Regardless of whether snakes are vilified in the Bible, for people who have not read the Bible, the snake is still an animal that has more negative images than positive ones. I think the main reason is that it does not look good. They are not as cute as pandas or koalas, nor as majestic as lions or tigers, nor have special shapes like giraffes or elephants. When most people see a snake, they feel cold and creepy, so From the perspective of writing fables, the author of the Bible actually used snakes as villains very appropriately. What we want to ask is, why does Satan change into a snake? How did ancient civilizations around the world view snakes? Is the snake really just a laboratory of snake totems? If we understand the attitude of ancient civilizations towards snakes, we can tell the story of the snake's temptation of Eve a little more exciting than Rael. Many ancient civilizations worshiped snakes. The Mayans in Central America worshiped snakes. Their god was called the Feathered Serpent God. The royal emblem of Egypt was a cobra called "Ulaas". Fuxi and Nvchou in China were snakes with human heads. The aboriginal people of Taiwan also worship snake totems, and the ancient civilization of Mu continent in the Pacific Ocean also worships snake totems. There is a theory that these snakes are all seven-headed snakes from the Mu continent (some say they are seven-tailed snakes). Let’s start with the snakes of the Maya. The main god of the Maya is called the Feathered Serpent God, and his snake image is like a snake-like thing. , a long strip, like a flying tool, the carving is called the man in the snake. In addition, the Maya also has a pyramid with snake shadow steps. Mayan snakes are relatively pictographic, as if they are simulating a snake-like object rather than a real snake. Snakes are very popular in China. Fuxi and Nuwa are both snake gods with the head of a human and the body of a snake. They are brother and sister. They also survived after the great flood and gave birth to many offspring. It is said that when the world first opened, Nuwa rolled loess and made human beings. . This is the Chinese creation of man. This kind of inbreeding in myths is very common. The traditional explanations are all allusions to incest among primitive tribes. However, if we take a closer look at what this snake god is holding, you will find that it is a snake created by the tribe. The object they held in their hands was a ruler. The human-creating technology we now understand is the so-called clone. The clones are twins from the same mother cell. These clones have a brother-sister relationship with each other. I think we can also understand the meaning of this myth from this perspective. What is meant by the beginning of the world and Nuwa rolling out loess to become a human being? In addition to the records of snakes creating humans in China, snakes in India and Babylon also played important roles in creating humans and reproducing. Moreover, their snake bodies are wound in a similar way, looking like a double helix of DNA, which triggers our imagination of more replicators. Let’s look at the message in the oracle bone inscriptions. This is the character for snake. There is no word for snake in the oracle bone inscriptions, only "worm" and "it". If you look closely, you will find that these two words are actually the same word, and they both mean snake. Then let’s look at “Yu”. This person who is very closely related to the Great Flood is holding a snake in his hand. Oracle experts explain that the Yu people are a nation that worships snakes. In other words, Yu is also a Satan. That’s all from the same clan. Let’s look at Sanxingdui, which came to prominence in the past few years. The word “Shu” (picture 19) also comes from snake. Sanxingdui is also from the snake clan and is also a member of the Satan clan. They are snake clan with big eyes. The same goes for Chi You's "Chi". They are the snake clan who were defeated by the gods. However, according to archaeological research, experts believe that Chiyou's tribe worshiped cows. Maybe the word snake is just a coincidence. We don't necessarily have to go through it. After looking at snakes in China, let’s take a look at snakes in Taiwan. Taiwan's aborigines also worship snakes, and there are also legends about snakes creating humans. The creation myth of the Tsou people contains the content of the birth of snakes, and snakes also occupy an important position in the myths of the Dawu people of Lanyu. There is a stele with the character "tiger" on the Caoling Ancient Road near the north coast. According to the legend of the Ketagalan people, the character written on the stele is not the character "tiger". No one has ever written the Chinese character "tiger" like this. It should be an upright snake, and that monument should be called the "Snake Monument" rather than the Tiger Monument.
Here are a few aboriginal snake legends. One is the myth of the Paiwan and Rukai tribes. These two tribes are also aborigines who worship snake totems. The story is that a snake came to the tribe to ask for marriage, and the family Only the younger sister was willing to marry the Snake Man. After the Snake married her younger sister, he turned into a handsome young man and lived in a gorgeous house. When the elder sister saw it, she became jealous and killed her. Later, the younger sister turned into a bird. He came back to meet the snake and let his sister get retribution. Finally, he and the snake reproduced many species. Researchers of mythology and folklore believe that this is a deformed myth of snake totem worship. Similar myths are also spread in India, Myanmar, Japan, Indonesia and other places. Another one talks about the great flood myths of the Bunun and Tsou peoples. In the great flood legends of these two peoples, floods are caused by snakes. Giant snakes block the streams (the Tsou people refer to giant eels), causing great floods. Humans and animals hid in the mountains for refuge. Later, with the help of crabs, the giant snake was trapped to death before the flood receded. Although the narrative of the characters here is a bit different from that in the Bible, it is undeniable that it still shows that snakes are closely related to floods, not other animals. There seems to be no doubt that this snake was supported by the ancient people. It brought medical farming technology. The parts of the Bible that talk about medicine also have to quote the snake. If you are careful enough, you will find that now Many medical-related symbols have two snakes intertwined with each other, like the emblem of the National Taiwan University School of Medicine (Figure 21). However, why does such a positive totem become the incarnation of Satan in the Genesis of the Bible? Think about it again, in fact, Satan was not bad in Genesis. Didn’t he teach humans to distinguish good from evil and teach humans various knowledge? From a modern perspective, Satan should be a good person, but on the other hand, the gods Rather like a bad guy. After the flood, the snake tribe lingered on, continuing to educate humans on the earth and doing the opposite of the gods. Therefore, it is not only the initiator of the flood, but also the last remnant of the flood, and the inspirer of the next civilization. Snakes play a very important role in ancient civilizations. While talking, the roles have been reversed a bit, the gods have become bad, and the snakes have become good. It seems that the Gods are for fooling the people (there are indeed traces of this in the Bible), and the Snakes are for educating the people. It is good for Satan to tempt Eve to eat the fruit of wisdom, but it is wrong for God to ask people not to eat the fruit of wisdom. Is this really the case? I think I don’t have enough reasons to draw such a conclusion. How can we figure out the grudge between God and snakes? If I were writing a novel, I could certainly give them some dramatic reasons. However, if we want to try to find the truth, we should not draw such dichotomous conclusions when there are insufficient clues and evidence. This is the most important reason why I named the title "Lian Xiang" from the beginning.