Snakes in a church
I went to my first official wednesday night Bible Study at Peace Baptist Church last night. The first hour consists of something that vaguely resembles the church services there on Sunday mornings. Then everyone splits off to attend one class or another. I stayed in the "sanctuary" (which I keep wanting to call the nave) and attended the class on "Spiritual Warfare". I was hoping against hope for something like "Defense Against Dark Arts Class". No such luck. This week's topic was temptation, and it used as its primary example, the story of Eve and the Snake. Which they kept referring to as "The Devil" or "Satan". And which I still just can't see from this story. The story has always seemed to me like one of those folk tales explaining why something is the way it is (there's a word for that, but I can't remember it. Anyone?) In this instance: Why-the-snake-slithers-on-the-ground. I take the Snake to be a representative of the animal "snake". Or, serpent, if you prefer. And because of his actions can no longer walk, but must go about on his belly. The part about Eve seems spliced on, being borrowed from Pandora. Or, possibly, Pandora and Eve have some common ancestor. What really gets to me, though, is that they try to take it all literally, and to derive certain laws and rules from the story. "God did this because..." or "Adam behaved this way because..." and the subsequent punishment for the whole human race. Anyway, I'm rambling. Much like they did last night...