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Serpents in the Bible
Serpents ((ヘブライ語:נחש) ''nāḥāš'') are referred to in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The symbol of a serpent or snake played important roles in religious and cultural life of ancient Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia and Greece. The serpent was a symbol of evil power and chaos from the underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life and healing. ''Nachash'', Hebrew for "snake", is also associated with divination, including the verb-form meaning to practice divination or fortune-telling. In the Hebrew Bible, ''Nachash'' occurs in the Torah to identify the serpent in Eden. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, it is also used in conjunction with ''saraph'' to describe vicious serpents in the wilderness. ''Tanniyn'', a form of dragon-monster, also occurs throughout the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Exodus, the staffs of Moses and Aaron are turned into serpents, a ''nachash'' for Moses, a ''tanniyn'' for Aaron. In the New Testament, the Book of Revelation makes use of ''ancient serpent'' and ''the Dragon'' several times to identify Satan or the devil. (; )
==Serpents in Mesopotamian mythology==
In the oldest story ever written, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh loses the power of immortality, stolen by a snake.〔(Storytelling, the Meaning of Life, and The Epic of Gilgamesh )〕 The serpent was a widespread figure in the mythology of the Ancient Near East. Ouroboros is an ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail that represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life,〔(Mathematical Symbols and Scientific Icons )〕 the eternal return, and the cycle of life, death and rebirth, leading to immortality.
Archaeologists have uncovered serpent cult objects in Bronze Age strata at several pre-Israelite cities in Canaan: two at Megiddo,〔Gordon Loud, ''Megiddo II: Plates'' plate 240: 1, 4, from Stratum X (dated by Loud 1650–1550 BC) and Statum VIIB (dated 1250-1150 BC), noted by Karen Randolph Joines, "The Bronze Serpent in the Israelite Cult" ''Journal of Biblical Literature'' 87.3 (September 1968:245-256) p. 245 note 2.〕 one at Gezer,〔R.A.S. Macalister, ''Gezer II'', p. 399, fig. 488, noted by Joiner 1968:245 note 3, from the high place area, dated Late Bronze Age.〕 one in the ''sanctum sanctorum'' of the Area H temple at Hazor,〔Yigael Yadin et al. ''Hazor III-IV: Plates'', pl. 339, 5, 6, dated Late Bronze Age II (Yadiin to Joiner, in Joiner 1968:245 note 4).〕 and two at Shechem.〔Callaway and Toombs to Joiner (Joiner 1968:246 note 5).〕 In the surrounding region, a late Bronze Age Hittite shrine in northern Syria contained a bronze statue of a god holding a serpent in one hand and a staff in the other.〔Maurice Viera, ''Hittite Art'' (London, 1955) fig. 114.〕 In sixth-century Babylon, a pair of bronze serpents flanked each of the four doorways of the temple of Esagila.〔Leonard W. King, ''A History of Babylon'', p. 72.〕 At the Babylonian New Year festival, the priest was to commission from a woodworker, a metalworker and a goldsmith two images one of which "shall hold in its left hand a snake of cedar, raising its right () to the god Nabu".〔Pritchard ''ANET'', 331, noted in Joines 1968:246 and note 8.〕 At the tell of Tepe Gawra, at least seventeen Early Bronze Age Assyrian bronze serpents were recovered.〔E.A. Speiser, ''Excavations at Tepe Gawra: I. Levels I-VIII, p. 114ff., noted in Joines 1968:246 and note 9.〕 The Sumerian fertility god Ningizzida was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a human head, eventually becoming a god of healing and magic.
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