Ask HN: Why in human origin myths do we seem to be made by snakes? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why in human origin myths do we seem to be made by snakes?

6 pointsgraderjs6 comments

Contrary to the biblical snake, not all these snakes are "bad influences".

China - Fuxi & Nuwa, snake people who created humanity

Adam & Eve - the snake catalysed our release upon the world, and escape from the garden

Greece - Zeus was thought to be the source of life and would also shift into snake-form. Ophion (a snake) incubated the primordial egg from which all life was formed

Indigenous Australians (and Californians) - Snake Mother / Rainbow Serpent create everything

Egypt - the state of existence before creation was symbolized as Amduat, a many-coiled serpent from which Ra the Sun and all of creation arose

why snakes tho?

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Nobody in ancient times ever wrote down an objective account of why this or that mythological symbolism was used. We are given or can deduce associations between given mythological figures and various natural phenomena, but not why. As a result identifying reasons is always a contentious issue. Also yes snakes are used n the ways you describe, but there are plenty of origin myths around the world where snakes play no significant role.

Also for example the snake in the garden of eden is playing a completely different role in the myth from the snakes in Australia. For example if the animal in Genesis that subverted Eve was a bird you wouldn't say oh look, the bird in Genesis is playing the same role as the snakes in Australia.

Having said all that sure, snakes do play a prominent role in the myth cycles of many cultures and it's interesting to speculate why. Snakes evoke a visceral reaction in us, which would be easy for people to interpret as an almost magical or supernatural effect.

A philosopher said that humans are featherless chickens. If we compare humans to animals, the most different is the one that has no limbs. Some can easily kill a man without violence sending him to the afterlife, maybe some hallucinated while poisoned, so people made a connection between snakes and spirits.

That the Biblical serpent was a "bad influence" is questionable. God created the Tree of Knowledge, God created the Serpent, God put both in the Garden - and yet God pretends to be surprised that the Serpent did exactly as programmed.

The reality is that we were always meant to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, such that we may have an internal sense of right from wrong rather than being limited to "God said this is good/bad". At worst, the Serpent accelerated that inevitability before we were ready to accept the responsibilities such knowledge would entail (that readiness coming later, with Jesus providing the framework by which we can ready ourselves).

You might find this Wikipedia article interesting

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_symbolism

Even monkeys are afraid of snakes. The fear of snakes predates humankind.

Not only that, in a sense it's true that serpent helped "creating" us, al least our visual system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_detection_theory

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