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Podcast: Snakes and Satan in the Story of Scripture (Andy Naselli)

November 09, 2020 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

The Grand Story of Scripture

In this episode, Andy Naselli discusses snakes in the Bible. He talks about why Satan appeared to Adam and Eve as a talking serpent in Genesis 3, where else snakes and dragons appear in Scripture and why it matters for our understanding of the history of redemption, and how the biblical idea of serpents and serpent slayers sheds light on everything from “Beowulf” to The Lord of the Rings to the Harry Potter series.

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer

Andrew David Naselli

Andrew David Naselli traces the theme of serpent, dragon, and dragon slayer through the Bible from the garden to the new heaven, helping readers experience the unity of the Scriptures. Part of the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

01:39 - A Snake in the Garden of Eden

Matt Tully
Andy, thank you so much for joining me on The Crossway Podcast today.

Andy Naselli
My pleasure.

Matt Tully
I think most Christians who grew up in the church are pretty familiar with the opening stories of the Bible, and in particular the story of the Garden of Eden, of Adam and Eve, and the fall. One of the most fascinating and perplexing elements of that story is the snake. There's this character, this snake, who comes in and isn't just there, but is actually talking to Adam and Eve and tempting them and then ultimately contributes to the fall taking place. I think, if we're being honest, it is a little bit odd. Why a snake? What's going on with that? Why is he talking? What connection does that have to snakes today? Can you walk us through what you think is happening there?

Andy Naselli
You can speculate and ask whether or not the snake was originally a being with legs and wings perhaps. I don't know; maybe.

Matt Tully
Right, because God curses the snake.

Andy Naselli
Right. We think of a snake as a reptile that is long and slithery and it goes along the ground and it's tongue flickers in and out and looks like it's licking the dust. You just wonder, did the snake look like that before, or is that the result of the curse? I don't know. But, we do know from Scripture that Satan is the serpent. And at the very end of the Bible, Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, it calls Satan “that ancient serpent.” If you read commentaries on Genesis, some people will not commit themselves to who the snake is. They'll say the text doesn't say who the snake is. But I believe we should read the whole Bible with Christian eyes, and later Scripture clearly identifies that serpent with Satan. We can say with confidence that it refers to Satan. My theory is that Satan used the snake to talk to Adam and Eve. He somehow inhabited the body of the snake. We know that Satan can inhabit people and can inhabit creatures. I do believe that it was a real, talking snake in actual history talking to actual people—Adam and Eve.

Matt Tully
A snake that maybe had arms or legs or wings before the curse.

Andy Naselli
Yeah, we don't know. It's possible.

Matt Tully
Would you say then that snakes we see today are in some way connected to that original snake in the garden?

Andy Naselli
Yeah. They all reflect the curse. Like all the animals, they're still fallen. Romans 8 says the creation is groaning, and animals reflect that. There's a glory that is not there as God created them. So when you look at snakes today, even like other animals, they're still fascinating creatures that display the glory of God. We were just talking with some friends about whether or not you should have pet snakes. I don't think it's wrong to have a pet snake. I would prefer not to. I have four daughters and they definitely would not want to. I'd prefer to step on their heads, but snakes today are beautiful creatures who display the glory of God.

Matt Tully
So you wouldn't say that snakes—the natural animal that we see today in zoos or in our gardens or in our houses—they're not inherently more evil than another animal?

Andy Naselli
I don't think so. I don't think there's biblical warrant for that. First Peter describes Satan as a roaring lion. So therefore, are all lions bad? Careful, because Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah. It's using metaphors to show that Satan is a deceitful snake. That doesn't mean all snakes are bad.

05:32 - Examples of Snakes throughout Scripture

Matt Tully
In your new book you actually argue that snakes, serpents, and dragons—I know there are some distinctions within those categories—are actually a recurring motif in Scripture that pops up all over the place. Probably immediately some of us think of Genesis 3 and other passages in the Bible where snakes actually are showing up literally, but you actually highlight a lot of other examples where there's language that's evocative of serpents. Could you walk us through a couple of those examples from Scripture that maybe are less well known?

Andy Naselli
When I was studying this topic I tried to get all of the biblical data on serpents, and I started by doing searches on all the Greek and Hebrew terms for snakes and dragons obviously. But that didn't get all the passages. There are some passages that refer to, for example, venom. That's not a word for snake, but that's something that deadly snakes have. Or, searching for the type of language that might not use the word snake.

Matt Tully
Language that's evocative of a serpent.

Andy Naselli
Correct. I'm thinking of some of the psalms that Paul quotes in Romans 3:13—“the venom of asps is on their lips”. What does that say? In the Bible, for the most part, snakes are negative, deadly, dangerous—watch out. Very few passages—and there are some—are primarily positive.

Matt Tully
You mention Pharaoh as another example. He's a pretty prominent figure in the New Testament. How is he described in ways that connect to this idea of serpents?

Andy Naselli
When you open up Exodus 1, then first thing you learn is that Pharaoh is throwing baby boys into the Nile River to die. It's just horrible. So we know right out of the gate that he's bad, but that doesn't necessarily make him a serpent figure. So why would I say he's a serpent figure? Why is he a child, or seed, of the serpent? In Egypt, right on his crown the Pharaoh had an erect cobra. Egypt venerated worship of the serpent, and they thought that the serpent was a symbol of wisdom and even deity. They thought that Pharaoh was the supreme serpent. So when you look at the plagues, it's not an accident that God goes after serpents. At one point Moses throws down his staffs and they swallow the staffs of the magicians. And that word for swallowing occurs again after the Red Sea incident when the text says, “Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them” (Ex. 15:12). It's the same word. It's evoking these images of here you have the most powerful person in the world at the time—at least in that part of the world—who is saying, I am the supreme serpent, and God is saying, No you're not. My snakes can swallow you. And I actually swallowed you in the Red Sea. You are this evil, monstrous dragon devouring babies; I'm going to take you down.

Matt Tully
Another example you cite is Goliath. What is the connection there?

Andy Naselli
This one is more subtle, so it's harder to see at first. In 1 Samuel 17 it describes him as wearing scale armor. I think that's how the NIV translates it. I forget the ESV translation. But it's a word that occurs one hundred ten times and seven times in the Old Testament. Every time it's referring to the scales of fish, sometimes dragons specifically. In Ezekiel there's a passage that describes Satan, the great dragon of the seas, as having those scales. That passage has several phrases that are verbatim phrases from the 1 Samuel 17 passage. I think it's connecting them and saying here is Goliath. He's a seed of the serpent; he's a dragon figure that David is going to take down. When David does slay Goliath, do you remember how he falls? He falls face down licking the dust. And then what does David do? He slices off his head. He crushes his head. He doesn't crush, but it's evocative of what the ultimate serpent slayer will do to the dragon.

Matt Tully
And that's from that prophecy in Genesis 3:15.

Andy Naselli
That's right.

10:26 - Biblical Theology and Snakes in Scripture

Matt Tully
That's fascinating. This is broadly defined as doing biblical theology—looking at these themes throughout the whole Bible. It is fascinating just how biblical theology seems to view the Bible supremely as literature and it picks up on these literary connections and repeated words and themes that pop up in very different sections of Scripture; and yet, there are good reasons to think that they are related or that the authors are referencing things back and forth. When you approach a biblical theological theme like serpents, how do you discern when there is a connection there and when it's just that they happen to use the same word?

Andy Naselli
Doing biblical theology is not as objective as parsing a Greek or Hebrew word where it's completely objective—it's either right or wrong for the most part. This is more artistic; it's literary. You're looking for patterns. When you see a pattern, you have to evaluate how weighty is the likelihood that this is something that the authors intended and that the divine author intended to be a pattern. Sometimes we're right; sometimes we're not sure; sometimes we're wrong. When you're doing biblical theology and tracing a theme and seeing it in various places, you might say, You know what? I think definitely Pharaoh fits as a serpent figure. I'm not convinced that Goliath is. Maybe there's something there, but it's just not as strong as it is for Pharaoh. But maybe it is. And you keep reading. So that's how you might evaluate it. But when you see the pattern over, over, over, over, and over, it does give more weight to the likelihood that there is a God-intended pattern. Just trace the theme of skull crushing. It's all through the Bible. You read stories of the seed of the serpent getting their heads either cut off or crushed, and once you notice the pattern you say, Oh! There's something to this! This goes back to Genesis 3.

Matt Tully
It is amazing. For me, biblical theology has opened up a whole world of appreciation for the Bible. It's not just a book full of commands to live by; it's not just a book of didactic teaching; but it's often painting these really in-depth, beautiful, nuanced, and literary-rich stories and worlds that teach us things about our God and about who we are in light of him. How do you balance keeping, as you mentioned, the author's intended meaning with also keeping in mind this commitment we have to the unity of Scripture and to the divine author—that God ultimately is over all of this and intends this to hang together? Do you ever find that those two things are in tension with each other or difficult to reconcile?

Andy Naselli
I'd say that the text always means what the human author intended, and sometimes more; but it's not inconsistent with what the human author intended. Sometimes the divine author intends a little bit more. For example, “out of Egypt I have called my son” (Matt. 2) I think if Hosea saw what Matthew was doing he would say, That's brilliant! That's exactly what I was saying; I just didn't know that detail. An example I'll give students to illustrate this is the Harry Potter books—there's seven of them. The first time I read those with my wife we just enjoyed a good story. Have you read those books?

Matt Tully
Yeah, I have. They're fantastic.

Andy Naselli
You read them and ask the normal questions: Who are the characters? What's the plot? What's going to happen? And you just follow along and enjoy the story. After we did that the first time (we listened to Jim Dale's brilliant narration) we listened again two or three years later—and I didn't see this coming; I should have—while listening to book one, immediately we kept pausing the story and saying, We missed that the first time. This is brilliant because the theme that she just mentions here, she picks up on that in book three and in book six and in book seven. With some series of books, you can tell that the author didn't plan them ahead of time and write them really well; but she [J. K. Rowling] did her homework. As she sat down to write book one, she mapped out the whole storyline, and the whole thing fits beautifully. When you go back and read it again and again and again—I think I've read it five or six times now—I see new connections every time. That's just the mark of a brilliant author. How much more so when it's an omniscient author who knows all things, he's planned the whole thing, he's sovereign; it's going to be way better than any author could do. I think there are connections that we're blind to and that we're not seeing. We're not looking hard enough and we don't have the ability to see them all yet. But I think we're going to be seeing these forever and seeing the connections in Scripture that God intended. What we're doing in biblical theology is trying to get at some of those.

Matt Tully
That is fascinating. Do you think we view Scripture differently than we do other literature like the Harry Potter series where it makes complete sense to everybody to say, J. K. Rowling might have created these trajectories of themes and ideas that are going to be traced out through the whole series? Sometimes I wonder if we have a harder time thinking that way about Scripture.

Andy Naselli
That might be the case. It might be that some people question how you can have forty men over a period of several thousand years in different cultures—how could it all hang together like that? The only people doing biblical theology the way that I'm describing are conservative confessional evangelicals who believe that it all hangs together, it doesn't contradict, there's a beautiful divine design behind it.

Matt Tully
There's not a lot of incentive to figure out how it can hang together if you start out with the assumption that maybe it doesn't. Going back to another example of snakes in the Bible, the Pharisees are another straightforward example where Jesus repeatedly refers to the Pharisees and Sadducees as a “brood of vipers.” Again, what's he getting at with using that language?

Andy Naselli
And John the Baptist as well. He's saying these people are like their spiritual daddy—the serpent. The serpent deceives; he lies; he kills; he's a murderer from the beginning, and his children are like him. It's because the Pharisees were deceiving people; they were putting burdens on them heavier than they could bear; they were trying to deceive. And like Satan, they initially tried to deceive Jesus, and then they resorted to murdering him. They're just like their daddy.

Matt Tully
Another example is from an interesting passage in John 3 where he references back to Numbers 21 where there's the serpents in the wilderness. The Israelites are wandering around, they sin against God, and God strikes them with a plague. As their salvation, God provides this serpent on a staff that everyone is supposed to look at to be healed. I've always been perplexed by that because I've had this general sense that serpents aren't a good thing in the Bible, and yet it seems like God raises up this serpent on a staff—literally—as the salvation for the people.

Andy Naselli
You mentioned the plague. The plague was that he sent fiery serpents to bite the people. They're complaining, We miss Egypt. We miss their food. We miss the comfort. So it's like he's saying, You miss Egypt? Here. Have the snakes because that's what Egypt loves. It's a judgment. The Bible doesn't say this explicitly, but here's how I picture it: Think of a battle and there's a pole with a spike at the end of the pole. Think of that planted into the ground, and then think of a serpent impaled on the top of the pole. So this is a dead serpent who is bearing the curse in the place of snake-bitten people. You look to this serpent who took the curse in your place. That's what I think John 3:14–15 is getting at. It's not saying Jesus is the serpent par excellence. No. It's saying Jesus took the curse in your place.

Matt Tully
That helps to explain what I think is often a confusing, bizarre analogy.

Andy Naselli
I read some books by some critical authors, one being James Charlesworth, who argues the opposite of what I just said. He argues that serpents are primarily good, wise, and that Jesus is the most excellent serpent. No, no, no. I disagree with that.

Matt Tully
Interesting. There's also another perplexing section in the New Testament where Jesus, at the end of the Gospel of Mark, talks about how his followers will be able to pick up serpents with their hands. Then we have this example of the apostle Paul in Acts 28 when he's bitten by this viper but then, miraculously, doesn't seem to actually be injured by it. There are Christians who cite those texts, and others like them, in support of the idea of snake handling—the idea that it's a good thing to pick up poisonous snakes and handle them as a demonstration of your spirituality. What do you make of all that?

Andy Naselli
I don't think the text in Mark 16 is God-breathed Scripture. If that's surprising to anyone who is listening, I would encourage you to look at the ESV Study Bible note on that, or you can go to the NET Bible online and look at the study note on Mark 16:9–20. I don't think that's God-breathed Scripture, so I don't think you can quote any part of that passage to support any doctrine. That leaves us just with the incident in Acts, and I think all that's saying is that Paul was doing mighty miracles do validate the gospel. In this case, humanly he should have died, but God preserved his life. It gave him an opening to proclaim the gospel, stay alive and go to Rome, and fulfill God's plan for him. I don't think that's an indication that we should handle snakes too. He wasn't actually snake handling; he got bit, and God healed him. That's very different than snake handling.

Matt Tully
So, it could still have the added significance of this is the example of evil in the world and God is protecting him from that, but it's not necessarily a prescriptive type of passage for us.

Andy Naselli
I would never, ever, ever encourage Christians to handle deadly snakes as a way to show that God is going to protect them.

21:45 - Echoes of the Grand Story of Scripture in Secular Literature

Matt Tully
One of the things that you also point out in your book is the connections to pop culture—you've mentioned Harry Potter already—but even going way back in history to common stories that we are so familiar with. We can go back centuries, if not millenia, and see stories that are evocative of the grand story of Satan—this serpent or dragon—and God coming and dealing with him. Can you explain a little bit more what connections you see there and why that's important?

Andy Naselli
I've traced English literature where dragon-slaying stories are prominent. I haven't done it tracing it all throughout human history. I think Tim Chester has done this recently and it's a book that came out recently, but I haven't read it yet. I think he's just tracing the stories throughout history. If I look in English history, the classic story is Saint George and the Dragon. You see that in various iterations throughout literature, or you think of “Beowulf.” At one point in time in America if people had two books in their homes it was the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan, and Bunyan's got this classic scene of Christian fighting Apollyon. That was common literature and a common theme that people understood. And then you get to a Tolkein, of course, and it becomes much more pronounced with Smaug in The Hobbit and you've got Sauron as the serpent figure in The Lord of the Rings. Or you read The Chronicles of Narnia and the White Witch is the main serpent figure. In The Silver Chair the Lady of the Green Kirtle turns into a serpent at the end—sorry if I ruined that for anyone listening! And then, of course, in Harry Potter you've got Lord Voldemort who is from the House of Salazar Slytherin. He speaks the language of snakes and he unleashes a basilisk and he's got a pet snake, Nagini. It's very, very in your face in that one. So, my thesis is that this is common in literature because it's such a good way to tell a story. We love stories like that, and the question is, Why do we love stories like that? Why do we love dragon-slaying stories? I think the reason is those stories echo the one true big story of the world that the Bible tells. They're all echoing that story. If you think about big, epoch books you've read or movies you've watched, they pretty much all have that same basic storyline—really bad guy, some good guys who are in trouble, a hero saves them and crushes the bad guy(s). Over and over and over movies do that. We love that storyline; we love resolution. I hate it when a book or a movie doesn't resolve. The Bible resolves.

Matt Tully
You're right. That general pattern, even if there aren't references to snakes, that idea of an evil figure assaulting an innocent figure of some sort, or even just another character, and then someone having to come save them does feel like a pretty foundational type of story. Other than Harry Potter, what would you say is your favorite example of a story that you think really clearly echoes this grand story of the serpent?

Andy Naselli
When I think of epoch literature, I don't know if anybody does it better than Tolkein does in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkein is not for everybody; I'm probably going to offend someone by saying this—sometimes I wonder if he was like Dickens and got paid by the word. I know that's not true, but he's very wordy. I know I just offended a lot of people.

Matt Tully
Are you a fan of the poems and the songs, or do you read through those pretty quickly?

Andy Naselli
No. I've probably lost all my credibility with people now. It's a beautiful story. Very detailed and very long. But as you read through it, it's very clear that you've good, you've got evil, and you have a hero. Actually, it's not just one hero. And that's beautiful. We love that story, and stories like that, because we know there's good and evil in this world, and we need somebody to save us. We need a hero.

26:10 - Are Antiheroes Good or Evil?

Matt Tully
What do you think about the somewhat recent phenomenon of stories, whether it's books or movies, where they have an anti-hero, or everything is muddled and gray. There's not a clear good guy, there's not a clear bad guy, it's very ambiguous at times. The hero that might be there is very flawed. What's behind that interest in stories like that as against a classic hero story?

Andy Naselli
I've wondered about that. I'm not much into pop culture, but I do read some on this. There's a movie that came out last year called Joker didn't see it—but I think it's infatuation with a bad guy basically and it tries to make you feel sorry for him by learning about his past. Sometimes we can do that with evil people and think, If you really understood how hard there life has been, we should feel more sorry for them in light of all the bad things they've done. If you take that approach to Satan, you're doing it wrong. There should be zero sympathy for Satan. Oh, he was an unfallen angel at one point, and he was so beautiful. Maybe he just had a hard life.

Matt Tully
Misunderstood.

Andy Naselli
A lot of Disney princess movies are like that—My life is so hard! I have this provincial live and I'm so misunderstood! I wonder if the reason those movies are popular is because people are filled with moral ambiguity in their worldviews and they think that a story with clean, clear good and evil categories does not fit their worldviews. They think, That's not how the real world works. It's muddier. Movies that don't have the clear, good and evil; movies that don't have the moral ambiguity; movies that don't end with resolution, that's just more like real life and therefore, better art. Maybe that's part of it? I don't know. I would have to talk to the creators.

Matt Tully
Do you think there's any truth in that? Maybe not including Satan, but for people there is ambiguity. People who are purportedly evil, when you learn more about them, there are things in their life that maybe do help to explain how they got where they ended up.

Andy Naselli
Yes. I know it's easy to pick on Christian films like Facing the Giants where some guy has a hard life and then he wins the football championship, gets a new truck, and his wife gets pregnant or something like that. We laugh at those because that's not always real life. Usually that's not how life works, so that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is you read a story and the creators of the story—the authors and the producers—are intentionally trying to get you to think in an evil way. To root for someone to commit adultery; to root for someone to do evil things because the entire story is framed so that you're rooting for that guy to succeed or for that woman to succeed. That's evil. We need to learn to love what God loves and hate what God hates. Good storytelling does that in a way that engages in our affection so that we walk away loving what God loves and hating what God hates. If you watch a movie or read a book and you walk away confused, maybe even torn the other direction, I'd call that an evil book or evil movie.

29:43 - Practical Takeaways

Matt Tully
That's why, as you draw out, this idea of serpents, whether it be the deceiving snake or the consuming, devouring dragon—it's so helpful because it's this unambiguous picture of evil, and we see it repeatedly crop up throughout all of Scripture. What is the practical takeaway to a better understanding of this scriptural theme?

Andy Naselli
Before applying it, you have the concept that Satan is a serpent—that's a big category—and he has two different modes of being serpent. He could be a deceiving snake or a devouring dragon. He can try to lie and backstab, or he can just flat out assault and rage after you. His strategy will vary, and in some cultures he's more in your face at times. In others he's more deceptive at times. For example, when you think about demons—Satan's minions—I think they work differently in different parts of the world. They have different strategies. In Western culture, one of the strategies is to make people think that demons are ridiculous—Of course they don't exist. In other places, it's overplayed and that's all of life. So different there's different strategies. The practical takeaway is knowing your context. Just know, wherever you are in the world, Satan is a deceiving snake and a devouring dragon. He's after you; you're his prey; he wants to devour you. Therefore, you need to be on guard and be defensive—resist the devil—and be offensive. You don't just go on the defensive. You need the armor of God in Ephesians 6.

Matt Tully
Walk us through what we learn about the future for this snake, Satan, in the book of Revelation.

Andy Naselli
I told you I like stories that resolve; praise God for this story, and we're going to be praising him forever after the fact too. Revelation 12 and 20 are basically talking about the same thing—this devouring dragon tries to deceive and destroy God's people. The dragon can't bind God, but God can send an angel to bind Satan. That's how Revelation 20 opens—he sends an angel and the angel is more powerful than Satan to bind him. God can bind this dragon. He uses his angels to throw Satan and all his demons into the lake of fire and sulfur forever and ever. That's resolution.

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