Genesis 3: 4-5 (Everett Fox translation):
The snake said to the woman: Die, you will not die! Rather, God knows that on the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will become like gods, knowing good and evil.
Because I wish to talk about Satan in a broader and character based sense in this post, I will call him Satan rather than the snake or serpent. Satan’s dialogue with Eve reminds me of the trickster role of Prometheus in Greek myth. Prometheus is positioned liminally beween Gods and mortals. He’s a Titan— that is, a member of the old, defeated generated of Gods conquered by the Olympians led by Zeus. He also straddles divine and mortals worlds as a creator of humans from clay. Later, he becomes a teacher to them and gives them fire after Zeus takes it away. At a feast intended to promote unity between Gods and humans, Prometheus tricks Zeus into taking the bad half the of the humans’ offering. He hides bones and gristle inside the attractive roasted exterior of the animal, and puts the bacon inside organs for the humans to enjoy. Zeus punishes the humans for this deception so they can’t follow Prometheus’s suit and offer such offensive sacrifices in the future. But Prometheus steals fire from heaven and brings it to the humans, which allows them to gain new knowledge and build civilization by making tools and so forth. This time, Zeus punishes Prometheus by tying him to a rock and causing an eagle to tear out his liver, which grow anew every day. Some literature exalts Prometheus as a hero, even a symbol of human perseverance, intelligence and achievement. But other perspectives, such as Hesiod’s Theogony treat Prometheus as ordinary and pretentious, and his trick as a minor ploy that can’t defeat Zeus’s more enlightened way of being toward humans.
The way we treat the serpent’s deceptions is similarly open to different perceptions and interpretations. How vital his actions are in the course of events is in question. Does the serpent really change anything? What cause, if any is he fighting for? Tricksters are usually catalysts of otherwise impossible events. They can wield this influence precisely because of their in-betweenness. When Prometheus brings fire down from heaven to mortals, for example, this is something humans cannot do for themselves. Only someone who has access to Olympia and who is also intimately concerned with human events could do such a thing. Major changes occur among humans and to their society as a result. Like Prometheus, Tricksters tend to initiate rites of passage in myths—they are transformative figures that tend to exalt what is lowly. They shake up the spaces they inhabit and leave them changed.
They often are initially lowly or defeated figures who succeed in exalting themselves and or others.
This is my list of meanings and intentions Satan’s words might possibly claim in the passage at hand today that I am considering as I question the nature of Satan’s deceptions:
- “Die! You will not die!” God lied to Adam and Eve about the consequences of partaking of the fruit; Adam and Eve will not “in the day” (Eve’s words) they eat the fruit. As others have discussed on this blog, Eve has already altered God’s words here, and Satan is playing off her apparent carelessness or misunderstanding. God said they would “surely die” without communicating, as far as we know, that it would be in the same day.
- Perhaps Satan implies that they will not die immediately after. Dropping dead, Snow White like, after biting the fruit might have been something Eve had imagined and was frightened of, and perhaps Satan guessed at this.
- “Rather, God knows…” Fox’s use of “rather” here is useful to me, it helps the reader identify that Satan is assertively claiming he has superior knowledge about God, his purposes and motivations. Also, that he claims to offer concealed information. “Rather” intends to cut through error, leading a listener to the truth.
- “…on the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened…” What will happen “on the day” they partake of the fruit is not death, but a desirable transformation—they will become like Gods, have their eyes opened, and gain knowledge. This seems like an especially dangerous half truth. Adam and Eve’s eyes may be opened in a new way, but only in a way more comparable to how a newborn baby first opens his eyes and looks on an unfamiliar world with blurry vision.
- Satan appears to use a false and ill-intentioned countenance of openness. We might occasionally see such tactics in people around us. Some people speak “openly” about life in a manner that is superficially or prematurely intimate. The façade is instant friendship and benevolence, but the motivation is often selfish. This kind of voice seeks to gain trust in order to become a greater influence. The appearance of selfless honesty masks some of the greatest lies.
- God told Adam and Eve that they would die not because they actually would, but because he didn’t want their eyes to be opened, and for them to become like him.
- “…you will become like gods…” God is jealous of his status and knowledge. He is exclusive and keeps others from progressing; he gains personal benefits from the fact that Adam and Eve are ignorant and blind. This plays off of Satan’s own character; it is of course Satan who actually seeks solo self-aggrandizement at the suffering of others.
- Gaining knowledge is as easy as consumption and mere absorption. While death will not come instantaneously, Godhood and knowledge will. Another particularly dangerous half truth. They will not “[know] good and evil” in any rich sense in an instant. What might transform a little more instantaneously is not knowledge but their potential and desire to gain knowledge, including capacities for personal responsibility, pain, enjoyment, and moral discernment.
- God is not on the side of humans, but Satan is. God does not promote human progression, especially when assertively sought by humans, but Satan does.
- Disobedience is desirable and right if it appears it will increase your personal knowledge, power, and pleasure, even if it damages relationships and trust.
Satan is a unique kind of trickster. Mythological tricksters, like Prometheus, frequently suffer and sacrifice. It is through this that they evoke change– they offer something of themselves. They are loyal to some cause, even if they tear down and deceive others in the process who have created boundaries. Satan does this only pretentiously and insincerely. He pretends to care about humans, but only intends harm. Also, while Prometheus is invested in humans as a creator on earth, Satan pops into this scene out of nowhere in our narrative. Even when we consult the richer array of pre-mortal narratives about him, he never promotes anyone but himself, and that only tragically and failingly. Even if we took the perspective as Prometheus as inferior to Zeus, Prometheus at least offers meat, warmth, and light to humans at his own cost and his own suffering. Satan claims to offer knowledge and to promote human advancement, but all he ultimately offers is lies. These lies are especially dangerous because of the way Satan mixes insinuations that God is a selfish monster (the truth about Satan himself actually) with deeper hidden truths about human exaltation that Eve hasn’t learned from God yet and is not yet ready to identify and separate from error. Satan pressures and confuses. He is not on the side of humans or Gods, however catalystic we might interpret his role to be in the transgression and course of events that follow.
God’s punishment to the serpent after this temptation does not inflict the kind of suffering that refines or exalts. God basically communicates to Satan he is going to ignore him more and feed him less than ever; he is worth less attention, not more, and there is no need to inflict any kind of violence. It is tempting to celebrate Prometheus as a hero because he suffered in consequence of helping humans, but Satan suffers only out of selfish disobedience.
But despite all these thoughts, I still feel the need to compare Prometheus bringing fire with Satan offering the fruit. Satan’s opposition may catalyze meaningful changes the world, even if most or all of these changes are not what he specifically intends. Fire and fruit are both such beautiful and powerful representations of the enjoyment of life, and human striving after light and intelligence. The partaking of the fruit ultimately benefits Adam and Eve, as they recognize later, even though they first tasted it in the obscurity and confusion of Satan’s presence. Satan’s opposition appears to prove productive, but because of human agency, it does so in two directions—evil and good. His pressures accelerate human growth and unintentionally (for Satan, tragically) aid the Father’s purpose of exalting humans again and again.
Or perhaps, as some have treated Prometheus, we should treat Satan’s efforts more as pathetic deterrents to God’s plans that are really just mild annoyances more than vital opposition and catalysts. I sometimes wonder what would happened had Satan not appeared here. Perhaps a day would have arrived when Adam and Eve were prepared to partake of the fruit, and the Father would have encouraged or even commanded it. And perhaps this even would have been a better kind of learning and growing experience for them.