How
should we respond to the news of the recent death of another snake-handling
Christian? I can tell you a few ways that have been tried: condescension; amusement;
disbelief; mockery; advocacy; and rational assessment of the textual place of
the snake-handling verses in the Bible. Some who would never engage in the
practice admire the deep faith of these snake-handlers, including Professor
Ralph Hood of the University of Tennessee – Chattanooga who has
documented over 100 deaths from snake bites and the drinking of poison. The
Chattanooga Times Free Press has a thorough
overview of the practice among some churches in Appalachia. I have not
found a response, though, that deals with the relationship of the snake-handlers
to their fellow Christians, that is, how are fellow Christians expected to
respond to this sort of death and to the very practice of snake-handling? For snake-handling
has everything to do with interpretation of the Bible and with faith in the
Bible as the literal word of God.
The significant verses for this practice are found in the
Gospel of Mark 16:15-18:
15 And he said to them, “Go into all the
world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. 16 The
one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not
believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany
those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak
in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes in their hands, and
if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their
hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
I include in my passage verses 15
and 16, often excluded when examining this phenomenon, but central to belief in
this practice. Why? Mark 16:15-16 give the impetus for practicing these various
signs which are outlined in vv. 17-18. If you believe and are baptized, you are
saved, but if you do not believe, you are condemned. What are the signs of
those who believe? Casting out demons, speaking in new tongues, picking up
snakes, drinking any deadly thing and healing the sick.
Many biblical scholars will point
out, properly, that Mark in its earliest form ends at Mark 16:8, which excludes
these verses. This is true but inconsequential since the canonical form of the
Gospel accepted by (most) Christians extends to Mark 16:20, so even though these
verses were added at a later point they are considered a part of the accepted
word of God, and this is obviously the case for the snake-handlers.
Still, we might say to the
snake-handlers, regardless that this passage appears in the Bible, why are you
paying so much attention to this one passage in Mark? What does it matter? Their
answer would certainly be: it’s in the Bible and the Bible is the word of God. It
is fair to ask, then, why do you take this passage literally and ignore other
passages, such as cutting off your hand if it offends you (Matthew 5:30)? Or why
do you not tie a millstone around your neck if you harm a child and jump in the
sea (Mark 9:42; Matthew 18:6; Luke 17:2)? Yet, asking snake-handlers to take
literally every passage in the Bible does not mitigate against taking the
passage in Mark 16:17-18 literally.
It is certainly not a Christian
approach simply to counsel the snake-handlers to scoff at the passage or ignore
this passage or suggest it does not belong in the Bible. The necessary approach
is to find an alternate interpretation of this passage that fits within the broad
Christian tradition of biblical interpretation, which does not always prefer
literal interpretation. Better than literally writing the passage out of the
Bible ought to be an attempt to make sense of the passage spiritually. The
literal reading of the passage, frankly, is the most obvious reading of the
verses, but it need not be the only way to read these verses.
There are five “signs” listed in
Mark 16:15-18. Out of these five “signs” many mainstream Christians would accept
casting out demons (such as Catholics - at
least through the formal rites of exorcism - and many evangelical Protestants),
speaking in new tongues (charismatic Catholics, Pentecostals and other
charismatic Christians), and healing the sick (Catholics, mainstream and
evangelical Protestants). But it is only a very few who take seriously the
other two “signs,” namely, picking up poisonous snakes and drinking poison. Why?
Why do most Christians ignore these two signs?
Some might argue that casting out
demons, healing the sick and speaking in new tongues have a more substantial
biblical basis. Jesus’ ministry is full of him casting out demons and healing
the sick, as the first two chapters of Mark alone attest. The examples in the four
Gospels are too numerous to mention. Speaking in tongues is also attested in
Acts 2 and in 1 Corinthians 12-14. What does the rest of the NT say about drinking poison and
snake-handling?
Even if the traditions about
snake-handling are less attested in the NT, there are at least two other
passages which indicate protection from snakes and poison due to faith. Acts of
the Apostles 28:1-6 includes an (unintended) act of snake-handling. This is the
scene:
After we had reached
safety, we then learned that the island was called Malta. 2 The
natives showed us unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold,
they kindled a fire and welcomed all of us around it. 3 Paul
had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, when a
viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. 4 When
the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another,
“This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, justice has
not allowed him to live.” 5 He, however, shook off the creature
into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were expecting him
to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that
nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say
that he was a god.
Paul does not die, indeed, he
suffers no ill effects from the viper bite. This might have influenced the
inclusion of the later passage found in Mark 16:15-18, it is impossible to say
for certain, but it does indicate a tradition within the early Church of
resistance to poison or venom due to one’s Christian faith (it can be assumed
here in Acts that Paul’s resistance is due to his faith in Jesus Christ).
There is another passage in the
Gospel of Luke 10:17-20 that speaks of poison and serpents. When the 70 return
from their mission, they report back to Jesus with joy, saying “Lord,
in your name even the demons submit to us!" (v.17). Jesus responds, “I
watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you
authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the
enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that
the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven”
(vv.18-20). In this passage Jesus both announces “authority to tread on snakes
and scorpions” and likens it to authority over “the enemy.” This is important
for it indicates that “snakes and scorpions” are literal symbols of a more
deadly poison, namely, evil. And even the power over demonic forces is not to
be trumpeted, but rather the fact that “your names are written in heaven.”
Both the passage from Acts and
that from Luke give us clues as to how to interpret the passage in Mark. Paul’s
encounter with the viper in Acts 28 is not purposeful but unintentional. He
does not seek out a snake, a snake seeks out Paul. Paul’s health is preserved,
but he did not attempt to handle the snake himself, only shake it off. In Luke
10, Jesus announces this power over poisonous creatures, but states that the
true power is over the forces of evil. But even that power is less significant
than the salvation offered through Jesus. In these two passages, it does not
seem to counsel direct handling of snakes, but God’s preservation in one case
(Paul) and the power of God over the forces of evil, compared to snakes and
scorpions, and the priority of spiritual salvation over the manifestation of
signs (Luke).
When we ask two questions of the
biblical material - 1) what do snakes generally refer to in the Bible? And 2) what
does poison generally refer to in the Bible? – we find that the passages from
Acts and Luke fit with a general biblical view of snakes and poison as representative
of spiritual evil and God’s protection over his people. There are, naturally,
also passages where snakes are snakes and poison is poison.
In Genesis 3:1-4, the serpent
represents temptation and the initial turn away from God; later in the
Christian tradition the serpent represents embodied evil. The best example is in
Revelation 12, where throughout the chapter evil is represented by a dragon, or
as it is described in Revelation 12:9, “that ancient serpent, who is called the
Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.”
A famous scene occurs in Numbers
21 when the Israelites complain about their wandering in the desert. According
to Numbers 21:6 “then the Lord
sent poisonous serpents among
the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.” But God
also sent to Moses protection: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a
pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live’” (Numbers 21:8).
While we have literal snakes in the desert here, we also have God’s protection from
the serpents. Interestingly, though, this scene becomes spiritualized in the
teaching of Jesus, interpreting the snakes and poison as evil, which will be
conquered by Jesus on the cross. In the Gospel of John 3:14-16 it says,
14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have
eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
life.
The focus in John is not on actual
snakes and poison, but on Jesus’ conquering of the poisonous repercussions of sin
and evil so that people might have “eternal life.”
The spiritual sense of “poison” as
representative of evil is common elsewhere in the Bible, such as in Wisdom 1:14 (“For he created all
things so that they might exist; the generative forces of the world are
wholesome, and there is no destructive poison
in them, and the dominion of Hades is not on earth”), Amos 6:12 (“Do horses run
on rocks? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness
into wormwood”), and once in the New Testament, in James 3:8 where the tongue
is called “a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
I do not know any snake-handlers,
I have not met any snake-handlers, but they seem to be devout Christians and one
thing is clear: they believe by handling snakes they are performing God’s will
and interpreting the Bible correctly. It seems like such a loss, though, to
lose faithful people to the poison of snakes when it need not happen. And, after
all, what kind of sign is it when snake-handling preachers die from a snake’s
venom? What is the lesson the world is taught? They certainly learn that snake-handlers
take their faith deadly seriously, which is to be commended, but also that
faith is irrational.
It is true that among the signs in
Mark 16:17-18, casting out demons, speaking in new tongues and laying hands on
the sick seem to be best interpreted literally, and are by many Christians, so
why interpret “they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any
deadly thing, it will not hurt them” symbolically? Poison and snakes in the
Bible often represent literal snakes and poison, but it is more significant that
snakes and poison represent spiritual death and evil. Snake venom will not hurt
anyone ultimately, that is, in a spiritual sense, since Christians believe Christ has conquered
the forces of sin and death, but that does not mean snakes and poison will not
harm people physically. The true gift is eternal life, but we ought not to be
treating the gift of our physical lives with disdain and tempting death.
John W. Martens
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @Biblejunkies
I encourage you to “Like” Biblejunkies on Facebook.
This entry is cross-posted at
America Magazine The Good Word
0 comments:
Post a Comment