This was written in response to the age-old and persistent desire of some theological liberals to mythologize the Bible – that it can't mean what it actually says – in this case that Satan's temptation was only a vague idea floating through Eve's head – not a visit from an actual entity.
Conjectures on the shape of things in Eden
In what guise did Satan come and tempt Eve? Was it all a myth? We MIGHT get a clue as to what SHAPE the tempter's appearance took in the garden by examining the CURSES! This could be very revealing. In even a casual reading, we readily see that each curse was tailor-made to fit each of the three transgressors in Eden, who had just profoundly upset heavenly protocol.
In both Adam's and Eve's case the curses were LITERAL curses, that happened EXACTLY as they were uttered. And they were fitting. Wow, were they EVER fitting. Adam did not receive Eve's curse – it would have been meaningless – since he did not have a womb. To crawl on one's belly would not have fit Eve, either. If such a curse HAD been leveled at her, she would have no doubt, found it awkward and uncomfortable to have to navigate that way for the rest of her life, but it would not have brought the profound sadness, NEEDED, where it would hurt big-time in her primary work of bearing children. And one can't imagine telling a vaporizing demon to crawl on its belly. How would this be a sadness to him? But such an utterance WOULD fit a snake.
There are four guises that Satan could have taken up to tempt Adam and Eve. He could have tempted through 1) a vague ideology, 2) a vaporizing spirit, 3) as an incarnate person, or 4) in physical form within an animal – the snake.
The issue is conclusively settled in Gen 3:1 when the scriptures say the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild ANIMALS – not spirits, or vague ideas – and that the Lord God had MADE, as in "assemble some DNA."
And since we see several other instances of Satan inhabiting animals throughout the holy scriptures, it is not an unlikely scenario that it happened just as it said. An entire fraternity of demons was sent to inhabit pigs, who then ran off a cliff, recorded in the New Testament, not only in prediluvian Genesis. This was observed by an entire village, not by some stray hallucinogenic madman.
We see it, too, in Balaam's donkey, an inhabited animal, who spoke using human language, a millennium after the garden episode. And we see a further such animal incarnation taking place in Nebuchadnezzar – this time a human made into a beast, who again SPOKE. Oh, how the Bible can be endlessly confounding, underneath it AND on the face of it.
Inerrancy is THE issue of our day. Colleges take faith out of the students through this issue alone. Skepticism leads to disbelief, leading to hostility. "But the kindness of Yahweh is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear Him – to those who guard His covenant, and to those who remember His orders, to do them" (Psalm 103:17-18).
Re: another colossal and significant debate re: origins, see our book, Impossible Evolution. Problems with the Theory of Evolution, a succinct explanation of both sides of the Creation/Evolution debate, sure evidences that an Intelligent Design spoke the Creation into being, and thoughts on why it all matters.
