Lilith

[alpiyn]

Has anyone heard of the myth of Lilith?

I have been reading about it and I find it fascinating and incredibly alluring: the idea of a Christian figure of feminine independence and power. Here is my favorite:

"After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, 'It is not good for man to be alone' (Gen. 2:18). He then created a woman for Adam, from

Comments

[anonymous]

Try Raphael Patai's book, "The Hebrew Goddess", for some serious scholarship suggesting that monotheism and a masculine image of god came rather late to the religion of the Book. Patai finds that as late as 600 BCE, Judaism was widely practiced as a polytheistic religion with a strong female deity as well as a strong male one.

You might also find Merlin Stone's book, "When God Was A Woman", equally interesting, though perhaps less scholarly.

[jedifreac]

I got really into Lilith when I was younger and still got dragged to church on occasion.

Got kind of a hilarious reaction from the church elders when I told them I thought she was kind of cool.

[aaronjv]

I know about Lillith from, uhm, comic books. Neil Gaiman's Sandman, specifically. There, she gets a brief anecdote from Eve, talking to Matthew the Raven in her cave. Also, I believe they say that Lillith bred with demons to make mosnters (like Grendel's Mother archetype, I guess).

If you like the story of Lillith, try the TRUE tale of Boudica, who led an army that burned the Roman outpost London to the ground (after the Romans annexed her kingdom, flogged her and raped her daughters).

As to the attraction of female dominance and self-assertion, it's different for everyone, and changes in time. Why does one person have to be "on top" all the time, for everything?

Why not two people who are independent, but, because they love each other, hang around a lot?

But then I am a freak.

[mycenae]

Lilith, especially the idea that she steals away children, comes from the Mesopotamian demon Ardat Lili, a bird woman who killed/stole children and young people before they were old enough to have children of their own. Dying childless was considered one of the worst fates that could befall a person, because in the afterlife it was your descendants who looked after you. So no children = sucky (hellish) afterlife.