Genesis 3 — Serpent or Dragon? The Mistranslation That Changed Meaning

The Lord God’s Paradise Without Growth

This question cannot be separated from Genesis 2. The actions of the Lord God point to a rivalry with God: an attempt to shorten the human path toward a world of happiness.

The Lord God created conditions of life without need, disease, labor, wars, or discord, with abundant food and free time for enjoyment — a life in which a person could be a king over animals and entrusted lands.

Such a paradise offers comfort, but without the path of knowledge and growth. It gives satisfaction without the experience of good and evil, and therefore cannot lead the soul toward true development.

The Forbidden Fruit as a Turning Point in the Path of the Soul

God allowed the Lord God to create a human. But what the Lord God created was a human being without the spark of God, although he breathed life into him.

Adam had not passed through the path of plants, learning the value of life. He had not passed through the path of animals, growing through love, mercy, and similar qualities. He had not received the experience of knowing good and evil.

Therefore, Adam’s soul level was no higher than that of a plant. Eve was at the same level. They were capable only of eating, drinking, and idling.

This is why the dialogue between the “serpent” and Eve is not a simple episode of temptation. In the story of the forbidden fruit, it becomes a turning point in the human path of the soul: the moment when knowledge opens the possibility to learn, draw conclusions, gain experience, and begin true inner growth.

Two Teachings in Scripture: The Covenant of Fear and the Path of the Almighty

In the Old Testament, the Lord God tempts through a covenant that replaces free choice with obedience to his instructions. For violating it, he threatens with death, curses, disease, hunger, defeat by enemies, captivity, destruction, scattering among nations, and images of consuming fire.

He draws people into this covenant by promising earthly prosperity, victory, status, power over others, and abundance. In this way, greed, pride, vanity, and similar passions are provoked, leading the soul along the path into dust. See related commentaries on fear, covenant, violence, and conscience below.

The Almighty gives a choice between dust and eternity through the knowledge of good and evil, providing an absolute Divine program along the path through the times of teaching.

At the same time, God allowed the presence of the opposite teaching in sacred Scripture. Nothing happens unless it is permitted by the Almighty. He allowed the teaching of darkness to be present in the Scripture of light at the level where humanity stood at that time.

The Choice of the Soul: Inner Darkness or Inner Light

Those who do not grow in their souls and remain in darkness choose the path to dust throughout their lives. On the Day of Judgment, they will understand that they were not on the side of external darkness, not on the side of the false god and his like, but on the side of their own inner darkness. Inner darkness and inner light are parts of the soul.

Each person has the right, granted by the Almighty, to choose whether to nurture darkness within themselves, diminishing the light, or to cultivate the light from the “spark” of God, pushing out the darkness.

The Three Worlds and the Time of Examination

This choice does not concern the middle world alone. Some beings from the upper and lower worlds were perceived in the middle world as gods, demons, rulers, or keepers of hidden knowledge. Therefore, the discussion of the Lord God, Lilith, darkness, light, and the inner choice of the soul leads to the wider theme of the three worlds.

The upper, middle, and lower worlds are linked through cycles of development and decline. Some beings ascended, others fell, and others were given new chances. With the revelation of the sealed book, the time of teaching ended and the time of examination for all three worlds began.

Many inhabitants of the upper world have not overcome the barriers of pride and vanity, and many of their actions have caused suffering in the middle world. These are the ones who were trapped in the swamp of arrogance, that were called gods, without knowing that it was these very so-called “gods” who once destroyed the middle world by fighting against the giants of the middle world, who were nearly equal to them in technology. 

Much misfortune also came from the beings of the lower world. There, not everything is as material as in the middle world. Many of these beings are bodiless – some harmless and simple-minded, but others are dangerous and powerful demons. However, for most inhabitants of the middle world, this world is just as material as they themselves are. They were never able to penetrate the middle world and are controlled by the demons of the lower world.

Their world originates from the middle world, which did not pass the test of the Last Judgment. Those who passed the test ascended to a higher level. Those whose soul level was too low turned to dust. Those with a sufficient soul level were given a chance to continue growing, but their level was so low that they descended with their middle world to the level of the lower world.