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The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer E-Book

Andrew David Naselli

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Herausgeber: Crossway
Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
Serie: Short Studies in Biblical Theology
Sprache: Englisch

Beschreibung

Although a story with a serpent, a damsel in distress, and a serpent slayer may sound like just another fairy tale, it is, in fact, part of the greatest true account ever told—the Bible. Epic tales resonate with readers because they echo the greatest story. In this new addition to the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series, Andrew David Naselli traces the theme of snakes and dragons from the serpent in the garden to the devouring dragon in Revelation, culminating with the return of the King. New and seasoned Christians alike will experience afresh the captivating unifying narrative behind all stories as they embark on a journey through the Bible with a trusted biblical scholar.

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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

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“The Bible’s narrative is essentially an unfolding of the conflict promise embedded in Genesis 3:15. Everything between the covers of Scripture is contextualized by the ways the serpent seeks to destroy the seed of the woman. But the end of the story is promised from the beginning: although the serpent grows large into a fierce dragon, its head is finally crushed by a Lion who, even before creation, was destined to become a slain Lamb. This conflict is not Scripture’s only unifying theme, but it is a fundamental one, and Andy Naselli highlights it wonderfully. He provides us with a key that will open the door to a new appreciation of the sheer thrilling nature of what God has done for us in Christ. Prepare, then, to be thrilled by The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer!”

Sinclair B. Ferguson, Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary; Teaching Fellow, Ligonier Ministries

“Noted biblical scholar Andy Naselli draws readers into the biblical story through a fresh vantage point—snakes! In this enjoyable book there is considerable insight into Satan, the fall, Christ’s victory, and our future.”

Christopher W. Morgan, Dean and Professor of Theology, California Baptist University; author, Christian Theology; editor, Theology in Community series; coeditor, ESV Systematic Theology Study Bible

“Knowing our enemy is important. Read this if you want to understand the schemes of the serpent seen throughout Scripture. But even more importantly, we must know the serpent slayer. Read this if you want to see how Jesus defeats the dragon and rescues his bride. What a Savior!”

Abigail Dodds, author, (A)Typical Woman

“Snakes deceive; dragons devour! But the serpent slayer is greater still! This book traces the hope of the gospel from the garden in Genesis to the new Jerusalem in Revelation. It identifies the deceptive and devouring purposes of the serpent in Scripture’s storyline, but it magnifies how the Old Testament anticipates and the New Testament realizes the victory of Christ for and through his church. This book models well how to trace a biblical-theological theme through the whole of Scripture, and it is infused with hope in the one who triumphs through great tribulation.”

Jason S. DeRouchie, Research Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

“In this slim book, Andy Naselli does what he does best: he gathers, organizes, and presents Scripture so that you can see for yourself what the Bible says about serpents and the serpent slayer. The Bible’s understanding of snakes and dragons is ‘thick’—it is woven into the fabric of redemptive history from Genesis to Revelation. If you love stories where the hero kills the dragon to get the girl, then this book is for you.”

Joe Rigney, Assistant Professor of Theology and Literature, Bethlehem College & Seminary; author, The Things of Earth and Strangely Bright

“Dragons and serpents have fascinated the human race from time immemorial, whether in secular or sacred literature. In The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer, Andy Naselli fascinates us again with intriguing observations and exegetical insights. Every reader will benefit from this concise biblical theology, understanding afresh that while the Bible is a simple story—as simple as ‘Kill the dragon, get the girl!’—it is also of dramatic interest from start to finish. Naselli also provides us with a timely reminder that the devil is real and active today, deceiving and devouring people; yet the church is not without hope: Christ has crushed the serpent, and one day so too will his church.”

Jonathan Gibson, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer

Short Studies in Biblical Theology

Edited by Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

The City of God and the Goal of Creation, T. Desmond Alexander (2018)

Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Thomas R. Schreiner (2017)

Divine Blessing and the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God, William R. Osborne (2020)

From Chaos to Cosmos: Creation to New Creation, Sidney Greidanus (2018)

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, Patrick Schreiner (2018)

The Lord’s Supper as the Sign and Meal of the New Covenant, Guy Prentiss Waters (2019)

Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, Ray Ortlund (2016)

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom, G. K. Beale (2019)

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer, Andrew David Naselli (2020)

The Son of God and the New Creation, Graeme Goldsworthy (2015)

Work and Our Labor in the Lord, James M. Hamilton Jr. (2017)

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer

Andrew David Naselli

The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design and illustration: Jordan Singer

First printing 2020

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-6797-1 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-6800-8 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-6798-8 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-6799-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Naselli, Andrew David, 1980– author.

Title: The serpent and the serpent slayer / Andrew David Naselli.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2020] | Series: Short studies in biblical theology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Subjects: LCSH: Serpents in the Bible. | Dragons in the Bible. | Serpents—Mythology. | Dragons—Mythology. | Christian life—Biblical teaching.

Classification: LCC BS1199.S37 N37 2020 (print) | LCC BS1199.S37 (ebook) | DDC 220.6/4—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059527

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059528

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2020-10-13 09:38:57 AM

To my daughter Kara,

who loves serpent-slaying stories

that echo the greatest story

Contents

Series Preface

Preface

Introduction: Why We Love Dragon-Slaying Stories

1 The Deceitful Snake in Genesis 3

2 Snakes and Dragons between the Bible’s Bookends—Part 1: The Good, the Bad, and the Ultimate Serpent

3 Snakes and Dragons between the Bible’s Bookends—Part 2: Six Offspring of the Serpent

4 The Devouring Dragon in Revelation 12 and 20

Conclusion: Living in Light of the Story of the Serpent and the Serpent Slayer

Appendix: How Often Does the Bible Explicitly Mention Serpents?

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

Most of us tend to approach the Bible early on in our Christian lives as a vast, cavernous, and largely impenetrable book. We read the text piecemeal, finding golden nuggets of inspiration here and there, but remain unable to plug any given text meaningfully into the overarching storyline. Yet one of the great advances in evangelical biblical scholarship over the past few generations has been the recovery of biblical theology—that is, a renewed appreciation for the Bible as a theologically unified, historically rooted, progressively unfolding, and ultimately Christ-centered narrative of God’s covenantal work in our world to redeem sinful humanity.

This renaissance of biblical theology is a blessing, yet little of it has been made available to the general Christian population. The purpose of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to connect the resurgence of biblical theology at the academic level with everyday believers. Each volume is written by a capable scholar or churchman who is consciously writing in a way that requires no prerequisite theological training of the reader. Instead, any thoughtful Christian disciple can track with and benefit from these books.

Each volume in this series takes a whole-Bible theme and traces it through Scripture. In this way readers not only learn about a given theme but also are given a model for how to read the Bible as a coherent whole.

We have launched this series because we love the Bible, we love the church, and we long for the renewal of biblical theology in the academy to enliven the hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples all around the world. As editors, we have found few discoveries more thrilling in life than that of seeing the whole Bible as a unified story of God’s gracious acts of redemption, and indeed of seeing the whole Bible as ultimately about Jesus, as he himself testified (Luke 24:27; John 5:39).

The ultimate goal of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to magnify the Savior and to build up his church—magnifying the Savior through showing how the whole Bible points to him and his gracious rescue of helpless sinners; and building up the church by strengthening believers in their grasp of these life-giving truths.

Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

Preface

This book is a biblical theology of snakes and dragons—especially the serpent. It may be helpful to state up front three beliefs I presuppose in this book:

1. The Bible is God-breathed, entirely true, and our final authority.1

2. We must read any part of the Bible in light of the unified, noncontradictory whole. We might focus on a section of the Bible such as the Pentateuch or the entire Old Testament, but ultimately we must interpret any part of the Bible in its fullest literary context. At this stage in the history of salvation, when we read any part of the Bible—such as the episode of the serpent’s deceiving the woman in Genesis 3—we must read with Christian eyes,2 with a whole-Bible canonical approach.3

3. Biblical theology is a fruitful way to read parts of the Bible in light of the whole. Biblical theology studies how the whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Christ. That is, it is a way of analyzing and synthesizing the Bible that makes organic connections with the whole canon on its own terms, especially regarding how the Old and New Testaments integrate and climax in Christ.4

I mention those three presuppositions because many biblical scholars reject them and consequently interpret parts of the Bible much differently than I do in this book. A good example is Professor James Charlesworth, who taught New Testament at Duke University 1969–1984 and at Princeton Theological Seminary 1984–2019. His 744-page tome on serpents took him six years to research.5 His book is a treasure for its detailed research on what serpents could symbolize in the ancient world, but Charlesworth’s main argument is feasible only if the above three presuppositions are false. His main argument is that serpent symbolism is primarily positive not only in the ancient Near East but also in the Bible, specifically that Jesus is the serpent in John 3:14 (“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up”). More on John 3:14 later.

——

I thank the following friends for contributing to this book:

1. My mentor Don Carson fanned into flame my love for studying how the whole Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Christ.

2. My colleague Joe Rigney gave me penetrating feedback as I prepared to research this book and after I drafted it. We almost decided to coauthor it, but he was preoccupied with other projects. Rigney coined the pithy phrase “Kill the dragon, get the girl!”6 He actually ignited my interest in this topic. In 2013, he emailed the Bethlehem College & Seminary faculty with a list of topics on which he thought our ThM students might want to consider writing their theses. One of the topics he suggested was a biblical theology of snakes and dragons. I’ve wanted to write this book ever since.

3. Dane Ortlund and Miles Van Pelt warmly welcomed this volume into their Short Studies in Biblical Theology series. Those two men deeply love the triune God. It’s so evident in their humility and ministry. (Miles also inspires me to do strength training. His biceps are as large as a python that just swallowed a caiman.)

4. Phil Gons, my close friend for nearly two decades and who is currently vice president of Bible study products at Faithlife, helped me use Logos Bible Software to study serpents efficiently and thoroughly.

5. Some friends graciously offered feedback on drafts of this book, including Charles Ackman, Brian Collins, Jason DeRouchie, Abigail Dodds, Scott Jamison, Jeremy Kimble, Marty Machowski, Charles Naselli, Matt Rowley, Mark Ward, and Matthew Westerholm. Special thanks to my teaching assistants, Matt Klem and Noah Settersten, for their detailed feedback.

6. My wife, Jenni, supports the research-writing-teaching-shepherding ministry to which God has called me. This project fascinated her, and she helpfully suggested ways to improve the book. She and our daughters also encouraged me to turn this book into a children’s book.7

1. See D. A. Carson, ed., The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016). For a more popular-level approach, see Andrew David Naselli, “Scripture: How the Bible Is a Book like No Other,” in Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Same Faith for a New Day, ed. Kevin DeYoung (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 59–69.

2. See D. A. Carson, “Current Issues in Biblical Theology: A New Testament Perspective,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 5, no. 1 (1995): 40–41.

3. See Douglas J. Moo and Andrew David Naselli, “The Problem of the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament,” in The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), 702–46; Aubrey M. Sequeira and Samuel C. Emadi, “Biblical-Theological Exegesis and the Nature of Typology,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 21, no. 1 (2017): 11–34.

4. See Jason S. DeRouchie, Oren R. Martin, and Andrew David Naselli, 40 Questions about Biblical Theology, 40 Questions (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2020).

5. James H. Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized, The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).

6. It started with Dane Ortlund’s article that asked twenty-six scholars and pastors to summarize the Bible in a single sentence. See Dane Ortlund, “What’s the Message of the Bible in One Sentence?,” Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology, January 12, 2011, https://dogmadoxa.blogspot.com/2011/01/whats-message-of-bible-in-one-sentence.html. Rigney was intrigued with Doug Wilson’s sentence: “Scripture tells us the story of how a Garden is transformed into a Garden City, but only after a dragon had turned that Garden into a howling wilderness, a haunt of owls and jackals, which lasted until an appointed warrior came to slay the dragon, giving up his life in the process, but with his blood effecting the transformation of the wilderness into the Garden City.” That led Rigney to summarize the Bible with the phrase “Kill the dragon, get the girl!” He started including that tagline to the end of his emails, and his friend Doug Wilson loved it. Now on Saturday nights when Wilson asks his grandchildren a round of catechism questions, his last question is “Kids, what’s the point of the whole Bible?” The kids answer, “Kill the dragon, get the girl!” See Douglas Wilson, Writers to Read: Nine Names That Belong on Your Bookshelf (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 144. Wilson’s publishing house even published a children’s novel with that title: Cheston Hervey and Darren Doane, Kill the Dragon, Get the Girl (Moscow, ID: Canon, 2015).

7. Andrew David Naselli and Champ Thornton, title to be decided (Greensboro, NC: New Growth, forthcoming in 2022).

Introduction

Why We Love Dragon-Slaying Stories

Who doesn’t love a good dragon-slaying story? There is a reason that classic literature features such stories—we love them! But why?

Dragon-Slaying Stories Echo the Greatest Story

We love good dragon-slaying stories because they echo the greatest story—the grand story of the Bible. Stories that parallel the greatest story make our hearts soar with delight. Those stories are often fiction, such as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Epic stories resonate deeply with us because they echo the greatest story. And the greatest story is true.

A pithy way to summarize the Bible’s storyline is “Kill the dragon, get the girl!”1 The storyline features three main characters:

1. The serpent (the villain—Satan)

2. A damsel in distress (the people of God)

3. The serpent slayer (the protagonist and hero—Jesus)

The serpent attempts to deceive and devour the woman, but the serpent slayer crushes the serpent.

Serpent is an umbrella term that includes both snakes and dragons. It’s the big category. Snakes and dragons are kinds of serpents. The Greek word δράκων (drakōn), explains an expert Greek linguist, refers to “a monstrous serpent”—“the ancients Greeks did not visualize it as a winged, fire-blowing creature with claws.”2

A serpent has two major strategies: deceive and devour. As a general rule, the form a serpent takes depends on its strategy. When a serpent in Scripture attempts to deceive, it’s a snake. When a serpent attempts to devour, it’s a dragon. Snakes deceive; dragons devour. Snakes tempt and lie; dragons attack and murder. Snakes backstab; dragons assault (see table 1).

Table 1. The strategies of snakes versus dragons

Snakes

Dragons

deceive

tempt

lie

backstab

devour

attack

murder

assault

Here’s how the greatest story unfolds:

The story begins with bliss. The damsel enjoys a beautiful garden in a pristine world. (Adam and Eve enjoy the garden of Eden.)But the serpent employs the strategy to deceive, tempt, lie, and backstab. (The snake deceives Eve.)As the story develops, the serpent craftily alternates between deceiving and devouring. (For example, sometimes Satan attempts to deceive God’s people with false teaching. At other times Satan assaults God’s people with violent persecution.)At the climax of the story, the dragon attempts to devour the hero but fails. (The dragon murders Jesus but merely bruises Jesus’s heel while Jesus decisively crushes the serpent’s head.)For the rest of the story, the dragon furiously attempts to devour the damsel. (The dragon attempts to deceive and destroy the church.)The hero’s mission: kill the dragon, get the girl. He will accomplish that mission. (The Lamb will consummate his kingdom for God’s glory by slaying the dragon and saving his bride.)

That story never gets old.

Six Dragon-Slaying Stories That Echo the Greatest Story

Fiction is filled with dragons.3 In what follows, I highlight six of the most popular dragon-slaying stories in English literature.4 These stories echo the greatest and true story. (Spoiler alert: The following summaries highlight some turning points in the plotlines.)

Saint George and the Dragon

A staple children’s book in our home is an illustrated version of Saint George and the Dragon.5It adapts the legendary story from Edmund Spenser’s epic poem TheFaerie Queene,6 which flows from legends about King Arthur such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This is the classic dragon-slaying story in English literature.

Saint George was a Roman soldier who died as a Christian martyr in 303. Later traditions venerated him as a legendary dragon killer. The story has many variations in different countries and cultures, but this is the gist: A dragon terrorizes a community, which offers sacrifices to the dragon in order to access water to survive. (In some versions of the story, the people sacrifice all their farm animals and then desperately resort to sacrificing their children!) The dragon’s next victim is a royal young lady. A knight (e.g., Saint George or Arthur) arrives on his horse, and the community’s spirit transforms from despair to hope. The knight slays the dragon and thus saves the damsel. Then the knight marries her.

How does that story echo the greatest story? “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Satan, the devouring dragon, is the ultimate thief who terrorizes God’s image bearers. The dragon’s next victim after Christ is the church, the bride of Christ (Rev. 12). A knight will arrive on a white horse (Rev. 19:11) to defeat the dragon (19:11–20:15) and rescue his bride (19:7).

Beowulf7

Beowulf is an epic Old English story that may be as old as the 700s. A monster named Grendel is slaying warriors at night in the mead hall of the king of the Danes over a twelve-year period. Beowulf, a Scandinavian prince, arrives and heroically slays Grendel with his bare hands by ripping off Grendel’s arm. The next night another monster—Grendel’s mother—attacks the hall to avenge her son, and Beowulf decapitates her with a sword he finds in her cave under a lake.

Beowulf later reigns as king of his own people for fifty peaceful years, but then a dragon terrorizes his realm. Beowulf slays the dragon with the help of Wiglaf, one of his men, but the dragon mortally wounds Beowulf, who gives his life for his people.

How does that story echo the greatest story? Satan and his minions are monsters who seek to destroy God’s people. Jesus unselfishly and sacrificially fights the monsters, and he gives his life for his people.

The Pilgrim’s Progress8

The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the bestselling books of all time. Its author, John Bunyan (1628–1688), was an English Puritan preacher who started to draft the allegory while he was in prison for preaching without the Church of England’s sanction. The famous preacher Charles Spurgeon read The Pilgrim’s Progress over one hundred times.

The allegory features a pilgrim named Christian who perseveringly journeys from his hometown, the City of Destruction, to the Celestial City. He starts off with a great burden on his back, and the burden falls off at the cross. He encounters many obstacles on his journey, including one with a dragon named Apollyon. Leland Ryken, professor emeritus of English literature at Wheaton College, argues that this horrifying serpent is likely “a composite of details that [Bunyan] found in his acquaintance with fictional chivalric romances and in various parts of the Bible, including the description of Leviathan in Job 41 and various monsters in the book of Revelation.”9

Apollyon is lord of the City of Destruction, and he claims that Christian is his subject. Apollyon accurately accuses Christian of a series of sins, but Christian replies in a disarming way. He basically says: “You’re right, Apollyon. I’m actually even worse than that. But the Prince I serve and honor is merciful and forgiving.” Christian and Apollyon fight for over half a day, and Christian finally gives Apollyon a mortal thrust with his sword, declaring, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). This key scene in Bunyan’s allegory ends with a retreating serpent: “When he heard these words, Apollyon spread out his dragon wings and flew away, and Christian saw him no more.”10

The King enables Christian to finish the journey. Christian and his companion Hopeful receive a rich welcome (cf. 2 Pet. 1:11) when they enter into the Celestial City and, more importantly, the joy of their Lord.

How does this story echo the greatest story? Jesus mercifully forgives his people of their sins, and he enables them to persevere in the faith. Jesus is the ultimate serpent slayer, and he enables his people to fight the serpent. Christians must put on the whole armor of God so that they can stand against the serpent’s schemes (Eph.

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