I believe that’s the point of the Bible. That and a moral one as well. If you wish to consider the two as separate. I think they are connected and dependent upon each other.
That particular passage probably has several messages. The consequences of disobedience to God. The price we pay for betrayal (the serpent betrayed Eve. Eve betrayed Adam. They all betrayed God.) Ultimately, it is about the price we pay for self awareness and knowing we will die. Life is different when you don’t know you will die. When you know you can die, you know you can kill (see Cain).
On the one hand, it’s irrelevant when interpreting the text. The words are there, regardless of who said them or didn’t say them, so that’s what we have to go by.
I can’t interpret literally or figuratively that which isn’t there so the question really is invalid in this context. Meaning, I can’t comment on what may have been said. The question is more suited to the larger question of the existence of God. If I believe God exists, then I can answer that I believe He said those words or that He didn’t say those words or that I’m not sure if He said those words. If I don’t believe in God then there is only one answer. In both cases I cannot state that he certainly said those words because that is not what faith is built upon. I can’t, you can’t, no one can, know if God said those words. Believe it yes. Know it, no.
Have you heard of what I will call Christian Typology?
Luke 24:25, “Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: 26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? 27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Do you see where Jesus might have shown Himself in Genesis chapter 3 to those followers?
Just keep in mind that there is no perfect type of Christ in the Bible.
If one believes in Trinitarianism, like Catholics, then Christ existed as Logos, as stated in John. Christ in human form came later. Does this mean Christ revealed himself as the Word or as himself, what we know as his human form to the prophets? Christ as Logos and Christ in human form are not the same.
But there are those who don’t believe Christ has always existed. Unitarians for example. I really don’t know one way or the other. I know what I was taught but I also know now, that those teachings are not based on certainty. I also know that whatever I believe in regard to this, won’t matter. Jesus said to believe He is the savior. Nothing more, nothing less. The details won’t matter on judgement day. If Thomas Jefferson’s soul is denied eternal life it won’t be because he supported Unitarianism. He has other sins he may have to answer for. We all will.
I don’t believe you understand what typology is. It isn’t that Adam is Jesus, it is that Adam is a type of Jesus as a portion of Adam’s story can be paralleled to Jesus.
Isaac is a type of Jesus in the matter he was given a wife. And then again when he went with Abraham to the land of Moriah, where Abraham was told by God to offer Isaac as a burnt offering.
It’s foreshadowing. I don’t believe it because it’s too easy to find foreshadowing when you look for it. Does Lazarus foreshadow the resurrection of Jesus? Does Elijah resurrecting a child foreshadow Jesus and Lazarus? I don’t think a religious text written by, and for, ancients unaware of literary devices, would have foreshadowing.
It is foreshadowing IMO too. It is okay and reasonable that you don’t see it as part of the word of God. I mean, you don’t believe that the antecedent of “that crooked serpent” in Revelation chapter 12 can be in another book of the Bible. It is One Complete Book to me.
That ancient serpent could just as easily be a reference to Leviathan.
In Ezekiel 28, he mentions a cherub in Eden who some associate with Satan. If that cherub is Satan, then Satan was in Eden. If Satan, a cherub, took the form of a serpent to deceive Eve, then why didn’t God recognize the serpent as being the cherub/Satan? Why did God refer to him as a serpent and not as what he was, a cherub/Satan?