I read a story in the latest Atlantic (July/August 2008) which cited a University of Virginia study reported in Psychological Science which strongly suggests that humans have an innate, hard-wired aversion to snakes. The study, which asked participants to choose the “threat relevant” photograph from among many images shown on a monitor, determined that most people react most quickly to snakes than to any other animal. They tested adults and children. They tested those who had been exposed to snakes and those who had not. They tested those who had an aversion for snakes, and those who did not. The tendency of humans to react, and to react quickly to snakes was consistent and strong.
My reaction to snakes can be similarly described, although I have tried to overcome it, and have conquered my reflex to shriek like a little girl when I see a snake. I have killed many (6, is that many? It seems like a lot to me) copperheads, and hope to kill all I meet with. I have never killed a black snake as they kill vermin, particularly copperheads. I have caught, admired, and released any number and variety of garden snakes. But when surprised by a snake, even the smallest little racer, I tend to run maniacally and do the Fosbury Flop over the nearest barricade. The recent UVA study helps me feel a little more normal about that response.
Some folks have a real phobia of snakes. Ophidiophobia affects not only Indiana Jones, but my own mother, who had a green snake fall on her from a tree when she was a small girl, and has been terrified even of a photo of a snake ever since. I recently reread Charles Portis’ great Western, True Grit, which is better than the movie mainly because Glen Campbell doesn’t make an appearance in the book. There is a scene where Mattie Ross falls down in a hole in the mountain, and gets wedged next to a corpse in which a ball of rattlesnakes is hibernating. When my mom asked, “Whatchya reading?” I refrained from telling her about that great scene, as it might have caused her to finish off a prescription too soon.
(I just realized that mom will read this and hear about the bundle of rattlesnakes in the corpse anyway. So I changed the title of this essay from Genesis Confirmed, to SNAKES !SNAKES ! SNAKES ! ssssss, in order to warn her away.)
One of the curses given to the serpent in Genesis 3 is this:
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
Between you and her seed.
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise his heel. (v.15)
Many commentators over the years have seen a messianic prophecy in the passage. I’m not sure I see this. No New Testament writer specifically refers to it in this way (although the serpent is clearly associated with the devil in Revelation 12.9). What the passage clearly predicts is that most people will hate snakes, and take every opportunity to stomp on them till they are dead – or at least that there will be a general, organic response among the children of Eve to perceive a snake as a threat. This, of course, was the conclusion of the study at the University of Virginia cited above, and the reason my original title for this piece was Genesis Confirmed. Genesis is confirmed.
And it continues to be.
I remember being about 17, and my Bible class teacher being all riled up because his latest National Geographic argued that originally there was one super-continent on the earth – a view that is generally held today. I pointed out to him that the Bible said the same thing thousands of years ago. Genesis 1.9-10 says that when the dry land appeared, there was one, unbroken sea, and the dry land in the middle of it – one continent. Genesis confirmed again.
Later articles would appear in National Geographic, based upon more scholarly publications, that would argue from mitochondrial DNA research that all humans descend from a single female parent, and later that we share a single male parent. But of course some of us had known that all along.
Which is why I am only excited about what science will discover next. If we believe the words of David in Psalm 19.1 – that the Universe is telling about God’s Glory – then the more we know about the cosmos He created the more we know about Him,
The better we understand His word,
And the more firmly that word is confirmed.
