From the enigmatic nahash of Genesis 3 to the vanquished drakōn of Revelation 20, serpents—both symbolic and real—repeatedly appear in noteworthy texts in both the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Christian New Testament. The ubiquity and importance of snakes in the Bible has not gone unnoticed. In The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized (Anchor Yale, 2010), James Charlesworth has provided a magisterial exploration of the ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman cultural and religious backgrounds of the snake texts of scripture and a useful catalog of dozens of different types of negative and positive uses of serpent imagery in the ancient world. Despite its impressive scope, though, Charlesworth’s historical-critical account risks domesticating the snake texts of the Bible by treating them in a detached, atomistic manner that undervalues their religious and literary dimensions. Moreover, Charlesworth’s brilliant work could benefit significantly from greater awareness of insights in recent herpetological science. In this presentation—the germ of a planned monograph on snakes in theological perspective—I will provide an overview or outline of a more holistic biblical serpentology that builds upon but goes beyond Charlesworth’s work. To do so I will bring together insights from literary and naturalist studies, Christian and interreligious ecotheology, evolutionary psychology, herpetology, and more than thirty years of experience interacting with snakes in the wild and in captivity to illuminate some of the most significant snake texts of the Bible. Such an expansive, interdisciplinary approach to the texts can offer arresting fresh readings of many cruxes interpreta of the Bible, such as the creation accounts of Genesis 1–3, Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3, the Isaianic vision of the peaceable kingdom in Isaiah 11.1–11, and the longer ending of Mark (16.8–20). Furthermore, the work of articulating the “wisdom of serpents” (cf. Gen 3.1; Matt 10.16) through interpretation of the biblical text can serve as a vital resource for advancing the work of understanding, appreciating, and conserving what is probably the most misunderstood, maligned, and feared group of animals in human history. Such advocacy through creative reading is desperately needed given the anthropogenic threats snakes—and all creatures—face today.