"What is different about this approach is that I view the base word, nachash, as an adjective, not a noun. The NOUN spelled nachash in Hebrew can mean: snake / serpent or one who practices of divination. The adjective means “bright, brazen” and is itself the base word for other nouns in Hebrew, like “shining brass.”
Hebrew grammar, it is not unusual for an adjective to be “converted” for use as a noun (the proper word is “substantivized”).2 A common example would be “holy one” (with or without the article). If we take שחנ as deriving from the adjective rather than as a noun, the translation becomes “the shining one”, which is quite in concert with descriptions of the satan figure in the Old Testament. For example, in Isa 14:12-15, he is called Helel ben-shachar — “The shining one, son of the dawn.” Elsewhere, divine beings are described as “shining” or luminous, even by use of the adjective ןונ ש. For example: Daniel 10"
Heiser isn't saying anything different from I am, but he is saying something very different from what you are. It would take entirely too much time to take you through first year Hebrew grammar on this board. You have to look at different root words, how nouns and verbs are constructed out of them (with special reference to the Qal (=simple) form), which Heiser uses here, and how words can be substantival. Gman, you've just misunderstood his argument. He is NOT saying that the noun
nachash meaning "serpent" has, within its semantic range, the further meaning of "bronze" or "brazen" or even "divination." DIFFERENT words from the SAME ROOT have those meanings. The noun
nachash meaning "snake" is a different word from the root
nachash (which is not a noun, but a Qal verb, but can be easily converted into a noun) "to divine," and that same root
nachash--which is NOT the noun
nachash (=snake)--can be formed into an adjective meaning "bright." That adjective to which Heiser is referring is
nechosheth. It would be spelled the same way in Hebrew. All of these words would be spelled the same way in Hebrew, but that does not make them the same word, anymore than the English words "bear" (=a scary animal) and "bear" (=to hold up a burden) are the same word with a broad semantic range. They are different words spelled the same way that are derived from similar roots.
You are simply reading Heiser wrong. I am not going to walk through an entire Hebrew grammar course with you on this. I am simply telling you that you don't understand what Heiser is saying. Take Heiser to one of the Ph.D.'s in Hebrew that you know (or come to the seminary I work at, and I'll let you sit down with one of the ones that I know here), and walk them through your understanding of Heiser, and see what they tell you.
It says, "Dan will be a serpent by the roadside." Not a literal snake.... Dan will not turn into a literal snake, Dan's symbol represents a snake. Let's look at it Psalm 22:16...
Psalm 22:16
16 Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.
The verse does not say that his enemies were like dogs, or that they were dogs... In fact the word "enemies" is not even mentioned. It is implied....
If you want to go that route, then tell me where in Genesis 3 where the snake is said to be the devil? WHERE??? According to your interpretation all you have is a LITERAL walking talking snake in the garden...
As I already said with Gen. 49, there are linguistic markers that lets us know that the word "snake" is a figure of speech. Likewise, there are linguistic markers in Ps. 22 that let me know what "dogs" are. The structure of Hebrew poetry equates "dogs" with "a band of evil men."
No such markers exist in Gen. 3. Unless you can point me to any, I take it as literal. You can point me to none, and therefore, you have no basis on which to take it as non-literal except what you WANT it to be.
As to your last question, you are absolutely right. When I teach Gen 3, I make no reference to Satan, because he is not in the passage. I do believe it was a literal snake. It was not Satan. It was a snake. Period. That later revelation comes back and tells me that Satan was somehow involved with the snake is all well and good, but it doesn't tell me how that relationship is to be defined. It doesn't tell me if Satan manifested himself as a snake (which I don't believe for several reasons); it doesn't tell me if Satan possessed a snake (which I don't believe for several reasons); it doesn't tell me if Satan simply influenced the snake (more likely); it doesn't even tell me if the relationship is non-existent, and in fact, if they aren't using the literal snake's character as a reference to Satan's character (in other words, the relationship is non-literal, which I can argue on linguistic grounds!).
It's only for the sake of popular understanding that I continue to describe the event in Gen 3 as Satan tempting Eve. But I use that in every day speech. If I'm tempted to do anything evil, I make reference to the devil's temptation. I don't certainly mean that Satan himself is at that moment tempting me. I don't think I'm THAT important. So perhaps that is all that is going on in those future verses. I doubt it; I believe that some of those future verses make clear that somehow, Satan himself was in the garden and had some sort of relationship with the snake, but what that relationship was, I don't know.
So yes, Gen. 3 mentions only a literal snake. There is absolutely NO ground for thinking otherwise in the passage, unless you argue that anything that does not line up with human experience should be taken allegorically, in which case, we will have to take every miracle in the Bible as allegorical. Or, you can do like ttoews has done and say the entire thing is a myth.
Or, you can just do like you are doing now, and be totally inconsistent in your interpretation. The problem is that others will take your method and be consistent with it (i.e., John Crossan).