Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
This is the first mention of the serpent in the Bible. The Hebrew word is nachash. The term is used 31 times in the Old Testament.
Genesis 3:14 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
As originally created by God, snakes were not in the form they are now. They were physically different prior to the fall of man. This is implied in Genesis 3:14. There was a consequence to the serpent for deception. The serpent was cast to its belly.
So what did a snake look like before the fall?
A recent published study from Science Advances has some interesting observations. A fossil of a snake was shown to have back legs. Because the fossil was found in the sand away from the ocean, the creature was three dimensional and not smashed flat.
Najash rionegrina is the scientific name. Science turned to the Bible for the original name of a snake. Below is a quote from the article.
Najash rionegrina is named after the legged biblical snake Nahash (Hebrew for snake).
The discovery was made in the Río Negro Province in Argentina. This is in central Argentina. The snake was actually found in February of 2013.
This is an article from an evolutionary perspective. Science postulates the snake is 95 million years old. Predictions and speculations are made based on the findings and how this relates to Darwin. For more details if interested, see the link below.
https://www.livescience.com/snake-with-legs-skull.html
They can’t explain this away. God said He made a serpent. And that serpent was not always on its belly.
