Once again Greg confuses TRADITION with the actual Biblical TEXT. Nowhere in the Genesis account of the serpent and Eve does it say that all snake species would change. It speaks specifically of “the Serpent”. This was no mere snake. It talked and was wiser than all of the animals of God’s creation (i.e., “than all of the beasts of the field” in many translations.) It was far above such creatures. This Hebrew grammatical construction is found in other Old Testament passages. For example, when the Psalmist says “I have more understanding than all of my teachers”, he is NOT saying that he is a teacher or should be counted among that group. Rather, it is a “contrasting” construction.The Serpent in the Edenic garden was superior to all of the beasts of the field. It was no mere animal. It was not one of them. It was wise and crafty. Indeed, seeing how Adam and Eve were given dominion over all of the animals, the Serpent in this text could NOT have been a conventional snake—unless Greg wants to insist that the Bible contradicts itself.
Moreover, Satan is often called a dragon or serpent (e.g., Rev. 12:9, 20:2.) So if someone compares scripture with scripture, they will realize that the Serpent in this text was no common snake. (Satan is being compared to a reviled snake, a common symbol of evil.) I won’t bother to go into the many accounts from other Ancient Near Eastern cultures where serpents are similarly prominent in their stories, sometimes representing evil and sometimes representing power and dominance. (Check out the Egyptian Uraeus, often depicted on the front of a Pharaoh’s crown and associated with a protective goddess of the Lower Nile region.) I could also get into the debates about the serpent as a common metaphor for evil and for dreaded enemies but one can easily learn about this topic online. For now I am simply pointing out the symbolic and metaphoric nature of the serpent in the ancient world.
Some traditionalists will still object and say, “But all snakes must have lost their legs due to the fall. They have been cursed to move about on their bellies and eat dust.” What they are missing is that grovelling about on the belly and eating dust was a common IDIOMATIC CONSTRUCTION in Ancient Hebrew and in other neighboring cultures. It was common language to refer to defeated enemies and their kings having to crawl in defeat and drag their bellies, eating dust as they were humiliated and humbled. Even in modern English we have something similar: “Eat my dust!”, especially in a racing context where the defeated party is left behind and forced to breathe in the dust of the victor. Nevertheless, that idiom has been generalized to contexts which have nothing to do with road dust or racing. For example, I once watched a chess match where the victor stood up and shouted “Checkmate! Eat my dust!” and walked away.
Anti-Bible activists online often mock the Bible for speaking of a serpent “eating dust”. They totally fail to recognize the obvious metaphor. The Genesis text isn’t saying that snakes will live on a diet of dust. It is saying that the serpent in the story is going to be relegated to a lowly status, defeated into the dust. Today we might say “knocked to the ground” as a reference to defeat.
We know that this relegation to the ground was metaphorical and not literal because Satan, the Great Serpent/Dragon, is mentioned as having legs in other passages of the Bible—such as in the beginning of the Job story when it says that Satan had been “walking about to and fro over the face of the earth” and observing Job’s favored life. So clearly the Serpent of the Genesis account has not been deprived of legs—and is not yet fully defeated into the dust. (The Book of Job does not depict Satan the Great Serpent slithering his way to heaven for his conversation with God.)
Welcome to the dangers of hyperliteral interpretations of the Bible, Greg. If you insist on over-literalizing the Genesis account of the fall, you will miss a lot of the intended meaning. (Of course that is exactly what happened and you did get totally distracted by man-made traditions and missed what the Biblical text is saying.)
The Serpent of the account of the Fall has also been associated by some scholars with the fallen seraphim angelic creatures. This interpretation is yet another which recognizes that the Genesis text is not talking about conventional reptilian snakes as popular traditions assume. Here is one example of such a discussion:
@Greg, nothing in the Biblical text says that all snakes on planet earth lost their legs and changed their behaviors due to what the Serpent did in the Edenic garden. You have confused popular man-made TRADITION with what the Biblical text actually states.