Fun fact: Isa 34:15 has an ancient equivalent of the threat “He’ll knock you back into the dark ages”: “wildcats shall meet with hyenas, goat-demons shall call to each other; there too Lilith shall repose and find a place to rest” (NRSV). This verse refers to two varieties of demons thought to inhabit abandoned ruins (NRSV Harper-Collins Study Bible).The second, Lilith, was the Mesopotamian female night demon (IVP Bible Background Commentary). The NIV translates the name as “night creatures”, the NASB as “night monster” and the KJV as “screech owl.” In Rabbinic tradition, Lilith was Adam’s first wife. In Assyrian lore Lilith demons not only preyed on women and children, but were also believed to seduce men in their sleep (wikipedia alert!).
In Babylonian texts, Lilith was the prostitute of the goddess Ishtar. Lilith has appeared in literature and art, including Michelangelo’s The Temptation of Adam and Eve and Goethe’s Faust, in which Mephistopheles describes her as follows:
Adam’s wife, his first. Beware of her. Her beauty’s one boast is her dangerous hair. When Lilith winds it tight around young men she doesn’t soon let go of them again.Isaiah was describing creatures which hang around ruins, not succubi who seduce Adam and work their way into misogynist mythology. Definitely a tribute to the amount of time and energy which can go into complaining about the opposite sex if one doesn't have anything better to do.
[The study can be found here. The image, lifted from Wikipedia, is by Michelangelo.]
1 comment:
Very cool! My first encounter with any Lilith was through George MacDonald's book 'Lilith'. An interesting work.
In keeping with the Faust reference here is one of my favorite passages between Mephistopheles and Baccalaureus:
Meph: Methought so long ago. I was a dunce, I feel quite stale and silly all at once.
Bacc: I am so glad! You may see reason yet; The first old man of insight I have met!
Meph: At hidden hoards of treasure I would nibble, and horrifying slag I took for it.
Bacc: Your balding dome amounts, then, not to quibble, Just to those hollow ones there, you admit?
Meph: You know how rude you're being, I surmise?
Bacc: In German, if one is polite, one lies.
--Later on in same scene---
Bacc: I swear, old age is like a frigid fever,
Of aches and shakes and crotchets bred.
One who is thirty years or over
Already is as good as dead.
It would be best if you were put away.
Meph: This leaves the Devil with nothing much to say.
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