Christianity Today interview with Joshua Swamidass about his new book, the Genealogical Adam and Eve

I don’t see anything in the story suggesting Satan possession, and I don’t see Satan possession elsewhere in the Bible either?

Yes, and further, if Satan possessed a snake, I’d expect the chain of blame to go one level further: Adam > Eve > snake > Satan. Instead, it stops at the snake and the consequences are for the snake, Eve and Adam. How is Satan punished by snakes needing to eat dust and crawl on their belly or get their head crushed by Eve’s offspring? Only if we read the snake as symbolizing Satan rather than being possessed by Satan does the snake’s curse apply to Satan (or evil powers more generally, depending on what exactly the snake represents).

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Thanks @Marshall and @Boscopup you make good points, perhaps possession is the wrong word.

However, it seems to me that it would be possible to take the story both literally and symbolically.

This is what the notes of my ESV study Bible say:

“As he narrative proceeds, it becomes clear that more than a simple snake is a work here; an evil power is using the snake. As indicated by God’s declaration that “everything he had made…was very good,” clearly evil entered the created world at some unknown point after God’s work of creation was completed.”

The snake was cursed:

“Indicted for its part in tempting the woman, the serpent will be viewed with contempt from now on. This is conveyed both literally and figuratively by the serpent’s going on its belly and eating dust.”

“This interpretation requires that the serpent be viewed as more than a mere snake, something which the narrative itself implies, given the serpent’s ability to speak and the vile things he says. While the present chapter does not explicitly identify the serpent with Satan, such an identification is a legitimate inference and is clearly what the apostle John has in view in Rev 12:9 and 20:2”

“Within the larger biblical framework, this hope comes to fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who is clearly presenting in the NT as overcoming Satan”

so yes the blame and the curses do go one level further: to Satan

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@Boscopup

The GAE scenarios allow for a special creation of Adam and Eve… even in the midst of an evolved human population.

This approach doesn’t satisfy all Creationists, but it is the first modern movement that reconciles limited special creation with the science of Evolution!

Interesting article:

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Have you brought this question to Dr. Swamidass at the Peaceful Science Forum? It would be interesting to hear his answer

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I also can’t help but to notice how the snake is used several times.

The great sea monsters in genesis 1 is tannin which is a serpent like sea dragon thing. It’s connected to Levithan that was a long necked multi headed sea monster. The snake idols or whatever it was called to heal the Jews, the battle between Moses and Egyptian magicians with sticks becoming snakes, and even picking them up as a sign of apostleship and so on. Just seems like it’s the to go to symbol.

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Yep, I posted there.

https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-gae-the-flood-and-2-peter-3/9162

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I already believed, before hearing his idea, that A&E were historical and lived amongst an evolved population. Whether they were born or specially created never really mattered to me. I still lean toward born. So much of chapters 2 and 3 sound figurative. But I never thought special creation of A&E was impossible within an evolved population.

I haven’t yet met anyone or heard of anyone who started accepting evolution on the basis of this book? Have you? I know it hasn’t been out long, so it might take time to get that kind of data. But as another thread here mentioned, it seems that most find it would be useful for other people, not themselves.

I’m not anti-GAE. I just don’t see why A&E need to be related to everyone. :woman_shrugging:

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Of course, the ESV commentary has its own interpretive bias, so you have to take that into consideration. It is interesting that the snake was described as " more crafty than any other beast in the garden" impling that it was still just a beast of the garden, and that talking beasts were the norm, and not that noteworthy to think it unusual.
Even if you consider it Satan, you then look at Satan of the OT being seen much like a prosecuting attorney as seen in Job, with little elaboration until much later when the NT was written.

Let me amend this to add that I just read the article Randy referenced, which goes into that in much more detail. Thanks for pointing us to it ,Randy.

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thank you. I’ll take a look

Restating what I wrote up on post #11:

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