A Questioning Punctuation

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Genesis 3:1 (KJV)

? – By now you should realize that ancient Hebrew doesn’t have punctuation, right? So there was no question mark here in the original text, but yet the translators felt it prudent to add it here. Why? Continue reading “A Questioning Punctuation”

The Naked Serpent

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

Genesis 3:1 (NASB)

Crafty – The introduction of the serpent immediately puts us on guard. Crafty is a term to cause even the most gullible person to become timid of another. It’s definitely not how we’d introduce a friend, right? “Hi, Mom, this is my friend Tom. He’s very crafty.” I don’t think Mom would sit well with that one. And maybe that’s the intent of this verse – to put us on guard, to cause us to recoil at the serpent’s entrance. Or is it? Continue reading “The Naked Serpent”