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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...

understood the Hebrew text to indicate the intention of the sacred writer as meaning that the Serpent was subtil, if you like, but with an intelligent, thinking, and reasoning subtility. Otherwise they would not have used the word φρονιμώτατος. The Ancient Arabic Version, too, uses the word hakmimunh, which signifies “wisest.” In the Greek and the Arabic, the expression is in the superlative degree. In the Hebrew language, which has no superlative form for the adjective, the superlative sense is
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