Naked Bible Podcast 103 — Moses and the Bronze Serpent

Many Bible students find the episode in Numbers 21:1-9 confusing. Why would God tell Moses to make a bronze serpent (nachash)? Did God forget about the serpent of Genesis 3? Why would Jesus compare his impending death on the cross to the bronze serpent? This episode asks whether these ideas are in fact connected and how the serpent in the wilderness episode should be interpreted.

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[chppayne]

It is good to still hear Dr. Heiser's voice.😔

[mimishella]

May God lift you from your sick bed, Dr. Praying for you.

[alaskadrifter]

“You got a lot of fruit loops running around on the internet”, so true.

[busby]

the Israelites must have sat around the fire and told the stories of Genesis, even if they didn't read them

[deroconnor]

The placing of the stories in a wider context is very helpful. There is however a context of oral storytelling and the editing of earlier stories by Moses

[johnrobinson]

They looked to the Serpent as instructed and were saved. We have to look to Yeshua to be saved. Easy

[Victrola]

I wonder when this podcast was recorded because the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 ! According to Michael, the end is near !

[angelamc]

Enjoying Dr. Heiser a lot, but like others said it's outrageous to think that the Hebrews had no origin story, no oral history of Gen 1-11 content especially since everyone around them did. And if you think they had carefully preserved orally history from the time of Abraham onward, why wouldn't they have earlier stuff as well? After all, that was Abraham's family and origin. Nor is it unlikely that Moses would have told them stories that they would have endlessly retold while hiking around-isn't that what all cultures do? Also it's possible that Gen 1-11 was passed down as written records that came to Moses and he included. There are words and phrases that are suggestive. Even if it was later edited in the exile period.

[kightsun]

If Genesis 2-11 Are Babylonian, why couldnt it be a part of Israel's (Abraham being of Chaldea) Oral Tradition?

[BzudemE]

I think the more interesting question is not what the Israelites thought the snake on the staff means, but rather what the people who put the torah in its final shape wanted the reader to see in the passage. From Genesis 4 on we are looking for a snake crusher guy, Moses is a guy that at least has power over the snake (his staff occasionally becomes a nahash/snake or a sea serpent/tanin in front of pharaoh), he splits the sea with his staff (that was a sea serpent before). I think when Moses lifts up the staff with the bronze snake, it is another occasion where God uses a chaos/anti-eden/death thing to accomplish salvation from death. And I think that is what Jesus is referring to: He let chaos and death collapse in on himself so that everybody who believed that God can bring forth life through death would ultimately be saved from death and chaos.

[misseli]

I'm not disagreeing with the points on when or how the Torah was written, or how much of it Moses wrote or didn't wrote. But I do think it's possible that Moses read aloud some of the accounts he wrote down to the people, similar to how he spoke the commands of the Lord in the presence of the people. If I remember correctly, the pentateuch and the book of Joshua talk about the importance of reading the scripture in the ears of the people, and I think other books reference this practice too, although scripture would often go ignored for centuries.

[jessie.juxtapose]

I have to finish watching your Melchizedek video first maybe you talk about it. ~1:02:30 you talk about him and the jebusites...I don't know if there a big symbology or reason, but I've always found it interesting the temple was built on the land David bought that was the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Especially since apparently they where some that should have been killed or driven out coming into the promised land (or at least I think so). His countenance during the ordeal was he kept working and wasn't afraid though the two other men with Ornan were. Would love to hear you go through that whole story. Thanks again so much!!!

[jessie.juxtapose]

Question: ~41:50 where does it say God gave Jacob the idea to use the sticks? Maybe I missed it, I just thought it was a superstition back then...Anyway, been watching a few of your videos and really like them, thanks! By the way, you said on another video you went through exodus on YouTube too? Could you link it? I can't seem to find it. Will just watch the many others until I find it 🙂

[busby]

Why would the Israelites in Egypt NOT remember the story of their ancestors, beginning with Abraham?

[andrewlightbody]

Didnt the cubs win the world series less than 5 years ago lol?

[danielnosuke]

Says it is logistically absurd for the millions of Israelites to hear what Moses wrote with Genesis 3. So... it is absurd for the Israelites to hear what God told Moses to tell them with Exodus 20 on?

And why assume the earliest extant copies of ANE lit we have are the earliest those works were first composed or written? Why assume Moses didn't write Torah and later editors tweaked the stylistic edges?

[Victrola]

Certainly the Israelites were aware of the Garden of Eden from oral tradition. Why would Michael say they didn't know about it because they had no scrolls?

[sevgibson]

The question isn't what Moses or the Israelites were thinking. The question is why God chose the serpent as the symbol for this episode considering he definitely knew about the serpent in the garden and that Jesus would later reference this episode in relation to the cross. Is there a reason God chose to use this serpent imagery? Is it because Satan is the great imposter of Jesus and would that also mean the serpent imagery is of the original (real) Savior and that Satan used that imagery as an imposter? Or is there some other reason?

[ronaldschoolcraft]

Jesus referred to Mosaic authorship of Genesis 1 through 11. Was Jesus wrong?

[bandcampkid]

I REALLY like this podcast. I just think you could make it much shorter. It was nearly 30 minutes of recap and restating the same point at the beginning... other than that, AMAZING