Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Lilith Message-ID: Date: 5 Jun 91 04:26:00 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Texas at Austin Computation Center Lines: 27 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article donaldm@eng.auburn.edu (Donald H MacGregor) writes: >Can someone tell me about Lilith? (including scriptural references) Lilith was Adam's first wife, and her existence as such is a relic of an early rabbinical attempt to assimilate the Sumero-Babylonian Goddess Belit-ili, or Belili, to Jewish mythology. To the Canaanites, she was Baalat. The story goes that God (or rather, Elohim, as he/she was called at the time) created man and woman, Adam and Lilith, as two sides of the same thing, equal but different. Hebraic tradition tells of how Adam tried to force Lilith to lie beneath him (the missionary position being used as a metaphor for man trying to dominate woman) and how she refused. Lilith fled, and there was no amount of persuasion or force that would bring her back. So Eve was created from Adam's rib to make a more docile replacement. You won't find Lilith in the Bible. Try the Talmud, other Jewish folklore, and women's studies (for the goddess Lilith as opposed to the demon). >DM -- -----Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik-------------------------------*<:-)------------- "The whims that we're weeping for our parents would be beaten for."--Kate Bush ----------amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu---------The University of Texas @Austin---