To Jews and Christians alike, the narrative of the temptation and fall of man is an article of faith. It’s the very foundation of the edifice of faith; the very groundwork of the whole scheme of redemption. It is an article of faith that Eve was tempted by “the Serpent” and fell—that she, in turn, tempted Adam, who also fell—and that Adam, Eve, and this “Serpent” were subjected each to a special condemnation by God in punishment of the sin that each had committed. But who or what that “Serpent” was, and in what way he tempted Eve, and in what precisely his condemnation consisted, and in what manner it worked: these details have never been defined as articles of faith.