The idea was actually popular among at least some forms of gnostic dualism that, basically, Satan created the world when God wasn't looking
Well, not always like that, but basically their world had the nastier OT god as a lower god, and there is a higher god that wants to save everyone and that is occasionally hinted at in the OT.
The idea isn't even as crazy as it sounds... well, by the standards of theology, anyway. It makes more sense than having one deranged God who loves you, yet wants to fry you, and even arranges so some people will fall so he has someone to fry.
E.g., the very first pages of Genesis tell you that the OT God doesn't want people to have eternal life. Yet Jesus is all about giving people eternal life, and even hints that other people already got it. So, you know, how did that happen? Who saved those?
E.g., Cain greatly displeases the OT God all the way, yet as "punishment" he's given a long life and a mark that says he can't be killed. WTH punishment is that? If I were a god and told you that doing X would result in being "punished" with living a thousand years and being marked so you can't be killed, sorta like Superman, think about it... wouldn't you do it immediately?

Enter at least one sect where Cain is sorta a first prophet of the true higher God, and who sacrificed his brother to that higher God, instead of it being just a murder. And is
rewarded for it.
E.g., the same God who loves people, doesn't want them to eat that friggin' apple and gain knowledge. Why? If you had two kids, wouldn't you
want them to become all smart and knowledgeable? What kind of a parent would
want the kids to be as dumb as the animals? So in that setup, the snake is an agent of the true higher God, who slips under the radar of the lower God of Eden and teaches those kids how to get that knowledge. You know, the
Gnosis from which those sects even got their name.