cheenc03a.pdf

SERPENT
(c) The belief (implied in Nu. 219) in the power of
serpent of brass to cheek the ravages of venomou
serpents can also be illustrated from Arabic sources
Kazwini (asri) tells of a golden locust which guaranteec
a certain town from a plague of locusts, and of twl
brazen oxen which checked a murrain amone " cattle.
More remote is the considemtion that the serpent wa
the symbol of the divine power of healing, and sacre,
therefore to AsklcWos.
id) The belief in the special wickedness of a persol
who has died from a serpent's bite, ascribed to th,
'barbarous' people of Melita in Act~28~-6, is we1
illuitnted iron, the experience of Doughty in Arabi:
('4,. Des. lsx3J).
(e) On the flying ~araphn of Is. 1419 306 much nee<
not be said. We find them again in the dragons o
Arabia mentioned in 4 Esd. 1519. where their wings ar,
apparently represented figuratively as chariots, and rhei
hissing (so RV, reading ribilahrs for sir Aofur, wit1
Bensly) is said to be borne over the earth. They an
among those fancy creatures with which folk-lore people;
desert regions where, as Aiur-bani-pal says. 'the bird:
of heaven fly not, and wild asses and gazelles do no
feed' (KBZZ~I). To this day the folk-lore of thc
fellahin of Palestine recognises such creatures (PEFQ
1894, p. 30)-as indeed Herodotus (275). giving ciedenc~
to travellerr' tales, had long ago recognired them ir
Arabia. Deiitzrch remarks (Gm.IJ1 99) that the 'flylng
seraphs' have their counterparts in the SERAPH~M,
with which Wellhausen agrees (A,. Heid."] 15~).
(f) The serpent (ndhdi) at the bottom of the sea,
mentioned by Amos (93). might also until lately haw
been e~plnined from Arabic sources. The Icgendar)
sea-5erp~nt or tinnin (= Heb, tannin) of the Arabs i:
described in such a way ar to show that the waterspout i!
the phenomenon referred tos (Mdtidi1366 f ; Kazwin
1 x3z f ; Damirl1186f). Recent invertigationr, how.
ever, leave the present writer no doubt that the 'serpent
of Amos is apale reflection of Tiamat, the famous mythic
enemy of the Light-god3(ree CREATCOX. DRAGON). 11
need only be added here that the Babylonian Ti%mat ir
represented in two forms: (I) as a composite monster.
with tail, horns, claws, and wings ('like the medieval
devil.' Sayce),'and (2) as aserpent, and that, according
to Fr. Delit~rch.~ the serpent form considerably predominated.
As early as 1500 B.C. we find Tiamat
described in a Babylonian inscription as a 'raging
rerpent'6--evidently the conception is similar to that of
the serpent-myth which had almost faded away for a
time when Alllos wrote, and when unknown narrators
other serpent myths, and to return to the subject of
the narrative in Gen. 3. Such myths were specially
abundant in Egypt and Babylonia. Among guardian
serpents in Egypt may be classed the ureur (06paior.
Egypt. 'oiot; asp or cobra), represented on the crowns
of the gods and of the Pharaohs, which war endowed
with a mysterious vitality, and was supposed to vomit
flamer when angry ;7 also thore which were kept in
~hrine~
temoless and were the embodiments of the
SERPENT
tutelary deitirs, and open-air sacred serpents protective
of districtr.' besides the fairy-tale serpents which
marinerr professed to have seen in the Fortunate Isles.*
Berider there, we hear of thc ucred Sara-xrpenr of the other
world, which describer itself in thcse terms 'I am the rer
fnm
ormany ycnr.; I am buried and born (agai4 continuil~~y.
the ser ent at the utmohr endr of the world. 1 m burihd and
born: Pzenew myself, I make mysea young lon,inually:"f
the evil serpent Apopi enoilgh hrr been satd elrevhere (xc
Dnatiux).
In Babylonia it is sufficient to mention the symbolic
rerpent of Ea (the god of the deep and the atmosphere).
who war eariy connected with Babylon and the
Euphrates-itself called the 'river of the make.' This
is an example of the beneficent serpent. But there was
also an 'evil serpent'-the 'serpent of darkness' and 'of
the sea'-and it would not be unnatural if this serpent
of darkness wereoftenidentifiedwith thedragon Tiamat.4
We now return to Gen. 3. Is it sufficient to explain
the part played by the rerpent (ndhdi) from the uar
s,pent in with hurtful creatures naturally referred
to in an imaginative picture of man's
Paradise,
early state? Surely not. In the story
on which Gen. 3 is based (it is no doubt only a very pale
reflection of it which we possess) the serpent must have
been a mythological one. The facts of Arabian folklore
(see $ 3 b) are favourable to this view, and Jensen
(Kormol. 227) finds a suggestion of it in the Babylonian
Flood-story, which makes Pir-napiitim give a fragment
of the sacred plant (called 'In old age the man becomes
young') to Giigamei, from whom it is taken by a
serpent. Here, however, the serpent (representing the
jealous-minded gods) grudger the man the attainmmt
of immortality ;' the connection with the serpent of
Gen. 3. suggested by Jenren, is surely as precarious as
the theory of the late George Smith (Chaldean Genesis,
ed. Sayce, 88), energetically opposed byoppert. Halevy,
and Tiele, that the temptation war represented on a
zeitairr Babylonian cylinder. Indeed, though the .tree
"f life' in Gen. 2 3 (which must be the original sacred
tree [cp Rev. 22.1 of the Hebrew legend) is of Babylonian
and not Iranian origin.8 it by no means follows
,hat the stolyof the serpent tempting the woman corn-
?om Babylonia. We have as yet no evidence that the
Babylonians had a moralised Paradise-story, and it is
:onceivable that the writer of Gen. 246.321 (one of the
ater Yahwistr) may have drawn from different sources.
What thse sources are. may now, with some confidence,
R conjectured. See PARADISE. $ 6.
TheimmediateJourceof the Paradise-story, including thechief
letails about the serpent, war most probably Jerahmeelircir.
he N. Arabian kinsfolk of the Israelites, a part of whom had
:ntsred Canaan hefore the lsraelirer, whil~ a part remained in
U. Arabiannd in the Negcb where they k m e to a large exemr
the rp~igio~ tutorsofthi Irraelirer(see MOSES, %$6~?), had
, Paradise-story upon which the Irrrelitish talc is bared. It is
todoubt true that the Phaenicianr (influenced, asphilo of Byblur
iphtlyrtater, from Egypt) reomired the serpent as the symbol
8f vbdom hnd immormhty :r but this doer not -rant the
heory of r Phenician or Canaanitirh origin of our namtiue.
\nd if sm ultimate Babylonian origin for the detail of the rerpFnt
rr a friendly dvirer, not ax a tcmpfer) be thought probable,
.et we need nor look to thc Babylonian Paradire for as gcrm.