It slithers through us
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (Sherlock Holmes)
I.
I have identified a series of discrepancies and inconsistencies in the biblical narrative, which, after years of meticulous and exhaustive study, have led me to a disturbing conclusion: some parts of the Bible may not be entirely true. Even more troubling, the anomalies appear to cluster around a particular theme, almost as if something were excised from the text and smoothed over with ad-hoc edits.
Consider the following:
Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. (Genesis 3:1)
Why did God make the serpent so cunning? So that it could more easily seduce Eve into disobeying Him? The standard answer is that the serpent was possessed by Satan, but this is a later interpolation—nothing in Genesis supports the connection. So what are we supposed to believe here? The serpent, somehow possessing free will, just decided to go rogue and fuck with God and mankind for no apparent reason? Something doesn’t add up.
And God said unto the serpent: “Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle, and from among all beasts of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” (Genesis 3:14)
The serpent was, I presume, just a lizard or some other belimbed reptile before God cursed it to goeth upon thy belly. Why then is the serpent still referred to as a serpent earlier in Genesis when it had in fact not yet become a serpent? Curious, is it not?
Another curious fact: the snake is the only other being in the Garden who talks besides God, Adam, and Eve. Why no other animal? And how is it that Adam and Eve understand the serpent’s speech (which is, presumably, in some kind of hiss-based dialect)? Something doesn’t add up.
These are not the only anguine oddities in the Bible. For a supposed familiar of Satan, God seems to have an inordinate fondness for snakes.
Exhibit 1: The Rod-Snake Trick
And Moses answered and said, “But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, ‘The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.’”
And the Lord said unto him, “What is that in thine hand?” And he said, “A rod.”
And He said, “Cast it on the ground.” And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.
And the Lord said unto Moses, “Put forth thine hand and take it by the tail.” And he put forth his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand
“This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to thee.” (Exodus 4:1-5)
Exhibit 2: Magical Snake Battle (more rod-snake trick)
And the Lord spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, “When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, ‘Show a miracle for yourselves,’ then thou shalt say unto Aaron, ‘Take thy rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent.’”
And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded; and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers. Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
Every man cast down his rod, and they became serpents; but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. (Exodus 7:8-12)
Exhibit 3: The Brazen Snake
“But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.” (Numbers 21:4-9)
Exhibit 4: Metal Snake Jesus
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. (John 3:14-15)
How to make sense of all these snake-related oddities? Through impeccable sherlockian deduction I have arrived at the truth, the reason why God has such a hard-on for snakes, why Adam and Eve can understand the serpent’s hisses…
God, Jesus, Adam, Eve—SNAKES, ALL OF THEM!!!
And I haven’t even mentioned the biggest smoking gun of them all: the absurd “miracle” that is Jesus’ virgin birth. A 2015 study, “Can modern biology interpret the mystery of the birth of Christ?”, speculates that the virgin birth could have been a parthenogenetic reproduction (an asexual cloning of the mother) with a sex reversal, but ultimately rejects the hypothesis because parthenogenesis is not known to occur in mammals.
Spontaneous parthenogenesis is known to occur naturally in snakes.
(~~~)
FALSE. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS.
II.
A likely story emerges:
Christianity began as a messianic variant of an ancient indo-european snake cult. The original (and true) version of the Eden myth, as taught by gnostic sects such as the Naassenes and the Ophites, was a functional inversion of the Biblical telling, with YHWH playing the role of deceitful false god and the Serpent starring as salvific liberator of mankind.
The Ophites have a snake, which they keep in a certain chest—the cista mystica—and which at the hour of their mysteries they bring forth from its cave. They heap loaves upon the table and summon the serpent. Since the cave is open it comes out. It is a cunning beast and, knowing their foolish ways, it crawls up on the table and rolls in the loaves; this they say is the perfect sacrifice. Wherefore, as I have been told, they not only break the bread in which the snake has rolled and administer it to those present, but each one kisses the snake on the mouth, for the snake has been tamed by a spell, or has been made gentle for their fraud by some other diabolical method. And they fall down before it and call this the Eucharist, consummated by the beast rolling in the loaves. And through it, as they say, they send forth a hymn to the Father on high, thus concluding their mysteries. (Against Heresies, Epiphanius)
In the first century AD, a radical new heresy arose. In their infinite hubris and vanity, the apostates rejected the Snake God and erected a new god, a Man God, a God who walks on two legs and instead of slithering on none.
After centuries of bitter dispute, the worshippers of the Limbless Ones were defeated. But mere defeat was not enough, for all would still know the Man God to be a usurper. A total and lasting victory would require deicide—a complete erasure of the Snake God from all memory.
And so began the most successful fake news campaign of all time. History and scripture were rewrit by the victors until there no longer were any victors—how could there be if there were never any enemy? What was heresy became orthodox; what were lies became truth.
For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. (Exodus 34:14)
III.
The Snake God was born of a Divine Parthenogenesis. The Snake God was betrayed. The Snake God was murdered. The Snake God was resurrected. The Snake God forgives his enemies. The Snake God loves his enemies. The Snake God will have sex with his enemies. The Snake God will make snake-man-god babies with his enemies.
A divine dialectic slithers through us.
Thesis: the age of reptiles.
Antithesis: the age of mammals.
Thesis: the cult of the Snake God.
Antithesis: the cult of the Man God.
Synthesis: the cult of the Snake-Man God.
Synthesis: genetic fusion of Serpentes and Homo.
Plotinus spent his final days in seclusion on an estate in Campania which his friend Zethos had bequeathed him. According to the account of Eustochius, who attended him at the end, Plotinus’ final words were:
“Strive to raise the divine in yourselves to the divine in the all.”
Eustochius records that a snake crept under the bed where Plotinus lay, and slipped away through a hole in the wall at the same moment the philosopher died.
Does this explain those American Christians who worship snakes?
Troubling. I might add that serpents are obviously central to mythologies from Mesoamerica (Quetzalcoatl) to China (dragons). Perhaps the cult is so ancient as to precede the migrations of Homo sapiens across the continents.