Ever since my mum tried to explain 'The Fall' to my never-a-jw girlfriend (who has since refered to it as the 'ventriloquist snake bit') I've wondered how people get even that far in the story without realsing that it's metaphorical.
Look at the clues;
- Snakes have no vocal chords. This is a BIG CLUE the story is metaphorical.
- Eve, rather than expressing surprise at a 'king snake wanting a little chit-chat ("Holy shit! ADAM! I've found a talking snake, quick, come and have a look") engages it in conversation. This is ANOTHER BIG CLUE the story is metaphorical. Even if Stan the duvel was throwing his voice, or whatever (standard Dubbie reply to the 'er, yeah, you know snakes can;t talk' response, this would have happened. I'm sure I am not the only man who gets charmingly detailed reports of even the most inconcequential events as they happen through the day, and I assure you, if a snake spoke to my girlfriend she'd tell me straight away - remember, Eve didn't have any girlfriends.
- Eve put something in her mouth because something long and thin said she should. If this happened that easily guys would never get anything done...
- It didn't have a lisp; everyone knows snake have lisps when they talk, thus it's words would be more accurately rendered "Hasssh God indeed ssshaid, "You sssshall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" and "You will not sssshurely die. 5 For God knowsshh that in the day you eat of it your eyesssh will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." if the story were true.
That's without getting into the "and what the 'king hell was god doing... watching an angel lie to a human knowing the human would screw up as a result and doing nothing about it, or was he on the toilet?" thing. Once again god seems to make his failure to protect his word the fault of humans. A reasonable course of action would be to zap the snake right after it said "You will not sssshurely die", so the passage would read;
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die" And it came to pass the snake was consumed in a holy fire, and the woman said "Blimey, that was a close one, I was feeling peckish and all". 5 And Adam and Eve lived happily ever-after.
It would make the Bible a bit on the short side and have saved millions of human lives from suffering and pain, but it seems like a good idea to me...
It might suit your beliefs to believe it actually happened that way, just like it suits children to believe that there really is a tooth fairy, but desire to believe means nothing, common sense means considerably more.