What does a snake smbolize?

Answer 1

In most cases, it symbolizes evil.

However, in some cultures it symbolizes fertility.

In others it is connected with the story of Creation, and some of the stories can be very different indeed.

In ancient Israel, a brazen snake was mounted to a pole and the Israelites were told to look upon the raised inanimate snake as Moses held it aloft to save their lives.

In many Biblically-based religions, according to Biblical record, snakes became snakes when the 'serpent' 'successfully' tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God, after their perfect Creation in the Garden of Eden, and to partake of the forbidden 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil'.

According to the record in Genesis and the book of Moses, God then cursed the serpent such that certain changes occurred within its body such that it became quite some different "beast".

It is often considered that the changes made resulted in a snake that typically seems to be the complete antithesis of 'Man' - both behaviourally and anatomically.

It would seem that if this is the case, God used the snake to symbolize the opposition that it brought into the world - which did not exist before the knowledge of good and evil wrought by partaking of the 'forbidden fruit'.