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Take you noticed that atypical of the Paranoemal Investigations on TV appearance to accept aloof of a aim on Demons? Whichever doubt the dependability of such depictions others of the programs themselves.This was an interesting test aim on Demons honorable on Shore To Shore AM...
" Illusion investigator and demonologist Keith Johnson discussed his work quota residents get by with demonic arrival. Johnson held his disquiet in other secular realms began like as a environmental boy he mature a series of childlike but weird incidents at his care for. The restitution took a turn for the drop at the rear of his brother and sister started using a Ouija board, which opened a spiritual terrace to evil spirits, he explained. The demonic entities that came in used the board to spell out vulgarities and fear, and attacked members of his boarding house, Johnson optional extra.
"They are developing evil; acquaint with is no aristocrats in them," he continued. Demons regularly false to be worldly spirits in order to come through a person's life and walker a spiritual bacteria, Johnson held, noting how perfect they are to get rid of when someone has let them in. Their most recent fantasize seems to be to slap God by destroying his start, he revealed. Johnson reported on belongings anywhere he was called upon to eliminate demons from ancestors as well as residences. According to Johnson, like a demonic character is cast out they usually go back to fashionable oblivion -- a state of perturb and terrorize.
Johnson two-way turn up from a demonic bracket together paradigm linking a Rhode Desert island female and her boarding house. The asker complained about a ghost performance her and was logically shabby with a clothes note down. The boarding house told Johnson about a insolence in their home that would not lie clogged no announce what they did to store it propped open. The energy in the care for possibly will be felt rapidly upon inner, he held, noting that the female was actually on the side of demonic get. Previously instructing the children to handle upon Jesus' name, Johnson claims that a skylight slammed close, one of the girls was struck in the common sense, and the think of the care for another fondly. Johnson moreover mentioned his consulting work on Syfy channel's Spirit Hunters and A&E's Illusion Involvement"
HIS SITE:
HTTP://WWW.NEARPARANORMAL.COM/
"
Aureliano Milani, Expulsion of Adam and Eve "(18th c.)
Today's post is for those Protestants who view the Church's teachings on Mary as "unnecessary "and "odd", rather than "evil". There are a lot of you out there, and for good reason.
Let's be honest. If you're not Catholic, or even if you're a Catholic who grew up without much of a focus on Mary, the Catholic devotion to Mary is hard to understand. It seems, if not idolatrous or superstitious, at least... weird. More specifically, it seems excessively devotional and sentimental, the sort of thing that might work in a culture in which men kiss each other when they meet, but which just doesn't "fit" in our culture.
But Marian devotion is neither superstition nor mere emotionalism. In fact, Catholics care about Mary so much "because Scripture does".
At first, that answer sounds surprising, because Mary doesn't seem to be mentioned that often in Scripture. But that's just on the surface. We need to dive deeper. To see what I mean, let's consider Genesis 3:15. In the midst of cursing the serpent for his role in the Fall, God says:
I WILL PUT ENMITY BETWEEN YOU AND THE WOMAN, AND BETWEEN YOUR SEED AND HER SEED; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."To get what's going on here, let's look at several dimensions of this passage.
1) What's meant by the "Seed" of "the Woman"?
"Seed" is one of the ways that descendants are described in Scripture. But it's measured through the man. In part, that's because ancient cultures tended to have an inaccurate understanding of human sexuality. They understood how agriculture worked: you planted the seeds of a certain plant in soil, and if the soil was fertile, then the offspring of the original plant grew. They assumed human reproduction worked the same way, with the man providing the "seed," and the woman providing the "soil." Many of the terms used today (like "fertility") are holdovers from this view. Hebrew was no exception to this: the same word, "zera` "meant seed, semen, and descendent, as we see in passages like Genesis 38:8-9.
The point is, we hear continually about "the seed of Abraham" (2 Chronicles 20:7), "the seed of David" (1 Kings 11:39), "the seed of Jacob" (Psalm 22:23), etc., but not the seed of "a woman". There are only two exceptions to this in all of Scripture. One of those times is in Genesis 16:10, in which the angel promises Hagar that she'll have many descendants. There, they're referred to as "her "seed, because it's specifically about her children, not Abraham's children by his wife Sarah.
The only other time is here, in Genesis 3:15. Why?
The answer is clear enough. As the Evangelical pastor John MacArthur explains, "the unique reference in Genesis 3:15 to "her Seed" looks beyond Adam and Eve to Mary and to Christ."
Understood in this way, the passage is quite beautiful: it means that at the very "moment "of the Fall, God promised that the story wasn't over yet, that Satan wouldn't have the last laugh, and that the Virgin-Born would come and save us from our sins.
This interpretation is also the only one to explain the strange language used. Jesus doesn't have a biological human father, so it would be inaccurate to refer to Him as "the seed of Joseph." He's the offspring of the Virgin Mary in a way that He's not the offspring of anyone else. Given the Virgin Birth, it becomes clear why God should speak of "her Seed."
2) What's meant by "the Woman"?
Given the answer to the last question, this one is simple. If Genesis 3:15 is a promise of the Virgin Birth, then "the Woman" is the Virgin Mary. You can't have the Virgin Birth without the Virgin.
But this point is an important one for two reasons: first, because it establishes a parallel between Mary and Eve, a parallel that the early Christians grasped. They even share a title, Woman. Remember that, at the time of the Fall, Eve is still called "Woman" (Gen. 2:23), as she doesn't get renamed Eve until Genesis 3:20, a few verses later.
But it's important for a second reason. It means that THE VIRGIN MARY IS PROPHESIED FROM THE VERY FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE. God is promising us (and threatening Satan) that a woman will come along who will give birth to a Son who will save us.
And note well: Scripture speaks of "the "Woman," not just "a" Woman." Too often, the Virgin Mary is treated as an unnecessary element (or at best, a replaceable part). But Scripture shows that she was part of God's plan of salvation from the very moment of the Fall. In fact, we can say that God, who "chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4), chose the Virgin Mary for this role from all eternity. Genesis 3:15 is just the first time He reveals this to us, since it's the first time we need redemption.
3) The Two Teams
Often, when Genesis 3:15 is mentioned, the debate has revolved about the second half of the verse. Since a neuter pronoun is used, the second half of the verse literally translates, "it "shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise "its "heel." Is this a reference to Jesus? Mary? Christians? The Church? All of the above? This is an interesting debate, but it risks missing the other half of the verse, which is no less shocking.
Recall that God is addressing the serpent, Satan. He says: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed." That is, Our Lord depicts the battle between good and evil as "a battle between Mary and Satan". Those are the two sides: YOU'RE EITHER WITH MARY, OR YOU'RE WITH THE DEVIL. You can be a child of Mary, or you can be a child of the devil. There's no room to be lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-16).
"That's "what Genesis 3:15 is saying. To be sure, it's saying a lot more than that: for example, about the ultimate triumph of Christ over Satan. But it's hard to get around the fact that the enmity between the serpent and the woman is a foreshadowing of the fight between Satan and Mary, a fight that continues between his offspring and hers until the Last Judgment. Given this, the reasons for the Catholic devotion to Mary should be clear. It's not about excessive emotionalism, but understanding the spiritual battleground.
4) Why "Mary's" Team?
"
Domenico Beccafumi, Fall of the Rebel Angels" (1530)
Everything up to this point has been, in my view, pretty straightforward exegesis. Even Protestants like MacArthur admit that Genesis 3:15 is about the Virgin Birth, and no Christian can claim ignorance of who that Virgin is. But when we ask "why" God should description the battle as the serpent against the Woman (instead of the serpent against the Seed of the Woman, as we might expect), we are speculating a bit.
But it's worth asking, because it might sound that Genesis 3:15 is raising Mary to the level of God. In fact, the exact opposite is the case. Scripture continually shows Satan being defeated by created beings. For example, in a passage heavily reminiscent of Genesis 3, Revelation 12 describes the fall of Satan in this way (Revelation 12:8-9, 13):
NOW WAR AROSE IN HEAVEN, MICHAEL AND HIS ANGELS FIGHTING AGAINST THE DRAGON; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And THE GREAT DRAGON WAS THROWN DOWN, THAT ANCIENT SERPENT, WHO IS CALLED THE DEVIL AND SATAN, the deceiver of the whole world-he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. [...] And WHEN THE DRAGON SAW THAT HE HAD BEEN THROWN DOWN TO THE EARTH, HE PURSUED THE WOMAN WHO HAD BORNE THE MALE CHILD.So once again Scripture speaks of how Satan, the serpent, is at war against the woman [the Mother of Christ, the "one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron" (Rev. 12:5)]. A few verses later, after he fails to corrupt the Mother of Christ, he goes after us (Revelation 12:17): "Then THE DRAGON WAS ANGRY WITH THE WOMAN, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus." In other words, the devil is at war with those of us on Mary's team.
So we see the devil fighting (and losing) first against St. Michael, against the Mother of Christ, and against Christians. But "why "does Christ choose to defeat Satan by proxy? I suspect it's that God doesn't treat Satan as a worthy adversary, because "HE'S NOT". It's the heresy of DUALISM to treat God and Satan as equally-powerful opposing forces. They're not. This is the very heart of the matter. Satan's arrogance is encapsulated in his claim: "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:14). But despite his fiercest efforts, Satan will never succeed in making himself like the Most High. God's decision to repeatedly defeat Satan via created beings like the Virgin Mary makes this fact abundantly clear.
Conclusion
Of course, this is in no way an exhaustive examination of the Scriptural references to Mary. But I think it does enough to show why Mary is so central to Catholic spirituality: Scripture presents her as part of the plan of redemption from the very moment that redemption is needed, and depicts the choice between good and evil as a choice to be a child of Mary or a child of the devil. Given this, go be a child of Mary!
What is it to be a Christian? Is this title about being part of a social club or is it something more?
Much debate centers around this question and this is not the first time this topic has been discussed at SaltyBeliever.com. At the most basic level, the Bible teaches that the Christians of the First Century were believers of something and someone. The Greek word "Christianos" appears in the New Testament three times and in all three uses it seems to mean follower or disciple of Christ (Acts 11:26; Acts 26:28; and 1 Peter 4:16). And the Bible teaches that a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ believes some specific things about Jesus, dies to self by picking up his or her cross daily, and is measured by how he or she loves others as well as by a spiritual fruit present in the believer's life.
Yet if we travel to the Bible Belt, that is, some of the religious states in the southern portion of the US, we find lots of self-proclaimed 'Christians' who seem not to fit the definition of a disciple of Jesus. Often they attend a local church but are absent from the Body of Christ. There is a problem in what they believe and they often seem to turn to a moralistic-driven belief structure. Some see them as rather judgmental. Their religion is heavily tied to politics and one might think that their use of the title of 'Christian' is synonymous with a social club benefiting only themselves. Clearly there is a problem here.
For years, the Bible Belt has had an impact upon much of how the evangelical church in the US functions. The order of the worship service for example is typically three songs followed by announcements and an offering. Another song is sung and then a pastor gets up and gives a 3-point sermon, wearing a suit of course. Mission trips and youth programs look a specific way. Ladies wear big hats and overweight guys rotate through their three favorite ties. An entire Christian music and movie industry has spawned out of this 'Christian' subculture. Christian bookstores sell trinkets and gifts found nowhere else in the world. Coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets with out-of-context biblical passages are often discovered among this tribe. Politicians pander to this crowd for votes. And while most of these things are not entirely bad (although sometimes very odd), being a part of this subculture is by no means the definition of what it is to be a Christian. In fact, there are likely many non-believers among this subculture who are not a part of Christ's Kingdom, that is, they are not actually Christians but unaware imposters enjoying the culture for personal benefit and social gain.
Enter the post-modern, post-church 'Christian' community. This movement--often driven more out of a rejection of the Bible Belt subculture--is made up of mostly young artsy, but often jaded people. They're the hipsters, musicians, painters, and environmentalists who feel they've evolved beyond their parent's subculture. They love social justice and reject the Christian bookstore trinkets while they marry their commercial endeavors with popular charity causes. They seek community and authenticity in ways that look different than the communities of the Bible Belt Christian subculture. They seek a tribe that thinks alike but different than the tribe they grew up among. Rather than a moralistic-driven belief structure, they turn to a liberty-driven system. "Live and let live" is their motto. But is this really much different than the subculture they reject? Might there still be many among this tribe who use the term 'Christian' in ways that only really benefit themselves? Are there many unaware imposters among this different subculture wrongly using the title of 'Christian' for their own personal gain? It seems there is a problem here too.
Christians, through the power and calling of Jesus do indeed enter a new community, but it is a Kingdom and described like a body of all believers, a flock with Jesus as the Good Shepherd, and even as the very Bride of Christ. These definitions don't paint much of a picture of the subcultures we see among the variety of local churches but we do see a special kind of culture. This new culture is one of a multitude of diverse people all tied together with the thread of Jesus in their lives. It's certainly going to be the case that local churches will have their own subcultures within the larger community of Christ, but the culture itself is not Christianity--only a byproduct of it. And this should cause us to ask, what would our various tribes look like if they were shaped by Christ as true Christ followers rather than the subculture? Additionally, this should also cause us to have more grace for our differences. And finally, we must ask ourselves if we are Christians by title or by true transformation by the power of Jesus.
"*Photo of Man Painted on a Brick Wall was taken by " Richie Diesterheft and is licensed under a creative commons licenses and used by permission. "
'The Temptation' - Hugo van der Goes, 1470
This thought-provoking subject has always been one of my favourite zoo-theological mysteries, so when I was preparing the text for my eventual book "Mysteries of Planet Earth "(2001), I penned a very extensive account devoted to it, but unfortunately this had to be edited down in order to fit the space allocated to it in the book. Now, however, for the very first time anywhere, I have great pleasure in presenting here - as a ShukerNature world-exclusive - the hitherto-unseen, original, unedited version of this account, which also includes some additional illustrations not published in the book.
An early passage in the Bible is responsible for one of the classic serpentine sources of theological speculation and controversy among scholars of Scripture. When God learnt that the serpent in the Garden of Eden had successfully tempted Eve and thence Adam to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, He cursed the serpent (Genesis, 3: 14-15):
"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
According to this account, therefore, the serpent only acquired its present-day form, as a limbless creature slithering upon its undersurface, "after" it had been cursed - which begs the oft-posed theological question: "What did it look like "before" it was cursed?".
The Bible itself offers little in the way of clues. Apart from revealing that it could converse directly with Adam and Eve, the only reference to the pre-cursed serpent (Genesis, 3: 1) states: "Now the serpent was more subtil [sic] than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made". Even so, theologians and artists have offered many putative answers.
Some theologians have been in no doubt that the serpent was physically transformed by God's curse. Thus, in their "Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, Vol. 1" (1866), Carl F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch unequivocally stated:
"The punishment of the serpent corresponded to the crime. It had exalted itself above the man; therefore upon its belly it should go, and dust it should eat all the days of its life. If these words are not to be robbed of their entire meaning, they cannot be understood in any other way than as denoting that the form and movements of the serpent were altered, and that its present repulsive shape is the effect of the curse pronounced upon it, though we cannot form any accurate idea of its original appearance. Going upon the belly (=creeping, Lev. xi. 42) was a mark of the deepest degradation; also the eating of dust, which is not to be understood as meaning that dust was to be its only food, but that while crawling in the dust it would also swallow dust."
Notwithstanding the above authors' claim, rabbinical tradition formulated a number of ideas regarding the serpent's appearance before it received God's curse. According to the Zohar (Book of Splendour), which constitutes the main text of the Jewish Qabalah (Kabbalah) and provides a vast commentary upon the Pentateuch, in its pre-cursed form it had stood upright on two hind legs, just like humans, and was as tall as a camel. Similarly, certain ancient Egyptian carvings depict the pre-cursed serpent as an exceedingly slender biped with a long neck and tail, a pair of lengthy arms, and standing slightly taller than a human on two elongate hind legs, offering Adam a fruit with one of its paws. When it was cursed, however, God (or St Michael, according to St Barnabas's apocryphal gospel) cut off its arms and legs, thereby yielding the limbless snake known today. God also took away its power of human speech by splitting its tongue, so that it could only hiss thereafter.
Antiquarian engraving of a winged snake
Another school of thought favoured the idea that the pre-cursed serpent was a winged snake. In his "Commentary Upon the Whole Bible "(1708-10), Matthew Henry opined:
"Perhaps it was a flying serpent, which seemed to come from on high as a messenger from the upper world, one of the seraphim; for the fiery serpents were flying, Isa. xiv. 29. Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in gay fine colours that are but skin-deep, and seems to come from above; for Satan can seem an angel of light."
Other scholars have speculated that the serpent's transformation may not have been physical at all, but merely figurative. In his "Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis" (1948), John Calvin suggested that there is:
"...no absurdity in supposing, that the serpent was again consigned to that former condition, to which he was already naturally subject. For thus he, who had exalted himself against the image of God, was to be thrust back into his proper rank;...he is recalled from his insolent motions to his accustomed mode of going, in such a way as to be, at the same time, condemned to perpetual infamy. To eat dust is the sign of a vile and sordid nature. This (in my opinion) is the simple meaning of the passage."
And Frank E. Gaebelein, editing "The Expositor's Bible Commentary "(1990), opined:
"This curse does not necessarily suggest that the snake had previously walked with feet and legs as the other land animals. The point is rather that for the rest of his life, as a result of the curse, when the snake crawls on his belly, as snakes do, he will "eat dust." The emphasis lies in the snake's 'eating dust,' an expression that elsewhere carries the meaning of 'total defeat' (cf. Isa 65: 25, Mic 7: 17)."
Yet another facet of this biblical event that has engendered considerable theological contention is whether the serpent was indeed merely a reptile, i.e. a corporeal animal, or whether it was Satan in the guise of a snake, or even a snake controlled by Satan. Leading on from this line of thought is whether, therefore, God's curse was indeed imposed upon the serpent, or whether it was actually imposed upon Satan. Quoting theologian Winterbotham:
"1. I lay down the position that no punishment in the way of physical degradation was inflicted by God in His sentence upon the serpent tribe.
2. I lay down the position, which I think no one will seriously dispute, that the real tempter was not the serpent at all, but the devil.
3. I conclude from the foregoing positions, and conclude with confidence, that the serpent was not really cursed at all, while the devil was."
A comparable diversity of views have manifested themselves in artistic representations of the serpent too. As already noted, early Egyptian carvings portrayed an erect, bipedal being, whereas early European painters tended to depict it as a normal, limbless snake coiled around the Tree of Knowledge. By the 12th Century AD, however, a shift in opinion had occurred, and European artists began portraying a somewhat more humanoid version - often with a snake's body but the head (and sometimes also the arms) of a woman - a trend that crossed from art into literature too. One famous early example is artwork by Benjamin the Scribe, produced in c.1280, portraying Adam and Eve flanking a serpent with the head, arms, and upper torso of a woman.
Adam, Eve, and draconopides version of Eden serpent - Benjamin the Scribe, c.1280
This hybrid serpent-woman monster also gained its own name, the draconopides (other variations upon this name include draconiopides, draconcopedes, and draconipes), which is actually a decidedly inappropriate name for a serpent-bodied entity lacking hind legs, bearing in mind that 'draconopides' translates as 'dragon-footed'! Intriguingly, moreover, the draconopides image was sometimes utilised by artists depicting Lilith.
Rabbinical lore claims that Adam's first wife was not Eve, but Lilith, made by God from dust like Adam (rather than from one of Adam's ribs, like Eve), and who therefore refused to be subjugated by Adam. Instead, she deserted him, becoming an evil demon, and in some texts she is made synonymous with the serpent - tempting Adam and his new wife, Eve, with the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and thereby causing humanity's Fall.
Adam, Eve, and draconopides version of Eden serpent in relief at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France
By the 15th Century, certain painters had created even more complex, elaborate serpents. Dating from c.1473, Francois Fouquet's painting 'Le P'ech'e Originel' ('The Original Sin' - a title also used by several other artists for their versions of this same scene) depicts the serpent with a typically elongate anguiniform lower body, wrapped around the tree, but also with the upper body, arms, and head of a woman, and a pair of extended bat-like wings. A comparable depiction of this enigmatic reptilian entity but without the wings also occurs in the temptation scene portrayed in one of the panels comprising Michelangelo's glorious series of paintings on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel (1508-12).
Temptation scene, Sistine Chapel Ceiling - Michelangelo, 1508-12
Other draconopides portrayals were produced by the likes of Masolino da Panicale, Raphael, and Cornelius van Haarlem.
'The Temptation of Adam and Eve' - Masolino da Panicale, c.1425, fresco in Brancacci Chapel at the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, in Florence, Italy
'The Original Sin' - Raphael
'The Original Sin' - Cornelius van Haarlem, 1592
During 1425-38, Jacapo della Quercia had meticulously sculpted a stunning relief of Adam, Eve, and a draconopides Eden serpent for Bologna's San Petronio.
'Peccado Originale' ('The Original Sin') - Jacapo della Quercia, 1425-38
There have also been some very spectacular draconopides depictions portrayed in stained-glass windows. One particularly impressive example, dating from 1420, can be found in Ulm Cathedral, Germany.
Even more striking, however, is the Eden serpent as portrayed in 'The Temptation' in 1470 by 15th-Century Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes, constituting the left-hand panel of a diptych now housed at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum. As seen here at the beginning of this blog post and also below, van der Goes conceived it as a bipedal, web-footed lizard with a long tail and a woman's head, whose hair was plaited into horns, leaning against the Tree of Knowledge alongside Adam and Eve.
Postage stamp from Ajman depicting 'The Temptation' by Hugo van der Goes, 1470
Back in the days before Charles Darwin's explanation of limblessness in snakes - as a natural and advantageous evolutionary process - was accepted by the scientific community (which currently deems that snakes evolved from marine limbed lizards called mosasaurs), some naturalists offered their own input into the long-running discussion as to the pre-cursed serpent's likely morphology. One of the most memorable suggestions was proffered by enthusiastic amateur naturalist Frank Buckland, who was very intrigued that boas and pythons possess vestiges of hind legs beneath their skin, as well as two hook-like claws near their tail. In his book "Curiosities of Natural History "(1858), he explained these as follows:
"Supposing, then, the pre-Adamite [i.e. pre-cursed] snake to have gone on four legs, we might explain the passage by saying that after the curse the legs were struck off, but that the undeveloped legs were left (concealed, however, from casual observers) as evidence of what it formerly had been, and a type of its fallen condition."
In other words, these were remnants of earlier fully-formed limbs, exactly as postulated by evolution - thus providing an example of science and Scripture in full agreement.
Finally, and still on the subject of the original Eden serpent, several years ago a truly extraordinary claim attracted worldwide media interest - namely, that a mysterious sample of scaly skin preserved in a certain American institution reputedly originated from this selfsame reptile of biblical ill-repute! Here is what I wrote about this remarkable allegation and the facts behind it in my book "Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo "(2010):
"One of the most enigmatic yet hitherto-obscure zoological relics held in any scientific establishment must surely be the 8-inch by 4-inch piece of scaly rusty-red leathery skin contained inside Archive Box #1920.1714 within the very sizeable collection of the Chicago Historical Society. For according to its yellowing French label, this is supposedly a genuine piece of skin from the very serpent that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden! Indeed, the label goes on to say that the serpent was killed by Adam on the day after its treachery to Eve, using a stake whose traces can be seen on this skin sample, which was preserved by his family in Asia. Affixed to the skin is a document written on velum or similar hide in an Asian script. The society purchased this mystifying exhibit, along with many other items, in 1920 from the eclectic collection of Chicago confectioner Charles F. Gunther - a grand collector of curiosities. Although the society's chief curator, Olivia Mahoney, has no doubt that it is a fraud (as opposed to a bona fide piece of snakeskin dating back to the dawn of time), no research has ever been conducted on it to ascertain what it really is. Moreover, Mahoney is very reluctant to permit any, in case the skin is damaged, and also because in her view it is so evidently a fake. That may well be, but it still doesn't answer what - if not a sample of skin from the Eden serpent - this anomalous object is.
"As noted by the "Chicago Sun-Times "newspaper's religion writer, Cathleen Falsani - who viewed and wrote about this biblical(?) relic in a 10 October 2003 report - after watching it being carried back in its box to the society's archives: "I couldn't help thinking about that scene from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', where the Ark of the Covenant, and all of its power, is crated up and wheeled into a military warehouse among thousands of other generic crates. I wonder what else might be hiding anonymously in a quiet corner of a museum archive somewhere else, waiting to shock us with its mystery". What else indeed?"
To conclude this account, here are a selection of paintings depicting 'The Original Sin' that feature the Eden serpent as a draconopides, but whose respective artists are currently unknown to me. So if anyone can identify any or all of them, I'd love to hear from you!
Interestingly, this last version depicts the Eden serpent not as a serpent-bodied woman but rather as a serpent-bodied male devil, thereby providing a more direct visual link between this reptile and Satan.
