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Yes, you are right...there's absolutely no reason to believe the serpent was satan. In fact the word serpent is rarely used in the old testament. Besides, it is clearly stated in Genesis that serpent is one of the created beings....The point to be noted here is that God did not create the snake as evil; neither is it inherently evil...it brings out evil only when the creation interact with themselves. In the same spirit one may ask if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is evil in itself, which God had planted in the middle of the eden...This is what i understand....every creation of God is inherently good....what brings out good or evil depends on how we interact with it....it is the human heart that is the source of good or evil....Also read Isiah 11:8,9; there we see snakes again in the "holy mountain of the Lord", but not doing harm to anyone, because everything there is being controlled by the wisdom of the Lord.
GBU
GBU