Serpent
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Image:Sensuality.jpg
Sensuality (1891) - Franz von Stuck. The image of the serpent as phallus is left in little doubt in this painting that shows an enormous python-like creature passing between the legs of a nude woman.
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- A legless reptile of the sub-order Serpentes with a long, thin body and a fork-shaped tongue.
- A treacherous person.
In Christianity and Judaism, the snake makes its infamous appearance in the first book (Genesis 3:1) of the Bible when a serpent appears before the first couple Adam and Eve and tempts them with the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The snake returns in Exodus when Moses, as a sign of God's power, turns his staff into a snake and when Moses made the Nehushtan, a bronze snake on a pole that when looked at cured the people of bites from the snakes that plagued them in the desert. The serpent makes its final appearance symbolizing Satan in the Book of Revelation: "And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years." (Revelation 20:2)
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