by Andrew Kuiper

One of the questions that naturally arises when reading Philo’s writings (see here) is how his works compare with rabbinic midrash. Since Philo is one of the earliest, and certainly most comprehensive, examples of exegesis within the milieu of Hellenistic Judaism (or Jewish Hellenism as some have proposed calling it), it is worth asking if there is any common ground with the forms of Jewish exegesis in Palestine, Babylonia, Syria, and the surrounding areas. The compilation of the Midrash Rabba occurs around 400 A.D. but presumably reflects earlier oral traditions. The writings on Genesis, Bereshit Rabba, provide an excellent opportunity to compare exegetical styles as it often chooses to emphasize the very same passages that Philo does. Here I would like to focus on Philo’s treatment of serpents in Genesis and compare it with two passages in the Bereshit Rabba.

In his Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Philo reads Adam, Eve, and the snake as stand-ins for a tripartite division of human nature. Adam corresponds to νοῦς (mind), Eve to αἴσθησῐς (sense-perception), and the snake to ἡδονή (pleasure). The capacity for pleasure is in fact a positive good for Philo, an erotic bond that unites mind and sense-perception.  However, the slippery and gliding nature of pleasure (hence it was fitting for Moses to use the symbol of the snake) is also a structural vulnerability. It is through the disordered role of pleasure to sense-perception (the deception of Eve by the serpent) that the human intellect becomes disturbed and confused. Philo then brings this identification of snakes with pleasure to an exegesis of the account in Numbers 21. There the camp of the Israelites is afflicted by deadly serpents which Philo relates to the immoderate use of pleasure that brings death to the soul.

How is healing brought about for the Israelites in this condition? Philo is quick to make use of his symbolic correspondence of snakes with pleasure to relate Genesis and Numbers in a meta-symbolic way (not wholly unlike the patristic exegetical methods of correspondence and recapitulation, which are worthy of more attention at TRF). Another serpent, opposed to the serpent which overcame Eve, must be constructed. The serpent which God commands Moses to make for himself is in fact σωφροσύνη (self-control). It is primarily for Moses himself which Philo takes to mean that self-control is primarily the possession of the man of God. But the fact that it is set on a rod means that anyone afflicted by immoderate pleasure can turn their mind to self-control and so be saved. The beauty of Moses’ self-mastery, or that of any virtuous self-controlled person, can shine forth and save the soul bitten by pleasure.

Philo also notices that God does not command Moses to use any specific material in constructing the snake and yet he chooses bronze. This is due (among other things) to its strong and unyielding character which is a fitting image for how self-control resists immoderate pleasure. The stiffness of the rod compared to serpentine fluidity quickly turns into another opportunity for speculative exegesis in the life of Moses. Stacking image upon image, and correspondence upon correspondence, Philo makes the image of the rod one of παιδεία (education–in this context a kind of education in discipline). Discipline is the rod on which the bronze serpent is held aloft. It is also the rod of Moses during the incident of the burning bush. When God commands Moses to throw his rod on the ground it becomes a snake. That is, when the soul casts away discipline, it becomes once again a lover of inveterate pleasure. But when the hand of the man of God takes up the snake, it becomes a rod once again and the soul is a lover of virtue once more.

In Bereshit Rabba, chapters 19-20, the snake of the garden does not receive allegorical treatment. And while the exegetical approach could be construed as literal-historical in the broadest sense, the rabbis urgently feel the need to read intertextually and even go beyond what is apparent and explicit in any biblical text. None of the rabbis in Bereshit Rabba claim that the snake is Satan or any other demon (though later Jewish traditions will identify him with the demon Samael). This makes the snake and his motivations quite opaque. Various solutions are proposed. The snake was made especially wise in order to be the overseer of all the other animals, walking upright like a man. But the snake refused this task and attempted to murder Eve (20.5). Another solution states that the snake, on account of his great wisdom, was also the most sorrowful, using Ecclesiastes 1:18 (he that increases knowledge increases sorrow) as a proleptic hint concerning his fate in Genesis 3. “According to the greatness of the serpent so was his downfall: because he was more subtle than all he was more cursed than all” (19.1). Another opinion goes so far as to state that the serpent was already, mysteriously, an unbeliever. 

The rabbis do not give an extended comparison on the image of serpents throughout the Torah here. But the bronze serpent is mentioned later in Genesis Rabba in the context of God’s command to Noah. Rabbi Issi points out that there are four places in the Scriptures where God uses the phrase ‘Make thee’ and three of these are followed by an explanation of what material to use. 1) Make thee an ark of gopher wood (Gen. 6:14); 2)  Make thee knives of flint (Josh. 5:2); Make thee two trumpets of silver (Num. 10:2); and finally 4) Make thee a fiery serpent. In this case God does not specify the material for construction (the same detail noticed in Philo!). The Midrash continues by saying that Moses had to figure this out for himself and “reasoned thus: If I make it of gold (zahab) or of silver (kesef), these words do not correspond to the other [naḥash]. Hence I will make it of neḥosheth (brass), since this word corresponds to the other, viz. neḥash neḥosheth–a serpent of brass.” Moses is depicted here as not only creatively interpreting God’s words–but already imaging the pedagogical value of the written and textual transmission of the event! The upshot of these choices for the rabbis is how this wordplay proves the Torah was written in Hebrew and that the world itself was created with Hebrew.

Despite all the obvious contrasts, Philo and the rabbinic exegetes compiled in the Midrash Rabba share a fundamental boldness toward the biblical text. Philo does not hesitate to import the structures of Platonic and Stoic anthropology and metaphysics and has recourse to symbolic allegoresis at every turn. The rabbinic exegetes, though less allegorical, are no less bold. They stitch together passages and create new moments within the biblical drama. While the rabbis fixate more on the character of letters, this too is within the context of a speculative-metaphysical structure as well. The midrashic exposition on Genesis 1 makes it quite clear that the Torah preexisted the world and it is through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet that all things were created. Philo and the rabbis are both authentic expression of Judaism and one should not be hastily promoted over the other as “true Judaism.” And we should take careful notice that, if we look to the earliest commentators on the Scriptures, we find no trace of simple passive reception of an iron-clad literal text.