Some comments on this.
First a trivial point of orthography. If the right characters could be used here (and probably they can’t due to limitations of the blog software), the word would be rendered as “nahash” with a dot under the first “h”. That’s to indicate a rough aspirated h, which comes out like the “ch” in “Loch Ness”. So if one doesn’t have an h-subscript-dot character available, “nachash” would be a better rendering, provided one takes care not to pronounce the “ch” as in “church” but as in “Loch” (think Scots!) But this is not the interesting question here.
I did some looking up here. It turns out that nachash is used several times in the Old Testament clearly in reference to snakes, and that would be the most obvious translation, unless context determined otherwise. There are a few verses where it may refer to something more generically reptilian, and once it seems to refer to a (probably snake-like in shape) marine creature.
So the traditional translation of “serpent” is not unreasonable, and I would say that most people in the tradition, and most people today, still have a mental picture of a snake (albeit an unusual one) when they read the passage.
The more interesting question is why this particular “serpent” displays odd behavior, such as, for example, talking, and even engaging in debate with people.
This takes me to another old post where this subject (and Joshua’s remark) is picked up, i.e.,
On Narnians, Martians and Neanderthals - #6 by swamidass
For some reason, I am blocked from commenting on this post, replying to it, or directly using the quote function, but I can still quote from it via copy and paste:
Joshua: “the Serpent is speaking of its own accord. This appears to be unique in Scripture, and suggests strongly that the Serpent is not a beast.”
to which came this reply:
John Harshman: “But Genesis says he’s a beast, the cleverest of all the beasts.”
Now, as everyone here knows, I rarely agree with John Harshman. However, he is correct here regarding the Hebrew text. “Now the serpent was clever, beyond every beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” This would be a very odd locution if the text did not intend to convey that the serpent was one of the “beasts of the field” that God made (reference to Genesis 1, sixth day). In other words, whatever remarkable abilities this serpent may show, and whatever else it may be, it is a created thing and one of the “beasts of the field” (whatever one conceives that category to include).
Does this rule out the possibility that the serpent is Satan? Not necessarily. Satan might conceivably occupy the form of a beast, and give it the power to talk, and use it as a mouthpiece. But it still is a created beast; it’s not a devil disguised as a beast. It’s a flesh-and-blood animal. It is distinguished from the other animals by being “more clever”, and by being able to talk (which may perhaps be conceived of as part of its “cleverness”). And this idea that the serpent is wiser or more clever (and more devious) than other creatures is very common among ancient peoples. So it’s not at all surprising that if any created animal could cause trouble in Eden, the serpent would be the one.
So the first and most natural reading of the text here is that we are talking about a serpent, albeit the original form of the serpent before it was modified (as will happen later in the narrative).
Of course, I’m here taking Genesis 1-11 as my initial literary unit. Whether the serpent might take on more levels of meaning as we progressively add wider circles around it (all of Genesis, all of the Torah, all of the Hebrew Bible, all of the Christian Bible) is another question. But John Harshman’s point seems correct in the context of Gen. 1-11.
Obviously the serpent in Genesis 3 reminds us of the Satan in Job. He asks questions, and questions of a skeptical nature that imply distrust of someone. So it is understandable why later tradition will see the serpent as Satan. But that interpretation tends to make us think of angels and demons – immaterial substances, whereas this serpent is a concrete, created being, in flesh and blood – an animal. I think this needs to be remembered. If it is supposed to be Satan (and remember, no angelology is expressed in Genesis 1 or 2, so the flow of the story so far has given the reader no preparation for such a conclusion), it must be a created tool of Satan, or Satan disguised as an animal, and hence not really an animal at all – but the text assures us that it is an animal.
But even supposing the serpent to be in some way Satan or Satan’s tool, it raises interesting questions, since the Satan of Job is not a principle of evil, an anti-God, etc. He is part of the heavenly court whose skepticism serves God, by testing those whose motives for worshiping God may not be pure. Later on, of course, Satan will become a purely evil being, opposed to the will of God, but the serpent’s activity reminds us first and foremost of the Satan of Job.
Of course, it’s more complicated than that, because God punishes the serpent, whereas he doesn’t punish Satan in Job. So this leaves the nature and character of the serpent puzzling. He starts out as something like a tester of the obedience of Adam and Eve (which could be a God-ordained function), but ends up as something apparently aimed at thwarting God. But how does a creature that God made acquire such a character? Elephants and raccoons are also smart, but they don’t show this streak. The text leaves this a mystery. Hence, the Jewish rabbis could engage in various speculations.
But at least on the narrow point based on the text of Genesis 1-3, John Harshman is right. Of course, I don’t endorse other things John Harshman says here, e.g., his low opinion of C. S. Lewis. But I think that we have to remember that the serpent, whatever else he is, is identified in Genesis as one of the beasts of the field that God made. And I think that the denouement, in which the serpent goes on its belly, is meant to make us think of the serpent as a snake. Yes, one can say that lizards, turtles, etc. go on their “bellies”, i.e., walk close to the ground, but only the snake actually travels on its belly (if we discount rarities like legless lizards, which the Biblical authors would have counted as snakes anyway), and I think the snake is the animal the text is talking about.