I managed to find a piece I wrote last year and subsequently lost. Thanks to the archiving efforts of a very good person I have managed to get it back. This is it:
Thinking about some posts here recently regarding the Genesis account of the fall of man, I recalled a conversation with a friend a few years back. He told me that once snakes had legs and that after the events in Eden, snakes lost their legs and were forever destined to legless locomotion. He said he read it in the Watchtower. My initial reply was “I think the Society has changed its view of the Genesis account and views the curse on snakes as symbolic. Besides there are snakes with legs even today.” I did some research on the Watchtower’s statements and yes, my friend was right. Back in 1964 there was a statement to this effect:
But for the symbolic application of this judgment upon the wicked spirit creature who became Satan to have any force there must be a fulfillment of it in the literal serpent, which has come to symbolize Satan. It, therefore, is reasonable to conclude that before God cursed it the serpent possessed legs that elevated it above the ground. As he had the power to create the serpent in the first place, God had the power to transform its body so that it ceased to have legs and was able to move about on its belly.Watchtower June 1, 1964
However, I found later statements from the Society indicating that snakes were the result of marvelous design and make no mention of being four-legged creatures prior to the events in Eden. I passed this information on to my friend and he was content (at least I think he was) with my answer.
Note: In my comment about snakes having legs, some members of the Python and Boa family retain diminutive hind legs. Also, a few members of the sub-order of squamata called amphisbaenids (they go both ways) have small forelimbs and there are a number of snake-like lizards with tiny limbs (a number of true lizards are totally legless as well) all of which could be termed ‘serpent’ in Biblical language.
Only later did I realize the problems that exist with a literal interpretation of the Genesis 3 account. The Watchtower in 1964 conceded that the Genesis account shows that snakes had legs at one time. After all, why condemn snakes to legless locomotion if they were already legless? At this time also, the Watchtower society still taught a 6-day creation based on relatively short ‘days’ of a few thousand years. They did not accept the geological timescales of science and had no reason to accept that snakes had been around for a few million years.
Things changed, and sometime prior to the release of the ‘Creation’ book all reference to creative days of 7000 year lengths were dropped. (Newer versions of the appendix of the NWT changed the time span of Genesis from “46,000 b.c.e…” to “In the beginning to…” ) Geologist’s longer ‘ages’ were accepted and hence snakes in the form we all know and love were now believed to have been on Earth long before man came about.
The problem then rests with trying to accept the Genesis accounts (note my use of plural) as historic fact and not as an allegorical story or myth. We all know snakes have been around for a long, long time whether you believe in evolution or in the Watchtower’s version of “special creation.” What you can’t escape is that the Genesis account only makes sense if snakes were once four-legged creatures. Why curse a snake to crawl on its belly then? This doesn’t cover the topic of snakes ‘eating dust’ or how the hell they used to talk! Doesn't it just seem like a fanciful story to you?
It's another problematic area that WTS doctrine will have to get to grips with. They could concede that Genesis is just a story, an interpretation of the creation and like many mainstream churches drop belief in the literal account. God could be behind the creation but the forces used could be accepted as the way science see things. The WTS problem is that Genesis 3, "the apple and fall of man" play an integral role in the big two sided issue of who's in control of the universe. What then is the way out for them?
Thirdson