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“Upon Thy Belly Shalt Thou Go”

“Upon Thy Belly Shalt Thou Go”

Last updated on: January 24, 2025 at 5:14 pm by Dan Peterson

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“Upon Thy Belly Shalt Thou Go” 2025-01-24T17:14:10-07:00 Dan Peterson

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Adam and Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, as shown in a 16th-century Safavid manuscript of the “Falnameh” or “Book of Omens,” ascribed to the Shi‘i imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Two new articles went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. The first of these was ““Upon Thy Belly Shalt Thou Go”: The Garden of Eden Serpent Symbology Based on the Concept of Seraphim,” written by Noel Hudson:

Abstract: The concept of the serpentine seraphim from biblical iconography is discussed in the context of biblical serpent symbology. The association of the seraphim with Ancient Near Eastern kings, deities, and temples is noted. The concept of the seraphim as members of the Council of God is explored, and the possibility of the seraph as a symbol of Christ is discussed. These concepts are applied to the story of the snake in the Garden of Eden, and the additional explanatory power of the seraph symbol in connection with the snake is explored. Specific serpentine attributes are discussed in the context of the seed motif. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the application of this topic to the modern reader.

The second of them was “Interpreting Interpreter: Serpentine Seraphs,” written by Kyler Rasmussen:

This post is a summary of the article “‘Upon Thy Belly Shalt Thou Go’: The Garden of Eden Serpent Symbology Based on the Concept of Seraphim” by Noel Hudson in Volume 63 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/Qw21qqtJo1E.

The Takeaway: Hudson works to unify the potentially conflicting religious symbolism of the serpent, which has been applied to both Lucifer and Christ. He proposes that the symbol, used in biblical contexts to describe angels, identifies them both as seraphic members of the divine council, with Lucifer as a fallen seraph and Christ as their divine head.

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, “Ruth im Feld des Boaz” (1828, Ruth in the Feld of Boaz”)
Wikimedia Commons public domain image

This article from a previously-published Interpreter Foundation volume went up online yesterday, while I was busy elsewhere: The Temple: Past, Present and Future: “Ruth: An Allegorical Reading,” written by Mack Stirling. We hope that you’ll enjoy it:

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in The Temple: Past, Present and Future, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/the-temple-past-present-and-future/. For video and audio recording of this conference talk, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2020-temple-on-mount-zion-conference/videos/stirling/.

“The book of Ruth easily lends itself to an allegorical interpretation, which corresponds in many ways to the endowment. Ruth, typifying any individual or Israel as a whole, undertakes and completes a journey to the Lord, typified by Boaz, the kinsman-redeemer. Ruth goes from emptiness/famine and the bitterness of family death to fulness and renewed family. As Ruth demonstrates obedience, initiative, and creativity, her ever strengthening relationship with Boaz (kinsman-redeemer) is betokened by intermittent gifts of food/grain (word of God, spiritual nourishment) from Boaz, which go beyond the requirements of the law. Finally, after washing, anointing, and putting on special clothing and under the cover of a night-veil Ruth achieves union with Boaz, the kinsman-redeemer. Afterwards, Boaz makes sure there is no legal claim to prevent his marriage to Ruth, Ruth brings forth a son, and she is acclaimed a mother in Israel.”

The older David Whitmer speaking with a reporter, in a scene from the Interpreter Foundation’s 2021 dramatic film “Witnesses.” (Still photograph by James Jordan, kindly furnished by Mark Goodman)

In time for this year’s Come, Follow Me discussions, we at the Interpreter Foundation are calling attention to the series of short video features that we created in connection with the overall Witnesses film project. Here are two of them:

Who Were the Danites?

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon—Insights Episode 12: In 1838, in reaction to persecution, some members of the Church formed a vigilante group known as the Danites. Much has been made of this group in folklore and anti-LDS propaganda. What do we actually know about this group? This is Episode 12 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project.

Episode 13: Plural Marriage – Part 1

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon—Insights Episode 13: What do we know about the practice of plural marriage in the early Church? Who was Fanny Alger? This is Episode 13 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project.

These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. For these two episodes, we feature Gerrit Dirkmaat, Associate Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/. Learn about the documentary movie Undaunted—Witnesses of the Book of Mormon at https://witnessesundaunted.com/.

And, incidentally, Undaunted is now available for free streaming at The Witnesses Initiative. We hope that you’ll enjoy it and benefit from it and that, if you do, you’ll call it to the attention of others.

An illustration from an objective, scholarly, nineteenth-century study of Latter-day Saint theology and practice
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Some of my habitual critics have mocked my expressions of concern about the current hit Netflix miniseries American Primeval. They’ve lampooned me (in a revealingly rather sexist image) as a pearl-clutching hysteric, reminded me that it’s “only fiction,” and sometimes written as if I’m the only one who sees anything problematic and even potentially dangerous in the image of Latter-day Saints that it’s fostering around the globe. I’ve provided a large number of links that demonstrate the contrary, of course, but here’s another, from Barbara Jones Brown, who speaks with some authority on the subject. The Oxford University Press book that she and Rick Turley recently co-wrote — Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath — has just received its fourth award, the Westerners International Best Book in Western American History. Here are some of her thoughts on the Netflix miniseries: “‘American Primeval’ left this historian confused and frustrated. Here’s why. The depiction of the Shoshone, Paiute, Ute, Latter-day Saint settlers, Arkansas emigrants and U.S. Army soldiers were far from reality in the Netflix miniseries, she writes”

And here, just published, is an official statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that, without explicitly identifying the miniseries, comments upon American Primeval: “Depictions that Deceive: When Historical Fiction Does Harm”

In the wake of the December 2010 fire that destroyed the Provo Tabernacle (which has now been reconstructed as the Provo City Center Temple). Wikimedia Commons public domain photo

The Provo Tabernacle in December 2010. (from a Provo mayoral website)

We attended a session yesterday afternoon in the Provo City Center Temple with our longtime friends Stephen and Shirley Ricks. Shirley currently serves as a member of the board of the Interpreter Foundation. Stephen was one of my companions in the Switzerland Zürich Mission and, for many years, a colleague of mine in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. After our session, we met up with our longtime friends Ed and Eileen Snow for dinner at Los Hermanos, which is located very near to the temple. Ed was also a missionary in Switzerland; for a time, he and I overlapped in the Bern missionary district. At the present time, having retired from LDS Philanthropies, he serves as the principal fundraiser for the Interpreter Foundation.

While sitting in the temple, which entered into December 2010 as the Provo Tabernacle and then emerged from a catastrophic fire to become something much more grand, my thoughts quite naturally turned to the concept and the hope of resurrection. The temple is far more beautiful now than it ever was as a tabernacle. It has been expanded underground. Its interior has been redesigned in a nineteenth-century Victorian style that its original builders might have used had they been creating a temple, albeit with modern improvements. (Take a look at photographs of the temple’s interior to see what I mean.) And, thus, I began to think of the famous and delightful epitaph that Benjamin Franklin once wrote for himself:

The Body
of
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
Printer,

(Like the cover of an old book its contents torn out
And stript of its lettering and gilding)
Lies here food for worms;
Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will (as he believed) appear once more
In a new and more beautiful edition,
Corrected and amended by
The Author.

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