@altschmerz When my oldest came out as transgender male in his teens I was very concerned about him being a target. I tried to explain how boys play the "make the weakest cry" game and he didn't believe me at first.

ok, not to intrude into a great discussion, but now maybe imagine eve as repping emotions, adam logic, and you as both of them, and the two shall become one

@bbyrd009 Adam in Aramaic means made from red earth, Eve means given life or born alive.
Their sons names Abel means vanity or talker, Cain means Weapons Smith and Seth means replacement.
Eden literally means pleasure garden.
The serpent is not identified as such but by the Ammonite name Nachash, it is usually taken to mean snake or serpent because of the curse placed on it by god to crawl on its belly and eat dust, nowhere in the Aramaic text does it say that Nachash is a serpent or a snake. The word actually as a name means artist or artisan.
Given all this it takes a particularly dumb religious person to contend that the book of genesis is aught but a parable/morality play meant to keep the plebes in line.

@altschmerz maybe...it kinda tails with how we are as babies, naked and unashamed; of course now that i am biased this direction i am seeking reasons to shoot it down, but its holding up pretty well so far

@LenHazell53 i guess snakes had a diff meaning to them than us, maybe something more like "wisdom" or even maybe "logic?"
and i'm fairly convinced that Genesis is a lift from older wisdom works anyway...but keeping plebes in line doesnt strike me as maybe the best characterizatio, dunno; they already had a literal law of Sin and Death

@LenHazell53 "The Hebrew word nachash is the generic name of any serpent. The following are the principal biblical allusions to this animal its subtlety is mentioned in (Genesis 3:1) its wisdom is alluded to by our Lord in (Matthew 10:18) the poisonous properties of some species are often mentioned, see (Psalms 58:4; Proverbs 25:32) the sharp tongue of the serpent is mentioned in (Psalms 140:3; Job 20:16) the habit serpents have of lying concealed in hedges and in holes of walls is alluded to in (Ecclesiastes 10:8) their dwelling in dry sandy places, in (8:10) their wonderful mode of progression did not escape the observation of the author of (Proverbs 30:1) ... who expressly mentions it as "one of the three things which were too wonderful for him." ver. 19.

The art of taming and charming serpents is of great antiquity, and is alluded to in (Psalms 58:5; Ecclesiastes 10:11; Jeremiah 8:17) and doubtless intimated by St. James, (James 3:7) who particularizes serpents among all other animals that "have been tamed by man." It was under the form of a serpent that the devil seduced Eve; hence in Scripture Satan is called "the old serpent." (Revelation 12:9) and comp. 2Cor 11:3 Hence, as a fruit of the tradition of the Fall, the serpent all through the East became the emblem of the spirit of evil, and is so pictured even on the monuments of Egypt..." [biblehub.com]

"artist or artisan" i havent heard before, got a link? ty

@bbyrd009 Please don't just cut and paste sections from Bible study tools dot com and not credit it.
The Aramaic word for snake is ḥiwya and the word for serpent is neḥas.
In Hebrew the word nachash is used as a slang word for serpent but actually connotes in context something like sneaky or slippery in the sense of a clever dick, but the book of genesis is NOT written in Hebrew it is written in Aramaic.
The word used in translation from the text can be read ( by adding in the vowels) as Nachash but can also be read as Nachesh which means user of arts, and is also a word for a witch.
As I said the only reason the creature that tempts Eve is assumed to be a snake or a serpent is because it is forced too crawl on its belly by god.
There is also of course the fact that in Aramaic he name of eve is written חַוָּה where as the word for snake is spelled חִוְיָא and have a very close pronunciation, which may have added to the myth.

@LenHazell53 "Please don't just cut and paste sections from Bible study tools dot com and not credit it."
i included a link? Did i do it wrong?

"the book of genesis is NOT written in Hebrew it is written in Aramaic."
hmm, are you sure? I thot the OT was all in Hebrew, hmm

"The word used in translation from the text can be read ( by adding in the vowels) as Nachash but can also be read as Nachesh which means user of arts, and is also a word for a witch.
As I said the only reason the creature that tempts Eve is assumed to be a snake or a serpent is because it is forced too crawl on its belly by god."
yeh, wouldn't surprise me if some dbl-entendre stuff was going on there, sure. The "witch" connection i was aware of, "artist" not so much

@bbyrd009
You are correct, only some portions of the OT texts were written in Aramaic, Daniel, Ezra (in the Douay Rheims version) and Jeremiah, but not Genesis, I must be getting old and confused, so I apologise and thank you for the correction.