Serpents in the Bible his heel" (KJV). Following the imagery of chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation, Bernard of Clairvaux had called Mary the "conqueror of dragons", and she was long to be shown crushing a snake underfoot, also a reference to her title as the "New Eve". 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
Development of the Old Testament canon the New Testament) rather than upon Jerome's translation into Latin, which at the time was the Bible of the Catholic Church. The reformers saw the Apocrypha at variance with the rest of Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church uses them to support the doctrine of Purgatory, for prayers and Masses for the dead (), and for the efficacy of good works in attaining salvation (; ), things that Protestants then and today deem to be blatantly contradicting other parts of the Bible. Luther did remove the deuterocanonical books from the Old Testament of his translation of the Bible, placing them in