Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ulysses.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!smb From: smb@ulysses.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: The offspring of Adam and Chava Message-ID: <707@ulysses.UUCP> Date: Sun, 20-Nov-83 20:36:20 EST Article-I.D.: ulysses.707 Posted: Sun Nov 20 20:36:20 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 22-Nov-83 00:25:31 EST References: <438@ut-sally.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 58 From: jsq@ut-sally.UUCP Subject: Re: The offspring of Adam and Chava Message-ID: <438@ut-sally.UUCP> Date: Sun, 20-Nov-83 13:00:34 EST References: <1310@burdvax.UUCP> <323@orca.UUCP> How come nobody's mentioned Lilith yet? She was supposedly around before Eve and had children by Adam before being banished from the garden for excessive lustfulness or some such. She is a Jewish folktale: surely somebody out there knows the whole story? -- John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas {ihnp4,seismo,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq, jsq@ut-sally.{ARPA,UUCP} Ah yes, Lilith. Lilith is portrayed as a demon in Jewish folklore. She is identified with sexuality, often portrayed as a succuba (a female demon that has sexual intercourse with men while they sleep), and is thought to be a special threat to uncircumcised male infants, and female infants less than three weeks old. Even today, superstitious Jews will hang special amulets, inscriptions, etc., to protect infants from her. (My sister's ex-mother-in-law, a flake in many other ways as well, insisted that my sister follow such customs, at least for her son.) According to some Jewish traditions, Lilith was created contemporaneously with Adam, out of dust. But she refused to be properly submissive, and hence was banished -- and only after that was Chava (a.k.a. Eve) created from Adam's rib. Some versions of the tale have Adam trying to rape her when she refused to submit to him; enraged, she left and had a good time behaving promiscuously with assorted demons. Some angels were sent to retrieve her; she refused to return, pointing out that she could hardly be a proper wife after her fling. Besides, she preferred her independence. [This version is from "The Alphabet of Ben Sira", a Jewish work of the 10th century C.E., as recounted in "Women and Judaism: Myth, History, and Struggle", by Roslyn Lacks. Lacks presents -- from a strongly feminist perspective -- many aspects of the Lilith legend, ranging from Lilith-like characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern retellings. Lilith has been adopted as a symbol by some modern Jewish feminists; there was even a magazine of that name published -- anyone know if it still exists.] The only Biblical reference to Lilith is Isiah 34:14; some, however, see the creation of Lilith in the first telling of the story of creation in Genesis: "male and female He created them". It's only in the second telling, where Adam is clearly on the scene first, that the rib enters, and Eve is pictured as being created from Adam. (The story of the rib is itself fascinating. First, the Hebrew word for Eve -- Chava -- is felt by some to be a mistranscription of Chaya, meaning "life" or "living". (The Hebrew letter Y is a short vertical stroke; the V is a long vertical stroke -- easy to confuse.) It turns out that the Sumerian word TI means *both* "rib" and "living", and there is a woman NIN.TI in a Sumerian Paradise myth. The play on words in the Sumerian myth is apparently deliberate, but could easily have caused confusion. Again, see Lacks' book.) There's plenty more in Lacks' book, and I'd be glad to summarize it if anyone's interested. For example, some early amulets to ward off Lilith included a *get*, a Jewish bill of divorce. The whole legend is replete with sexuality and repressed sexuality, and it isn't hard at all to see why that alone would qualify Lilith as a feminist image, even without the story of her reaction to Adam.