The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized (Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library) (Hardback)
$40.71 - Save $2.13 (4%) - RRP $42.84 Free delivery worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 48 hours | |Short Description for The Good and Evil Serpent In a perplexing passage from the "Gospel of John", Jesus is likened to the most reviled creature in Christian symbology: the snake. Attempting to understand how the Fourth Evangelist could have made such a surprising analogy, this book explores in detail the symbol of the serpent from 40,000 BCE onwards, and from diverse regions in the world.
Full description- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Published: 23 March 2010
- Format: Hardback 672 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Folklore, Myths & Legends | Ancient History: To C 500 CE | History Of Religion | Biblical Studies & Exegesis
- ISBN 13: 9780300140828 ISBN 10: 0300140827
- Sales rank: 245,548
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Full description for The Good and Evil Serpent
In a perplexing passage from the "Gospel of John", Jesus is likened to the most reviled creature in Christian symbology: the snake. Attempting to understand how the Fourth Evangelist could have made such a surprising analogy, James H. Charlesworth has spent nearly a decade combing through the vast array of references to serpents in the ancient world - from the Bible and other religious texts to ancient statuary and jewelry. Charlesworth has arrived at a surprising conclusion: not only was the serpent a widespread symbol throughout the world, but its meanings were both subtle and varied. In fact, the serpent of ancient times was more often associated with positive attributes like healing and eternal life than it was with negative meanings.This pathbreaking book explores in plentiful detail the symbol of the serpent from 40,000 BCE to the present, and from diverse regions in the world. In doing so it emphasizes the creativity of the biblical authors' use of symbols and argues that we must today reexamine our own archetypal conceptions with comparable creativity.
