In a new short video, “Bible Answer Man” host Hank Hanegraaff tackles the question of whether Satan, as a serpent, actually spoke words to Eve in the Garden of Eden. The issue arose again, he says, as he was reading a critique of a new Christian apologetics book. That author “supposes that if we take Genesis literally, then we have to believe that Eve was deceived by a talking snake,” Hanegraaff says, which “is far from true.”
Through his answer, Hanegraaff explains what it really means to read Scripture literally—and why that distinction is important.
Talking Snake? Woodenly Literal vs. Obvious and Natural
Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute, says it’s important to distinguish between being “woodenly literal” and looking at the biblical author’s intentions “in the most obvious and natural sense.” Reading Scripture literally, he says, “is to read it as literature,” which means interpreting it “just as we interpret other forms of communication.”