Was Jesus Actually The Serpent In The Garden Of Eden? - Alex O’Connor

There's a there's a great Gnostic gospel called the testimony of truth which is discovered in the Nakamadi library. So that's buried in like 400 AD. So it's it's probably like 2 or 3rd century AD. Um and the testimony of truth retells the story of Genesis. But interestingly if you read Genesis and I mean like the actual account of Genesis um so so who are the characters in the sort of Garden of Eden story? Adam, Eve, Eve, snake, snake. Who's the snake? Devil, right? Why do you think that? Which it's just sort of traditionally the snake is the devil. But the text never says that. The text never identifies the serpent with the devil. Interesting. The concept of the devil, Satan, the accuser didn't exist at the time of writing of Genesis. Right. This is like one of those things about did the fruit of the loom logo ever have a cornucopia in it. Yeah. Yeah. A Mandela effect. Except this time like Yeah. the original Mandela effect. Yeah, I I I suppose so. Like like go, you know, go and read the text. It's just the serpent. And we're introduced to the serpent. We're told it's Genesis 3. It opens now. The serpent was more crafty than any of the beasts that the Lord has created. And and so Adam and Eve are told um you can eat of any fruit of the of the garden, but do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Surely die. Because the Hebrew it sort of says die twice. It's like you will die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die you will die a death um and so the serpent comes in this crafty serpent crafty is an an important word there um the King James translates it as as subtle the word is arum um so this the snake was more subtle or crafty or shrewd than the other beasts and it comes to Eve and says did God say that if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you'll die and he goes yeah and he goes you're not you're not going to die God just knows that if you eat of that tree you'll become like him knowing good and evil and he doesn't want that. So Eve looks at the fruit, sees that it's good for eating, takes a bite, gives them some to Adam, and what happens? Do they die? No. What happens? Well, God tells us in the Bible in the Genesis account, God says, "Now the man has become like us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and eat from the tree of life." And so he's banished from the Garden of Eden. What's the tree of life? Tree of Well, who knows? The tree of life and and inherit eternal life. So presumably in the way that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil gives you the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat from the tree of life, you get eternal life. And God says they must not be allowed to do that. They should have just gone for the tree of life first, which wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so there are lots of theological interpretations here because interestingly, God doesn't say at the beginning, you must not eat the tree of life. He just says you must not eat the tree of knowledge, good and evil. So arguably like if they'd gantcharted this correctly and they'd worked out tree of life. Yeah. Live forever. Yeah. Joe, it's actually a really interesting like what would happen if Adam and Eve eat from the tree of life first and then Well, arguably see this is the sort of insight that you need a productivity bro to bring to the theological seriously though it's it's a great question I I think that the tree of life gives you eternal life and the idea is that Adam and Eve have eternal life in the garden of Eden when they're created they're just going to live forever in the garden of Eden they've already got eternal life so eating from the tree of life and that's been subtracted from them now that they know good and evil you're not allowed to know good and evilly and also have eternal life. So then they're banished and then they're mortal. So the the Christian interpretation of the story is like well they didn't die literally but they they died in the sense that mortality entered into the world. You know they died a sort of spiritual death. They became but their immortality was taken from them. Yeah. Exactly. The fact that you're not going to die now doesn't matter. You are at some point. Yeah. It's like there's something about knowing good and evil as a human that means that you are going to die. probably because if you sin, the price of sin is death. And if you don't know good and evil, then you can't sin because you can't knowingly do evil. But if you know good and evil, then because we're humans and we're naturally flawed, we're always going to sin and therefore we we need death. So death enters the world. But here's the thing, right? That's one interpretation. Um but it is a bit of a weird story. Like who is this serpent? Why is the serpent even in the garden in the first place? you know, like like what what's the serpent doing there in this perfect Eden? You know, um who who created this this this serpent? You know, why can't they just eat from the tree of life afterwards? Why does because God doesn't it's not like they they literally just can't eat from the tree of life. God banishes from them from the garden and then guards the gates of Eden with a cherubam with a flaming sword. These stories are extraordinary, man. It's worth it's worth revisiting them. Um, so this ancient gospel, testimony of truth, identifies the serpent. It tells you who it thinks the serpent is. It doesn't identify it with the devil. Identifies it with Jesus Christ. What does that mean? That Jesus is the serpent. Because a great deal of the Gnostic tradition believes that the creator of the material world is an either evil or incompetent or lesser kind of god figure, the demi urge. So the material world is created by this evil or incompetent god. Um there are lots of different reasons to explain why that happened, but it's like not not the father that Jesus refers to. Jesus being like the true God comes down and when when Jesus says, you know, my father in heaven, he's not talking about the creator of the material universe because that's an evil demiurge. He's talking about the real sort of spiritual God. So the material stuff is bad and the spiritual stuff is good. Um there's so much to it, man. There's so much to it. But but but so so the idea is that the God of the Garden of Eden, this Gnostic gospel, the testimony of truth says like what god is this? What god is this that sort of lies to Adam and Eve? says that they're going to die. Doesn't is a jealous God, a self- admittedly jealous God. Doesn't want them to become like him. Now, why not become like gods? You know, he doesn't want it. He's jealous. And then the serpent comes in and and tells him the truth. Says like, "Look, you you you're these like material creatures created by this god, but there's this like spiritual wisdom. There's this knowledge of good and evil that he doesn't want you to have because he's this evil god. Like, but I'm going to I'm going to give it to you. I'm I'm telling you the truth here." Um, and so this this gospel thinks that Jesus is bringing wisdom there. Interestingly, that word arum, the Hebrew word that means shrewd or crafty or subtle um also is translated the same word throughout the whole of Proverbs as sensible or prudent. So there is a reading of Genesis that says now the serpent was more sensible than any of the other beasts that God has created. And he he's the one that comes to Eve and says, "Oh, like God said you were going to die if you No, no, you're not going to die. You're just going to be like him." And he's right. So this ancient Gnostic gospel condemns this creator god of Genesis identifies the serpent with Jesus uh and says that Adam and Eve did the right thing by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So there's one way that the Gnostic gospels totally upend the traditional understanding of Christianity and you can see why it's therefore condemned. So that's that's fascinating. And also this whole belief in the in the demiurge and the different and the different also to be clear the word gnostic a lot of scholars reject it because gnostics didn't call themselves gnostics. What is gnostic? Gnostic comes from the Greek word nosis for knowledge because a lot of these texts are unified by the fact that you're you're saved through knowledge. It's not you're not saved through the things that you do the way you behave. It's like you got to have the right kind of knowledge. You got whoever has the gospel of Thomas says you know whoever discovers the correct interpretation of these words you know shall enter the kingdom of God. It's about like getting you made them more [ __ ] literal. It's like getting the but you can't you can't and in fact in the canonical gospels um like the gospel of Mark you can read it like there's this report that when Jesus was with the big crowds he spoke in parables so that they wouldn't they wouldn't understand properly but when he got back to the disciples he explained everything properly. There's this idea even in the canonical gospels that there's like a public teaching of Jesus and a secret knowledge of Jesus. And so the gospel of Thomas opens these are the secret teachings of the living God. So this is the stuff that he said backstage which Ditimus Thomas Judas wrote down the gospel the the apostle Thomas wrote down. Um whether Thomas actually wrote them probably not. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that clip with Alex you will love the full length 2 and 1 half hour podcast which you can watch right here. Go on, give it a