<P> The Hebrew word nahash is used to identify the serpent that appears in Genesis 3: 1, in the Garden of Eden . In Genesis, the serpent is portrayed as a deceptive creature or trickster, who promotes as good what God had forbidden, and shows particular cunning in its deception . (cf. Gen. 3: 4--5 and 3: 22) The serpent has the ability to speak and to reason: "Now the serpent was more subtle (also translated as "cunning") than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made" (Gen. 3: 1). There is no indication in the Book of Genesis that the serpent was a deity in its own right, although it is one of only two cases of animals that talk in the Pentateuch (Balaam's donkey being the other). </P> <P> God placed Adam in the Garden to tend it and warned Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die ." The serpent tempts Eve to eat of the Tree, but Eve tells the serpent what God had said (Genesis 3: 3). The serpent replied that she would not surely die (Genesis 3: 4) and that if she eats the fruit of the tree "then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil ." (Genesis 3: 5) Eve ate the fruit and gave it to Adam and he also ate . God, who was walking in the Garden, finds out and to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and living forever, they are banished from the Garden and God posts an angelic guard . The snake is punished for its role in the fall by being made to crawl on its belly and eat dust . </P> <P> Debate about the serpent in Eden is whether it should be viewed figuratively or as a literal animal . According to the Rabbinical tradition, the serpent represents sexual desire . Voltaire, drawing on Socinian influences, wrote: "It was so decidedly a real serpent, that all its species, which had before walked on their feet, were condemned to crawl on their bellies . No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or Belzebub, or Devil, in the Pentateuch ." </P> <P> 20th century scholars such as W.O.E. Oesterley (1921) were cognisant of the differences between the role of the Edenic serpent in the Hebrew Bible and any connection with "ancient serpent" in the New Testament . Modern historiographers of Satan such as Henry Ansgar Kelly (2006) and Wray and Mobley (2007) speak of the "evolution of Satan", or "development of Satan". </P>

Where does it talk about snakes in the bible