The Geico Gecko is Biblically Accurate

Bet you didn’t think that a clever, witty, British-accented lizard would be a perfect representation of a Biblical animal

I love fantasy.  The idea that there could be dwarves, flying fire-breathing dragons, dangerous quests, alien races, genetically-mutated sharks all for us to enjoy on a quiet Saturday afternoon on SyFy is fantastic to me.  More times than not I truly wish that all of my science fiction/fantasy books I read will come true in my lifetime.  But I am a nerd, so that is only natural.  However, that nerd side sometimes takes things that other people only gloss over and builds opinions and ideas on that sound ridiculous, but may in fact be reality. (at least in my world)

Example #5,542 of my weird, but possibly correct, thinking.  Animals could talk before the Fall of Man. 

But in a much cooler way that this crap.  Seriously, how many people watched this junk that they decided to make like 5 more.

Let me explain my thinking.  As I read Genesis 3, I have always been struck with a rather strange idea.  When the serpent spoke to Eve, there was no response of surprise at the idea that a snake was talking to her.  She merely answered.  I have always taken that and assumed/hoped that maybe, just maybe The Chronicles of Narnia is more fact based than Christian fantasy based.  Could it be that animals could literally talk to humans before the curse?

Again, lets look elsewhere in scripture for more examples….of um….animals talking…………..this is gonna be short.  We all know the story of Balaam’s donkey talking smack to Balaam (I am assuming he sounded just like the aforementioned Eddie Murphy in Shrek) when he sees an angel of the Lord in front of him with a “drawn sword in his hand” (Numbers 22.23).  The passage then said that the Lord “opened the mouth of the donkey” and he spoke.  Now again, there is no element of surprise recorded, but we are told that it took an act of God for this to occur.  We are given no such indication in Genesis 3.

We are told that the serpent was more crafty than “any other beast in the field.”  It is also described later on that the serpent was under the control of Satan.  HOWEVER, we are not told that Satan can force people to do things they really don’t want to do, and the same seems to go with animals to a certain extent.  I am not sure how many times we see an animal being infected by a demon/Satan other than the time when, after Jesus drove them out of a person, they went into a swine of pigs and jumped off a cliff.  That might be an example against my theory.  But in other examples of Satan using humans/creatures for his manipulation, he is merely using what they are already capable of and just distorting that for his own benefit.  

So, since there is no other case in Scripture where it states that Satan or demons can literally make an animal speak, it seems to make more sense that the serpent could already make sounds capable of speech and Satan merely used this to his advantage.  Basically, Satan could have used this feature the original serpent had and caused it to say what he wanted. 

Again, when the serpent spoke, it made sense to Eve.  We are also told that the serpent was responsible and cooperated in this evil scheme which is why the serpent is singled out in the curse and lost his legs that he most likely had and was forced to crawl and slither as we see today.  It is just as likely that the serpent, and possible the other animals, also lost their ability to speak to avoid this happening in the future (ala Tower of Babel).  We also have another example of a “vessel” being controlled by Satan but still being punished because of this allowance of the person to be controlled, with Judas (Luke 22.3).  So, while Satan can control things for his benefit, it does not appear that he can manipulate things that are not already possible.  He, unlike God and the donkey, cannot make things appear where they are not already there.  So, to me, it is extremely likely that animals could talk before the curse, and Satan merely used this characteristic for his own benefit to turn man against God.

This could all be my crazy mind working, and the fact that the woman wasn’t shocked when she heard the snake speaking could just not have been recorded or since everything that she was seeing was new and crazy (every animal she saw was completely new to her) she could have just thought that a snake speaking was normal, even though it might not have been.  But this idea is less fun and I think this actually restricts how perfect God’s creation really was, with everything working in harmony.

Listen, I know I have weird ideas and I wish we lived in a science fiction novel, but I also know that God is infinitely more creative and glorious than I think we give him credit for since we only see the result of the fallen world, and not the original perfect creation.  But I firmly believe that based on what I have read in the Scriptures, that Creation was more fantastic than we can imagine.  We were created to not eat animals (how horrible would that existence have been…maybe there was a plant that tasted like steak) and I think a part of that was because animals could talk.  Imagine trying to eat something that was telling you to not eat it…….although I would still kill that stupid gecko….dumb thing…like I care about your fake, cheap insurance.  Oh, and any animal that talks to Eddie Murphy should be killed as well.  Just saying.