't say the Satan, or a Satan, it just says Satan. And that could be a category, could be a name, we don't really know.

  In other texts, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, it's pretty clear that the term Satan is still used as a term just for adversary as well.

 My point is, we would like language to be nice and clear, and it's simply not. And it's also very clear to see that there is a progression of thought,  and not every writer, was thinking the same thing. Which makes it really hard to kind of compare and contrast different texts. Anyway, I'm not saying that you can't trust your systematic theology regarding what it says about Satan.

I'm just suggesting that it's a really good idea to approach the Bible, and each book of the Bible, according to how the writer and the original readers would have been thinking. That in and of itself is good, faithful reading, and will help us form good interpretations. 

If you are interested in studying and reading about the progression of the understanding of this figure that we now know of as Satan, I recommend Dr. Heiser's book, Demons, what the Bible really says about the powers of darkness. But it is a pretty in depth read, and it's not really super enthralling. So there's a lot of language,  no, I don't mean that kind of language, okay?

But there's a lot of talk about ideas and historical interpretation  and development.  And none of these things are a threat to the inspiration of the Bible. The Bible was clearly given to us through a process. And God was working through that process. So, none of that is any kind of a threat to how we should understand the Bible as the revelation of God.

Anyway, that's about as much space as we have for today,  and so I think we will be wrapping up.
 All right. That's it for this week's episode. Hoping as always that you enjoyed it. And if you get a chance, check out Michael's book and podcast. On my new site, GenesisMarksTheSpot. com, there is a tab where you can see profiles of my guests and find direct links to their work. also on there, you can put your email in to receive updates and a newsletter that I'm developing.
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