Parshat Bereshit5 min read

The Serpent Said Gods Before Anyone Else Did

The serpent spoke a word no creature had ever said before. Philo of Alexandria argues that word, not the lie, was the real crime.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. A Word That Had Never Been Said Before
  2. The Plural That Invented a New Universe
  3. Desire as the Engine of Idolatry
  4. What the Serpent's Motive Actually Was

A Word That Had Never Been Said Before

The serpent approached Eve with a question designed to destabilize: did God really say you would die if you ate from any tree? Eve corrected it. The serpent pressed. And then, offering the counterargument, it said something no creature had yet said in the Torah's account of creation: you will be like gods.

Not God. Gods. Plural.

The lie about death has always gotten the most attention. The serpent told Eve she would not die, contradicting God directly, and Eve believed it. That brazen denial seems like the heart of the serpent's crime. But Philo of Alexandria, reading this scene in the first century CE, noticed something stranger and more consequential sitting one sentence earlier.

The Plural That Invented a New Universe

The word elohim in Hebrew is grammatically plural and is used throughout the Torah as a name for God, but the serpent uses it here in a context that implies separate, competing divine powers. In Philo's reading, this was not a grammatical accident or a loose translation. The serpent spoke the word deliberately, and in doing so committed an act without precedent: it introduced the concept of multiple deities into a world that had known only one.

No creature had said this before. Not Adam in the garden, not Eve walking among the trees, not any of the animals given their names and natures. The entire account of creation up to that point had maintained a single sovereign intelligence ordering everything it made. One voice. One source. One cause. Then the serpent opened its mouth and populated the cosmos with competing divinities.

Philo's argument is cold and precise. The error of polytheism is not primarily theological. It is rational. The universe has one origin or it does not. If it has one origin, then the idea of multiple gods is a category mistake, a failure of logic dressed up as religion. The person who believes in many gods has not made an alternate religious choice. They have made an intellectual error about causation. And the first entity to make that error in the Torah's telling was a serpent.

Desire as the Engine of Idolatry

Philo does not stop at the grammar. He also reads the serpent itself as an allegory. The serpent represents pleasure, and specifically the kind of pleasure that destabilizes the rational mind. This is not a metaphor he invented. Snakes move in curves, low to the ground, and for Philo the curving, earthbound motion carries meaning: pleasure does not travel in straight lines toward truth. It winds around obstacles. It insinuates. It does not say directly what it wants.

The serpent's desire is for the woman rather than the man, in Philo's reading, because the allegorical structure of his Adam and Eve places sensation and emotion on Eve's side and reason on Adam's side. Pleasure targets sensation first. It knows that if it can move the part of the person that feels before engaging the part that thinks, it has already won half the argument. By the time reason checks the contract, the commitment has already been made.

And so the path to polytheism runs through desire. The serpent does not argue theology. It offers advantage: you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. The appeal is to appetite, the appetite to be more, to know more, to hold more power. Monotheism requires the discipline of recognizing that all power flows from one source and that the human position in creation is not at the center but in right relation to the center. The serpent offers a shortcut around that discipline. Call the powers many, and you can position yourself among them. Call the source one, and you must stand beneath it.

What the Serpent's Motive Actually Was

The deeper question Philo asks is why. Why does the serpent do this? It was not commanded to tempt. It was not assigned the role of adversary in any text Philo works from. It acted on its own, which means it acted from its own nature.

The answer he finds is envy. Pleasure, operating as the serpent, envied the rational life. Adam and Eve had been placed in a garden designed for contemplation, surrounded by visible evidence of divine order, given the leisure to walk and name and learn. The serpent watched a creature capable of ascending toward wisdom and chose to pull it toward appetite instead. Not because it was commanded to destroy but because the spectacle of rational life aimed at God was intolerable to something that moved on its belly and fed on dust.

In this reading, the serpent's invention of polytheism is not a sophisticated theological argument. It is resentment expressing itself through grammar.

SerpentAdam EveEveEdenMonotheism
← All myths

From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

The Midrash of Philo 5:2The Midrash of Philo

Get ready, because the answer might surprise you.

Our source today is "The Midrash of Philo," a fascinating, often overlooked text. Here, we find a unique take on the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and his infamous temptation of Eve. The serpent, uses the plural word "gods" when addressing Eve, even though there is only one true God. Why? What's the deal?

It first appears this is a minor detail, a simple grammatical choice. But according to the Midrash of Philo, it's anything but. The text suggests that the serpent, in his cunning, possessed a "prescient wisdom." He foresaw the future, a future where the belief in multiple gods would become widespread among humanity. The very notion of polytheism, of numerous deities, is first uttered not by a sage, not by a prophet, but by the most "virulent and vile of beasts."

Isn't that a powerful image? The idea of multiple gods, according to this midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), isn't rooted in reason or divine inspiration, but in the primal, earthly realm of serpents and creatures lurking in the shadows. The text even states that it is "the inseparable sign of a being endowed with reason to look upon God as essentially one being, but it is the mark of a beast to imagine that there are many gods."

But the serpent's deception doesn't stop there. He speaks with "great art," the midrash tells us. He doesn't just promise knowledge of good and evil; he omits the crucial part: God's approval of good and rejection of evil. The serpent only mentions the mere knowledge of these opposing forces, conveniently leaving out God's moral judgment.

And again, the use of the plural "as gods" is not accidental. It hints at the existence of both a "bad and a good God," a duality that further complicates the concept of the divine. This idea of particular gods having knowledge of contrary things contrasts sharply with the Supreme Cause, which transcends all others.

So, what does all this mean? Why does this Midrash focus on the serpent's choice of words? Perhaps it’s suggesting that the belief in multiple gods, in its essence, is a distortion of the true nature of the divine. It's a primal, instinctual understanding of the world, devoid of true reason and moral guidance. It’s a concept born from the shadows, whispered by a serpent, and ultimately, a deviation from the path of monotheism.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it? How deeply ingrained are these ancient ideas in our understanding of divinity? And how much does the language we use shape our perception of the sacred?

Full source
The Midrash of Philo 14:10The Midrash of Philo

He suggests we look beyond the literal.

Philo sees the serpent not just as a snake, but as an allegory – an emblem of desire itself. The serpent "creeps upon his breast and upon his belly," Philo says, “being filled with meat and drink like cormorants, being inflamed by an insatiable cupidity.” It's a vivid picture of someone completely consumed by their appetites, isn’t it?

What about the dust? Philo connects that to the earthly nature of these desires. “Whatever relates to food is in every article something earthly, on which account he is said to eat the dust.” It’s a grounding, even degrading, image. Desire, unrestrained, keeps us stuck in the muck of physical gratification.

This is where it gets really interesting. Philo equates the woman, Eve, with the "outward sense." Our senses, our ability to experience the world around us. He argues that desire and our senses are naturally at odds.

But wait a minute, aren’t we supposed to enjoy the world? Philo isn't saying pleasure is inherently bad, but rather that unchecked desire, the "serpent" within us, can actually corrupt our senses. He goes on to say that "the passions appear to be as it were guardians and champions in behalf of the senses, nevertheless they are beyond all question still more clearly flatterers forming devices against them like so many enemies".: How often do we indulge in something that ultimately leaves us feeling worse? Overeating, overspending, overdoing... It's like the serpent is whispering in our ear, promising pleasure, but ultimately leading us to a fall.

Philo paints a stark picture. “Forsooth they turn the eyes to the ruin of the sight, the ears to hearing what is unwelcome; and the rest of the outward senses to insensibility." In other words, our uncontrolled desires can blind us, deafen us, and deaden us to the true beauty and goodness of the world.

So, the curse of the serpent isn't just about a snake crawling on its belly. It's about the constant struggle within ourselves, the battle between our higher selves and our baser desires. It’s a reminder that true freedom comes not from indulging every whim, but from cultivating balance and moderation. It's a theme that echoes through Jewish thought and continues to resonate today. What do you think? Is Philo's interpretation spot-on, or is there more to the story?

Full source
The Midrash of Philo 1:13The Midrash of Philo

The story in Genesis, as The familiar version gives us, tells of a serpent who tempts the woman, leading to the eating of the forbidden fruit and the expulsion from paradise. But the ancient sages weren't content with just the surface narrative. They delved deeper, seeking to understand the motivations and nuances of the story. And that's where the midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) comes in – a way of interpreting scripture that fills in the gaps, asks the "what ifs," and draws out deeper meaning.

Here's one fascinating midrash, attributed to Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher who lived in Egypt during the first century. Philo, steeped in both Jewish tradition and Greek philosophy, offers a unique perspective on this pivotal moment. His midrash attempts to answer that very question: Why the woman?

Philo argues that the serpent chose the woman because she was, in his view, "more accustomed to be deceived than the man." Now, that might sound a bit harsh to our modern ears. But The source unfolds what Philo might have meant. He suggests that Adam, possessing a "masculine" mind and body, was better equipped to resist temptation and see through deception. His reasoning and strength allowed him to "disentangle the notions of seduction."

Eve, on the other hand, according to Philo, possessed a more "effeminate" mind, making her more susceptible to flattery and easily swayed by falsehoods that cleverly mimicked the truth. Her "softness," as Philo puts it, made her an easier target.

Ouch.

But the midrash doesn't stop there. It goes on to describe the serpent shedding its skin, from head to tail, a process that renews its life. Philo interprets this shedding as a reproach to humankind. The serpent's renewal mocks humanity's loss of immortality. The serpent, through its shedding, achieves a kind of perpetual youth, while humanity, by succumbing to temptation, has embraced mortality.

The midrash suggests that Eve, upon witnessing this, should have recognized the serpent's cunning and deceitfulness. She should have seen its "ingenuity" as a red flag, a sign of its manipulative nature. Instead, she was enticed by the prospect of acquiring a life free from aging and decay – a life, ironically, that the serpent seemed to possess through its constant renewal.

It is important to note that Philo's interpretation is just one perspective, and it reflects the cultural biases of his time. Many other midrashim offer different, and often more nuanced, interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve. But it offers us a fascinating glimpse into how ancient thinkers grappled with the complexities of the biblical narrative and sought to understand the human condition.

So, what do we take away from this? Is Eve truly more susceptible to deception? Or is this midrash simply reflecting the patriarchal views of its time? Perhaps the real lesson is about the allure of the forbidden, the seductive power of immortality, and the ever-present challenge of discerning truth from falsehood – challenges that confront us all, regardless of gender. What do you think?

Full source