one of us, knowing good and evil.” On first reading at least, God seems to have tried to deceive his creatures by issuing threats he subsequently did not fulfill. The snake told the truth, not the LORD God. But as commentators have often pointed out, the snake was uttering half-truths. There is a subtle ambiguity in his words which warrants describing him as “shrewd.” Furthermore, as Gunkel (17) notes: “It is very neat, that the snake never directly demands that they should eat—he understands the