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 metalworker and a goldsmith two images one of which "shall hold in its left hand a snake of cedar, raising its right [hand] to the god Nabu". At the tell of Tepe Gawra, at least seventeen Early Bronze Age Assyrian bronze serpents were recovered. The Sumerian fertility god Ningizzida was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a human head, eventually becoming a god of healing and magic. In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Genesis refers to a serpent who triggered the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden in Eden (). "Serpent" is also used to describe sea