Snakes Had Legs

The Bible states that the God of creation is from everlasting to everlasting. This world and its universe, on the other hand, date just over 6,000 years. As an aside, those who recoiled in horror over the number 6,000 should take a moment to attempt to prove their billions. They will not succeed, for the very simple reason that it is not true. This world’s history and governments as we know them will come to a sudden and dramatic change at a place not far from here called Armageddon. At that time, Jesus Christ will begin to reign over the globe for 1,000 years. Shortly after that thousand- year period, God will destroy the heaven and the earth, and will create a new heaven and a new earth for the born-again, for Himself, for the Christ of Glory, and for all the heavenly host, where we will all live forever. As far as this present earth’s age at the time of its final destruction, it will be somewhere over 7,000 years old. Our individual lives, on the other hand, are compared to a mere vapor. Now when you consider these brief time-spans with God’s ultimate plan for His children, the concept of "from everlasting to everlasting" begins to take shape for us, especially the idea of "to everlasting." For more information on this time line, click on to "The Chronology From Here To Eternity."

God’s plan for His children is so much more than this brief history — infinitely, phenomenally more! Jesus said in John 17:20-23:

20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Imagine, or should I say, attempt to imagine, that we are ordained to become one with the oneness the Father and the Son enjoy, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Of this Jesus Christ, Colossians 1:16-19reads:

16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;

We are literally called to be joint-heirs with Christ. Romans 8:17:

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Don’t get caught up in this brief vapor. Invest yourself in things that will last forever — things so much bigger than our brief history, so much bigger than our supper plates or the clothes we wear. If you have yet to be born-again, click on to "Further With Jesus," for instant entry into the kingdom of God. Now for today’s subject.

GOD SAID, Genesis 3:14-15:

14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

MAN SAID: Such concepts are ludicrous and not worthy of scholarly consideration.

Now THE RECORD. In the midst of the garden of Eden, the paradise God made for Adam and Eve, were two trees. One tree was called "the tree of life," and the other was called "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God’s commandment to our great-grandfather Adam was as follows (Genesis 2:16- 17):

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

In Genesis 3:1-6, Satan takes on the form of the serpent and convinces Eve that God is a liar. In an act of unbelief and disobedience, she eats the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She also gives it to her husband to eat. That very day, they both died to the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, even though they lived on in the flesh for many years. That was the day the law of sin and death began to reign upon the earth — a concept known in science as the second law of thermodynamics. Because of the evil that transpired, God’s judgment fell on all of creation. Of the serpent specifically, God curses it and says that it shall crawl on its belly, eating dust all the days of its life. It shall bruise man’s heel, while man bruises its head. It fully appears that the snake, which is now a serpent that crawls on its belly, once had legs.

I should note that Moses was given the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Pentateuch, by God. He was directed to write these books very clearly. This occurred approximately 2,500 years after God created the heaven and the earth. It also must be understood that many, if not all, ancient civilizations had a record, written or oral, of creation, of the garden of Eden,  and of the serpent. According to the February 2001 issue of Creation, in an article titled, "Uncanny Coherence To Noah’s Account," over 500 ancient cultures record a story quite similar to Noah’s ark and the destruction of the world by a flood. But the record God gave to Moses is the ultimate, hands- on, eyewitness authority and it is proven over and over again by its unerring accounting of events by history, archaeology, paleontology, geology, and other sciences

In "Archaeology and Bible History," author J.P. Free writes concerning the "Temptation Seals" unearthed in the 1930s. The seal was discovered at a level antedating 3000 B.C., or approximately 1500 years before the first five books of the Bible were written. The seal depicts a tree with a man to the right. To the left of the tree is a woman plucking fruit, with a serpent behind her standing erect.

In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is directed to the "plant of life," which can be found at the bottom of the sea. Gilgamesh finds it only to have it stolen by a serpent.

Famed historian Flavius Josephus, in the "Antiquities of the Jews," reviews and reports on the ancient records of the Hebrew people and of historians considered ancient in his time. Josephus lived and wrote just after the time of Christ. Concerning the serpent in the garden of Eden and God’s punishment of it, he wrote: "Besides this, he inserted poison under his tongue and made him an enemy to men; and suggested to them that they should direct their strokes against his head, that being the place wherein lay his mischievous designs towards men, and it being easiest to take vengeance on him that way; and when he had deprived him of the use of his feet, he made him to go rolling all along, and dragging himself upon the ground." [End of quote]

Science and academia now support the idea of a snake with legs. Through biological examination, John Crompton, an evolutionist and snake authority who authored the book "Snake Lore," discovered that at one time, the snake that crawls upon its belly once had legs. As a matter of fact, at this present time, the snake has not completely gotten rid of its legs. Tiny vestigials remain of what were once legs, and are found in the bodies of many snakes.

Crompton’s record is supported by Klaus Griehl’s book, titled "Snakes." Griehl points out that "primitive" snakes, such as boas and pythons, still show vestigial pelvic bones and anal spurs that represent the remnants of hind legs.

From the October 11, 1997 edition of The International Jerusalem Post, is the following excerpt:

A midrash about Adam and Eve now has scientific support: Hebrew University researchers have found evidence that prehistoric snakes had tiny legs.

According to Jewish tradition, the snake who tempted Eve to disobey God was punished by being forced to crawl on its belly forever.

The researchers also concluded from a close re-examination of snake fossils that they originated in the sea, rather than underground.

A team from the Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, headed by Professor Eitan Tchernov, found that the fossils had two small but anatomically complete hind legs. Tchernov will present his findings this month at the international conference of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Chicago.

A wire service report printed in the Beaver County Times, of Beaver, Pennsylvania, March 17, 2000 reads:

A team of researchers has reached into a dusty drawer and pulled out a snake with legs.

The discovery could upset at least some theories about the evolution of snakes.

"The fossil had been sitting in the museum drawer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem since the death of researcher Georg Haas in the early 1980s," said Oliver Rieppel of the Field Museum in Chicago.

Another wire service reads as follows:

In their recent analysis of two 90 million-year-old lizard fossils from Israel, Michael W. Caldwell of Chicago’s Field Museum and Michael S. Y. Lee of the University of Sydney in Australia concluded that the bones belonged to an ancestral snake. The fossils have several features in common with modern snakes, especially their long, slender bodies and distinctive skulls.

But the fossils also have obvious legs and lived in the sea. That doesn’t jibe with the traditional view of ancestral asps, which are thought of as legless burrowing reptiles.

So in the April 12, 1999 issue of the journal Nature, Caldwell and Lee advance the bold suggestion that snakes are most closely related to the mosasaurs — giant swimming reptiles that lived at the time of dinosaurs.

Their assessment that the snake once had legs is correct because God said so. Their assessment of millions of years and evolution is incorrect because God said no.

Well over 20 years ago, GodSaidManSaid first published the information that fossils had been discovered, which supported the fact that snakes once had legs. Within the past couple of years (the time of this writing is October 2006), more news has been published concerning this truth.

In a life laden with uncertainty, you can be confident of one very certain thing: God is and His Word is true.

GOD SAID, Genesis 3:14-15:

14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

MAN SAID: Such concepts are ludicrous and not worthy of scholarly consideration.

Now you have THE RECORD.




References:

Authorized King James Version

Beaver County Times, Beaver, Pennsylvania, wire service, March 17, 2000

Creation, “Uncanny Coherence to Noah’s Account,” February 2001

Crompton, J., "Snake Lore"

Dailey, T.J., "Mysteries of the Bible," Publications International, 2004, p15

Free, J.P., "Archaeology and Bible History," Scripture Press Pub., 1969, p34

Griehl, K., "Snakes," The International Jerusalem Post, Oct. 11, 1977

Josephus, F., "Antiquities of the Jews," Kregel Pub., p26

Nature, "National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles & Amphibians," April 12, 1999

 

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