(V): "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]"


How does Rabbinical tradition interpret mans punishment of working the ground and eating by the sweat of his brow, and womans increased travail in childbirth? If not literal, then what do those represent? What are the guidlines for determining what may be interpreted literally or not? If the story of Noah had to be symbolic until our knowledge of DNA and natural selection "made" it possible for that to be a real event, am I to assume reality itself is dependent on what I am able to understand? If you reduce the entire story of creation (and the fall) to being figurative, then the serpents involvement and what happened to him CAN be reduced to the serpent representing sexual desire. So now, if the serpents roll in all of this has been reduced to biting heels, I can now interpret that to mean all sexual desires are limited to foot fetishes... in other words, as long as I'm able to divorce anything from reality I don't want linked with reality, I'm free to interpret anything to mean what I want it to mean.