Iamon lyme: The symbol of a serpent or snake played important roles in religious and cultural life of ancient Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia, and Greece. The serpent was a symbol of evil power and chaos from the underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life, and healing.[2] Nahash, Hebrew for "snake", is also associated with divination, including the verb-form meaning to practice divination or fortune-telling. In the Hebrew Bible, Nahash occurs in the Torah to identify the serpent in Eden.....

....The Hebrew word nahash is used to identify the creature that appears in Genesis 3, in the Garden of Eden. God placed Adam in the Garden to tend it (Genesis 2:15), but he has warned both Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, "or you will die". (Genesis 3:3, NIV) The serpent tells Eve that this is untrue, and that if she and the man eat the fruit they will have knowledge and will not die. So Adam and Eve eat the fruit, but the knowledge they gain is loss of childlike innocence, and they are banished from the Garden. The Snake is punished for its role in their fall by being made to crawl on its belly in the dust, from where it continues to bite the heel of man. According to the Rabbinical tradition, the serpent represents sexual desire.[1][3]

The serpent of Genesis plays the role of trickster, a speaking animal which even shares knowledge with God which is hidden from man. As with other trickster-figures, the gift it brings is double-edged: Adam and Eve gain knowledge, but lose Eden. The choice of a venomous snake for this role seems to arise from Near Eastern traditions associating snakes with danger and death, magic and secret knowledge, rejuvenation, immortality, and sexuality. It is also possible that the association of the snake with the nude goddess in Canaanite iconography lies behind the scene in the Garden between the reptile and naked Eve, "Mother of all life",[4] the "Great Mother Goddess of the Canaanites"[5] Qetesh.

Debate about the Serpent in Eden is whether it should be viewed figuratively or as a literal animal. Voltaire, drawing on Socinian influences, wrote: "It was so decidedly a real serpent, that all its species, which had before walked on their feet, were condemned to crawl on their bellies. No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or Belzebub, or Devil, in the Pentateuch."[6]

"So yeah, there's all sorts of contradictions and inconsistencies and impossibilities... if that's what you WANT to see."

Maybe not if you allow for the heritage of our ancestors that was oral history. It's still used by the aborigines to teach how to survive in the bush.

btw.... I was as well talking about Genesis, but remembering certain proverbs passages stating this a wise creation.