What!? A snake with 4 legs, really?

[First posted Nov. 8, 2015. A visitor recently checked it out, so we did too . . . and decided it’s time for a revisit. Why? Self-explanatory!–Admin1]

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DVE@Sinai6000, our Admin 2 sent in this link:

http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2015/07/25/proof-of-the-torah-snake-fossil-with-4-legs-found/

Proof of the Torah? Snake Fossil With 4 Legs Found

by ADMIN in CULTURE

113-million-year-old oldest ancestor of snake first with 4 legs ever seen – proof of Torah account that serpent originally walked upright?

Scientists have long scoffed at the Torah account of how the serpent in the Garden of Eden walked upright before being cursed, but a newly found 113-million-year-old fossil proves that snakes indeed once had four legs.
Back in the first days after Creation, the Torah relates how G-d cursed the serpent for deceiving Eve into eating from the Tree of Knowledge, saying, “upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” (Genesis 3:14). Several traditional commenters theorize that the first snakes may have had limbs.
The new 19.5 cm long fossil, dubbed Tetrapodophis amplectus and revealed by BBC on Friday, indicates that snakes indeed once had means of not just “eating dust.”
While several previous finds had hind limbs, this is the first with four legs and is thought to be the oldest direct ancestor of current snakes.
The legs of the new first find are small and likely weren’t used for full walking, but could have been used to grab prey and burrow. According to experts, the fossil was apparently in a stage of adaption, indicating previous versions likely used their legs to walk.
Dr. Nick Longrich of the University of Bath, an author in a new study on the find published in Science, told BBC about the amazing discovery.
The front legs were just four millimeters long, and the hind ones seven millimeters, but the doctor made clear they weren’t just “vestigial” evolutionary leftovers.

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There was a time when we were still Christians that we would have been ecstatic over a discovery such as this!

We believed in our Bible teacher who taught us to read the whole Bible literally, and accept everything as divinely-sourced-so-don’t-question-it; just swallow it all, hook, line and sinker.

We’ve gone a long way in five years–from gullible to skeptical, from unquestioning to realistic, from “I was blind” to “now I see!” To understand what we now recognize as “YHWH’s Word” or ‘divine revelation’, read this post:

IN HIS NAME – Where in What Bible is His Word? – 3

If you have read our commentary on who is the serpent in Genesis 3, you know that we don’t subscribe to a literal reading of this chapter as well as a literal interpretation of this particular ‘character’ who appears as a specific animal, in fact the first animal mentioned in scripture. Why?

Think logically. Three things not found in real life,:

1. walking-talking serpent

2. tree of knowledge of good and evil

3. tree of life

So now that a fossil of a serpent with 4 legs has been discovered, are we changing our position? Nope. Why not?

Other members belonging to the reptilian family [check out http://www.reptile-database.org/] have legs, are able to walk. Snakes are reptiles without legs that do move on their bellies; and if a fossil shows a variety of snakes with legs for whatever purpose they are used, there is still the other ability unique to the Genesis snake character: ‘it’ or ‘he’ could talk! And not only talk but carry on a conversation, showing he could think logically enough to question Eve’s recollection of the commandment given by the Creator regarding the ‘taboo’ tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The two trees are also not found in the tree species of the world which suggests that they are figurative and not literal trees. Check out our posts for the interpretation of these two trees:

About the only realistic figures in the story are the first male and female humans who behave so typically human, they’re believable. In fact they are so true to life that we can easily relate to them:

they are curious;
they tempt themselves by going near what is forbidden;
they go against their better judgment and move from intention to action;
they don’t think about the consequence of disobedience, just what they want to do right this hot moment;
once they’ve ‘dunnit’ they don’t own up to their violation of a specific command;
they hide;
they lie;
they cover up;
they pass on the blame;
they don’t say ‘I’m sorry’ not even ‘forgive me’.

Human enough? How many of us can relate to that?

But the walking-talking serpent and the two trees? Not in our natural world; they belong more to mythology, fables, that category of literature.

So why is a story like this in the Torah?

Because there is nothing wrong with stories that teach universal truths or etiological attempts to answer the ‘whys’ in life. Sometimes such literary conventions or devices even do a better job in teaching truths than factual stories because the creative writer well selects and arranges his masterpiece far better than a news reporter of happenings, for the deeper truths he wants to communicate.

The Torah is full of narratives, historical as well as literary creations wonderfully and skillfully interwoven together. The key to understanding this book is to recognize which is which (fact and fiction) and learn lessons from them regardless.

Let us not lose sight of what Genesis 3 is really teaching about the nature of our Creator-God and about human nature.

Please read our series of articles interpreting the key figures in Genesis 3.

Prooftext 1a – Genesis 3:15 – Who is the “woman“?
Prooftext 1b – Genesis 3:15 – Who is the “serpent”?
Prooftext 1c – Gen. 3:15 – Who are the “seed,” “offspring”?
Prooftext 1d – Serpent Symbolism – Postscript
Revisited: Shedding without blood . . .

Image from www.landoverbaptist.org

Now, back to our title:

let’s just say

that the proof

of a snake

with 4 legs

is not proof enough

that the Genesis 3 snake

was a literal snake

unless we find out

that today

such snakes exist

which not only walk

but also talk . . .

and carry on

logical conversations

with humans.

You think???

Source: Exodus/Shemoth 24 – "the sight of the Glory of YHVH (was) like a consuming fire" -- We gentiles living in this 21st century are able to experience that climactic moment [God appearing on Sinai] by reading and studying this portion of the TORAH. Indeed, we see YHWH not quite as dramatically as the mixed multitude did, but perhaps even better through these accounts recorded in Exodus. There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20 vision, i.e., we begin to see and understand the question marks in our past only later in our lives, as we mature and hopefully become wiser and more introspective about the meaning or seeming meaninglessness of happenings in history, whether personal, national, or universal. Søren Kierkegaard adds a twist to this: “Only 20:20 vision is hindsight. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” As we endeavor to understand each portion in the TORAH of YHWH, much of it will seem irrelevant to our current situation but if we see beyond the time-bound cultural and religious situations and begin to understand what truly has not change—human nature and the Great Revelator who designed the perfect blueprint for living in peace, happily and contentedly with family, community, country and the nations, the unquestionable conclusion is: TORAH is relevant to ALL humankind, not just to Israel, to this very day.

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