<P> In one of the oldest stories ever written, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh loses the power of immortality, stolen by a snake . The serpent was a widespread figure in the mythology of the Ancient Near East . Ouroboros is an ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail that represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life, the eternal return, and the cycle of life, death and rebirth, leading to immortality . </P> <P> Archaeologists have uncovered serpent cult objects in Bronze Age strata at several pre-Israelite cities in Canaan: two at Megiddo, one at Gezer, one in the sanctum sanctorum of the Area H temple at Hazor, and two at Shechem . In the surrounding region, a late Bronze Age Hittite shrine in northern Syria contained a bronze statue of a god holding a serpent in one hand and a staff in the other . In sixth - century Babylon, a pair of bronze serpents flanked each of the four doorways of the temple of Esagila . At the Babylonian New Year festival, the priest was to commission from a woodworker, a metalworker and a goldsmith two images one of which "shall hold in its left hand a snake of cedar, raising its right (hand) to the god Nabu". At the tell of Tepe Gawra, at least seventeen Early Bronze Age Assyrian bronze serpents were recovered . The Sumerian fertility god Ningizzida was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a human head, eventually becoming a god of healing and magic . </P> <P> In the Jewish Bible, the Book of Genesis refers to a serpent who triggered the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden in Eden (Gen 3: 1 - 20). Serpent is also used to describe sea monsters . Examples of these identifications are in the Book of Isaiah where a reference is made to a serpent - like Leviathan (Isaiah 27: 1), and in the Book of Amos where a serpent resides at the bottom of the sea (Amos 9: 3). Serpent figuratively describes biblical places such as Egypt (Jer 46: 22), and the city of Dan (Gen 49: 17). The prophet Jeremiah also compares the King of Babylon to a serpent (Jer 51: 34). </P> <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>

What does a serpent represent in the bible