Kiss of Judas Johann Bengel suggests that Judas kissed Him "repeatedly": "he kissed Him more than once in opposition to what he had said in the preceding verse: , "philēsō", a single kiss (), and did so as if from kindly feeling". According to Matthew 26:50, Jesus responded by saying: "Friend, do what you are here to do". Elaine Pagels and Karen King have speculated that Jesus and Judas were actually in agreement with each other and that there was no real betrayal. Luke 22:48 quotes Jesus saying "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Humanity with a kiss?" Jesus' arrest follows immediately.
Serpents in the Bible Serpents in the Bible Serpents ( "nāḥāš") are referred to in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The symbol of a serpent or snake played important roles in religious and cultural life of ancient Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia and Greece. The serpent was a symbol of evil power and chaos from the underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life and healing. "Nāḥāš", Hebrew for "snake", is also associated with divination, including the verb form meaning "to practice divination or fortune-telling". In the Hebrew Bible, "Nāḥāš" occurs in the Torah to identify the serpent in the Garden of