Easter Day, the Garden of Eden and the Serpent

This Easter Sunday was a strange day. I went to Manchester Road Methodists for the first time. It's where Richard went, and preached many times. He wasn't there of course, but you could feel his presence, especially during the choruses of the great Wesleyan tunes. He would always come booming in at the rousing point in the hymn.
I also had to deliver two death certificates to the families of two other people, both dying on cancer this same weekend. So three more souls in heaven.
Also just seen a TV programme on the history of Christianity. I didn't realise the history of Islam and Christianity were sooo intertwined.

Another interesting idea from a different programme is that the Garden of Eden was in fact the garden within the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, where God lived. Adam was a king who tended the Garden. When he became too worldly it lead to the destruction of the Temple. This story, 'most scholars believe' was originally placed later in the Bible, but moved to the beginning in more recent times, so giving it much more significance than it perhaps deserves. Rather than being the fall of an individual king, this story has come to represent the Fall of the whole of mankind. Wow, but without the Fall there would have been no need for the sacrifice of Jesus.

The place of the serpent in the story is interesting to me too, having been called 'the voice of the serpent'. It is well known that the serpent is also the symbol of Medicine and of Healing, the rod of Asclepius. It also represent rejuvenation and even resurrection in some cultures. Even Moses uses a bronze serpent to cure the people from snake bites (Numbers ch21v6-9). So I don't feel as bad now about being its voice.