Article July 15, 2013 Issue

Rejecting snake-talk

Andrew Wilson

We are told in the third chapter of Genesis that in the Garden of Eden a serpent spoke to Eve suggesting that if she ate the forbidden fruit her eyes would be opened, “and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (verse 5). But we have just learned in the first chapter of Genesis about one supreme God whose creation was “very good” (verse 31).

In her discussion in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures of Eve’s encounter, Mary Baker Eddy asked: “Whence comes a talking, lying serpent to tempt the children of divine Love? The serpent enters into the metaphor only as evil” (p. 529).

Elsewhere she wrote: “In the days of Eden, humanity was misled by a false personality,—a talking snake—according to biblical history. This pretender taught the opposite of Truth. This abortive ego, this fable of error, is laid bare in Christian Science” (Unity of Good, p. 44).