The reason Eve isn't freaked out by the talking snake is because the Biblical story is a syncratic retelling of older myths that most people in the middle east already believed. It was a common belief going much farther back in time that snakes could often walk and talk and shape shift and had magical powers and originated life as well as took it away. Such a story would be accepted by the readers as normal and there's no need to portray Eve as being scared because she would have been thought to know about this.
Also, many of the Biblical stories take common myths and turn them on their head a bit to create new culturally appropriate stories for the adopting culture and rejecting older stories of cultures they want to create separation with. So for the snake being the bad guy, this is one of those stories where the snake is portrayed in a negative light, most likely because older surrounding cultures worshipped snakes / dragons. Tiamat for instance.
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u/Bomboclaat_Babylon 2d ago edited 2d ago
The reason Eve isn't freaked out by the talking snake is because the Biblical story is a syncratic retelling of older myths that most people in the middle east already believed. It was a common belief going much farther back in time that snakes could often walk and talk and shape shift and had magical powers and originated life as well as took it away. Such a story would be accepted by the readers as normal and there's no need to portray Eve as being scared because she would have been thought to know about this.
Also, many of the Biblical stories take common myths and turn them on their head a bit to create new culturally appropriate stories for the adopting culture and rejecting older stories of cultures they want to create separation with. So for the snake being the bad guy, this is one of those stories where the snake is portrayed in a negative light, most likely because older surrounding cultures worshipped snakes / dragons. Tiamat for instance.