7. DID SATAN ENTER A SNAKE SO AS TO BE ABLE TO DECEIVE EVE?
When God Almighty gives His instruction to Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, the bible never states that He first drove away animals that were next to where Adam was or that He took Adam to a secluded corner of the garden to tell him that instruction. This gives us a clear picture of Adam being given this instruction by God openly with creatures that happened to be nearby hearing it all. It also could not be contentious that the snake was also there and heard everything. God was heard telling Adam in no figurative expression what that fruit were capable of doing to people. Genesis 2:17 “…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (NKJV) Some people incorrectly claim it was the snake that told Eve for the first time that that tree was of the knowledge of good and evil.
What might have caused the snake to tempt Eve? Adam, Eve and all the creatures in the Garden of Eden were like a big family. They could communicate in the way they did, probably speaking the same language. One day, seemingly out of curiosity the snake being more cunning than all other creatures in the garden became naughty enough to tempt Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. Just as any curious mischievous child, at any home among his or her siblings, could tell one of them to do something wrong having not been sent by anyone to do so, but driven by his or her own silliness. Sometimes the snake merely wanted to find out how faithful Eve was to God's instruction. Eve was a soft target, and was easily beguiled. Adam seeing what Eve had done and knowing the outcome very well, he opted to die together with his sweetheart. Hence he never raised any objection but took some and ate.
If the snake had been tempted by an evil spirit to deceive Eve, God was going to inform us of it or pass His judgement against that evil spirit as well. If that spirit might have been sent by God Himself God was also going to comment on it. God never made it a secret that He sent Satan to harass Job. What might then cause Him not to disclose it if He had really sent away Satan to influence the snake to tempt Eve? The answer is; God never sent Satan to tempt Eve.
Once, a spirit volunteered to deceive Ahab the king of Israel so that he would eventually be killed. Read 2 Chronicles 18:20-21 “Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, “I will persuade him.” The Lord said to him. “In what way?” So he said; “I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” The Lord said; “You shall persuade him and also prevail; go out and do so.” (NKJV) Note, it was God who commanded it to do so.
All heavenly spirits are under God Almighty's control and no spirit does as it likes in heaven. We saw that in the book of Job. Satan did exactly what God Almighty had commanded him to do. Firstly he destroyed all Job possessed and killed all his children, but under God's instruction could not touch Job. Later on God Almighty permitted him to torture Job with whatever affliction but never to kill him. And as God had commanded him, he caused Job to suffer from boils that were coming out all over his body but he never died of them.
This justifies what Jesus Christ says in His Prayer, which is; Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10 NKJV) Jesus never says your will must be done on earth as it is now being done in heaven. Jesus says as it is continuously done, from time immemorial, in heaven. This prayer nullifies any idea based on what one once heard or read about in connection with bloody wars that once took place in heaven. Such incidents are unfounded for if such incidents really took place it would render God's will having not been continuously done in heaven.
The story of the war that took place in heaven is blasphemy beyond comparison. This means some presidents are better governors than God, for completing their tenure as heads of their governments peacefully. The story of war that once occurred in heaven renders the omniscient, omnipresent and omnicompetent God lacking in all these attributes for failing to foresee conspiracy evil spirits were busy plotting against Him in heaven. If such a plot had really entered the minds of those evil spirits, God Almighty would have peacefully brought it to an end with neither His angels nor those evil spirits shedding blood in heaven. If such a war really took place, it then means God Almighty was taken by surprise by the devil's uprising in heaven just like any ordinary human being would. How nonsensical this is! God Almighty was able to see all Adam, Eve and the snake were busy doing down on earth in the garden of Eden, even their first disobedience, yet He could not see the devil busy plotting against Him in heaven. This is very much incongruous and absurd to the extreme. It sounds like something out of Ancient Greek mythology.
A book by Andrew Collins states that when the Jews were in exile in Babylon they came in contact with new religious ideologies found there. The most influential religions were the Magianism (the religion of the Magi) and Zoroastrianism. He also states that both the Magianism and Zoroastrianism seem to have been greatly influenced by earlier religions such as the native religions of Kurdistan. On closer investigation it becomes clear that almost all the religions of the Middle East somehow influenced one another in one way or the other.
The story of Enoch and his grandson Noah features almost in most of them, yet the way it is told differs from religion to religion. In one religion Enoch is one of the angels of God Almighty. In the other religion he is a human being who was turned into an angel. Whereas in the bible or the Judaic religion he is a human being who was translated to heaven by God, in more or less the same way Elijah the prophet reached heaven.
It may happen that other religions got the story of Enoch from the Judaic religion then modified and expounded on it. This is based on the fact that all the people of these religions claim to be the descendants of Enoch, Noah and Isaac. Yet the Jews had never claimed to be much related to all the tribes and nations of the Middle East except the Arabs who they claim are the children of Abraham and some are descendents of Isaac the brother to Jacob. So it cannot be groundless that the people of the Middle East are somehow descendants of one and the same ancestor. It seems as if unfavourable circumstances forced them to get separated from one another. They then lost contact with one another for hundreds of years wherever they were, in different places. They then adopted cultures and religious practices of lands they lived in. Then their original language was interlarded with new and foreign words of languages spoken in their new settlements. As time went on syntax underwent a gradual change until it became quite different from the original. Yet the same old stories sustained by their oral tradition were passed on from one generation to the next, although getting distorted here and there. Others got their stories completely changed. The changes their languages underwent caused their descendants not to recognize one another when circumstances compelled them to meet after many years of separation. They had also developed genetic traits found among nations they and their children had entered into matrimony with.
Taking all this into consideration, the Hebraic religion seemed to be the oldest and least influenced religion by other religions of the people of the Middle East. I also find its influence very much strong to almost all other religions found there. What the Hebraic religion adopted from other religions which once prevailed and are still prevalent in the Middle East is the concept of two incorporeal super powers competing to influence the minds of people on earth. The teachings of these religions were, the power of good is God Almighty and the power of darkness and evil is the devil.
This concept was foreign to the Hebraic religion. Hence their prophet would not mince words in emphasizing that their God is capable of doing everything good or bad. Read Isaiah 45:5-7
5.” I am the Lord, and there is no other;
There is no God besides Me.
I will gird you,
Though you have not known Me.
6. That they may know from
The rising of the sun to its setting
That there is none besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
7. I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I the Lord, do all these things.” (NKJV)
Deuteronomy 4: 35 says; “To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; there is none other besides Him.” (NKJV)
In Deuteronomy 32:39 God brings to an end all kind of controversy in as far as who does what when He says:
“Now see that I, even I, am He,
And there is no God besides Me;
I KILL AND I MAKE ALIVE;
I WOUND AND I HEAL;
Nor is there any
Who can deliver from My hand. (NKJV)
Read what Hosea 6:1 has to say; “Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us;” (NKJV)
According to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), God Almighty is the only Supreme Being and is without rivals. Human beings were totally responsible for their wrong actions and there was no one to blame their felony on. There was no evil spirit who would be blamed for influencing or tempting them. Hence God Almighty passed His judgement solely upon them. Magianism and Zoroastrianism later were very much successful in convincing not only the Jews but the whole world that there are in fact two incorporeal super powers competing to influence the minds of human beings on earth. Christianity went a step further and propagated a concept of a rival kingdom for the power of darkness.
God never sent an evil spirit to enter the snake so that the snake might in turn tempt Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. If the snake had been sent by the evil spirit to tempt Eve, the snake itself would have said so in the presence of God Almighty just as Adam could not dither but was heard saying it loud and clear in a hope of getting exonerated; “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” (Gen 3:12 NKJV)
If the snake was also sent by the evil spirit to tempt Adam and Eve, it would also have said, at that time in the presence of God Almighty; “The evil spirit has sent me to tempt her.” The snake cunning as it was, never said so, for no one had sent it to deceive Eve.
God Himself never lies. Therefore, He would have also had it put down in black and white that; “I, God Almighty, have sent the evil spirit to tempt Eve.” He admitted to tempting Job. He admitted to having made the heart of Pharaoh as hard as stone. What might have stopped Him from telling us if He had sent the snake to tempt Eve? The answer is, nothing might have stopped Him for He never sent that snake to tempt Eve. Moreover, if the snake had been sent by God Almighty, it never would have been punished. God Almighty is not a confused God.
When Jesus Christ was tempted in the wilderness soon after his long fasting was over, the scripture records that angels were watching him from heaven. That is why they came down to earth to worship Jesus Christ after he had defeated the satan. It is also clearly stated that He was led there by the Spirit to be tempted by the Satan. Nothing is left to our speculation and guesswork. Satan in this context is deceit. Jesus was hungry. He had been alone in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights fasting. Then a thought (Satan) came to him to change stones into bread. Then all other thoughts of deceit came into his mind. He never yielded. Jesus was pestered by his thoughts which were busy deceiving him. God Almighty knew that Jesus would have these deceiving thoughts. That is why this story begins with these words from Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. If it was Satan that was expelled from heaven, whom Enoch wrote about, will it make sense that God Almighty made use of him? No! No! No! It will be most preposterous. It would be like sending a prisoner serving Life Sentence to deceive a judge of the Supreme Court.
Question: Why was it then so difficult for God Almighty to state that He had sent an evil spirit to tempt Eve if He had really done so?
Answer; God Almighty never did that. He had never sent the devil in a form of a snake to tempt Eve. That snake was not the devil but was a real snake with limbs. That is why it subsequently lost all limbs as God Almighty had said it would. To this day all snakes the world over have no limbs. It is only those propagating the profanation that God has a rival He has ever to contend with.
Conclusion: The snake never deceived Eve but it tempted her. Most people claim the snake deceived Eve. Collins English Dictionary defines deceive as to mislead by deliberate misrepresentation or lies. The snake then never lied to Eve but told Eve the plain truth about the tree and its fruit. It told her that after eating of its fruit their eyes would be opened and they would know what is good and what is evil.