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The Serpent of Eden: A Philological and Critical Essay on the Text of Genesis III, and Its Various Interpretations is unavailable, but you can change that!

To Jews and Christians alike, the narrative of the temptation and fall of man is an article of faith. It’s the very foundation of the edifice of faith; the very groundwork of the whole scheme of redemption. It is an article of faith that Eve was tempted by “the Serpent” and fell—that she, in turn, tempted Adam, who also fell—and that Adam, Eve, and this “Serpent” were subjected each to a special...

eat all the days of thy life.” Satan, being an incorporeal spirit, has no corporeal belly on which to go, in a literal sense; and as he requires no material sustenance, he neither eats dust nor any other food, in a literal sense. We find, however, on examination, that these two expressions have a very definite and special sense and meaning in the Holy Scriptures. The two clauses, through insensible gradations and through various shades of meaning, merge into the one idea, which in scriptural usage
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