Snakes on the brain

History: A much-discussed film opening this weekend, Snakes on a Plane, uses the cold-blooded legless reptiles as objects of fear. Many cultures, though, have made them objects of worship. Why? | Marvin Olasky

Some cultures venerate cows. Others have made idols of bulls, horses, and even cats. But man has given only one creature across space and time nearly as much attention as the Creator, and made that creature the center of many stories involving trees, women, and coming-to-knowledge. British myth-tracer Arthur Lillie in 1909 called worship of serpents inexplicable but present in virtually every country of the ancient world.

For example, early Sumerian artifacts show pictures of a tree at the center of the world guarded by a snake or a pair of intertwined snakes. A Chaldean poem that is perhaps 4,500 years old tells of how Gilgamesh recovered from the bottom of the ocean a plant that would give eternal life, but while he rested briefly a snake ate it: The serpent became immortal, and Gilgamesh went home to die.