Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    
     Yes,
      It was Roseanne Barr....
    
    David

    My Mother.

    
    Lucy.

    
    Lilith.
    
    I think.
    
    I could be way off beam here, but I seem to remember hearing that
    there was an alternative creation story in a part of the Bible that
    got removed during one of the many revisions....(it wasn't the
    Apocrapha, was it?). 
    
    I remember that Adam was married before - she was called Lilith, and
    she has been represented in literature and myth since then as some
    kind of devil, or succubus, or "fallen woman"....
    I also remember reading a myth that said that the angels of God 
    mated with the daughters of men, so producing a tribe of men called
    the Sons of God (as mentioned in Lawrence's "Women in Love"....)
    
    (I wonder what happened to the female children of that mixed union...?)
    
    'gail
    
    
     

    It was Lilith. She was supposed to have been not truely human.
    
    Bonnie

    I have heard various versions of this.
    
    One says that Lilith and Adam were created simultaneously.  Lilith was
    cast out of Eden.
    
    My roommate's and my apartment is called "Eden".  Our snake is named
    Lilith.  the running joke is "Lilith is back, and is *she* *pissed*."
    
    D!

    I, too, have heard various versions of this.
    
    I also heard that she was created simultanelously (SP?) with
    Adam, but that somehow Satan was able to taint her creation.
    
    She is supposedly now in hell as Satans first bride and ruler
    or all the sucubi.
    
    
                                  L.J.

    Steve Brust, a science fiction author, treated some of the biblical
    creation myths with a story called "To Reign in Hell".  I found it
    entertaining, but Yahweh doesn't come off looking too impressive in
    this version, so I only recommend it to folks who can handle it when
    the Christian religion gets spoofed.  Lilith had a big part.
    
    DougO

    
    I've been told that the name of this woman was/is God.

    Lilith has been discussed in DEJAVU, see notes 443.59, 1103.83, 1141.
    
    

    I'll work on this from the other end.  I know that the legendary
    woman preceding Eve was called Lilith, and here's what information
    there is on Lilith, from the viewpoint of Sumerian mythology (which
    is much older than the Bible) in _Inanna_ by Wolkstein and Kramer.

    In "The Huluppu-Tree", the young goddess Inanna is distressed to
    find that her Huluppu-tree has been occupied by "a serpent who
    could not be charmed", the Anzu-bird, and "the dark maid Lilith".

    The story is accompanied by a clay plaque of Lilith.  Here is the
    description of the plaque:

    	"A nude, winged, bird-footed goddess wears a crown composed
    	of multiple horns.  Her gaze directly engages the attention
    	of the viewer as she stands frontally, with both hands
    	uplifted, palms facing outward.  Beneather her taloned feet
    	appear two animals back to back.

    	"A demonic composite being, part-bird, part-human, is
    	represented on this clay plaque.  Her delicately molded nude
    	body is juxtaposed with powerfully clawed bird feet and
    	wings that fall behind her like an open veil.  She has been
    	identified as the dark maid Lilith, called `screech owl'
    	in a Biblical passage (Isaiah XXIV:14)."

    The interpretation of the story contains the following:

    	"Lilith does not appear in any other Sumerian texts.  To
    	understand her nature, we need to consider various later
    	texts.  In Hebrew legend she was the first bride of Adam;
    	but insisting on her own equality, she refused to copulate
    	with him, for she did not want to be underneath him.  She
    	fled from Adam and remained forever outside human relationship
    	or regulation, possessed by an avid, insatiable sexuality.
    	She was cursed by the daily death of a hundred of her demon
    	children, for which she takes continual revenge by stealing,
    	injuring, or killing human infants.  In Zoharic texts, she
    	had dominion over `every living thing that creepeth.'  Lilith
    	forms with the Anzu-bird and the snake a triad of sexual,
    	lawless creatures who live outside the bounds of the Sumerian
    	community and seek power only for themselves.  These are
    	Inanna's unexpressed fears and desires, which have now been
    	`named.'"

    Part of the description for the "bird-footed goddess" on a cylinder
    seal explains "This goddess with bird features has been identified
    with Lilith.  She may represent the chthonic aspect of Inanna/Ishtar
    derived from her association with the demonic and frequently bird-
    like creatures and gods that inhabit the underworld."

    					Ann B.

    > insisting on her own equality ...
    > avid, insatiable sexuality
    
    Sounds good to me!
    
    Mary

    Me too.  :-)

>It was Lilith. She was supposed to have been not truely human.

    Is it not true that 'lilith' is  derivative to an arabic word
    meaning 'sheep' ?
    
    -BobE
    (just curious .. back again ...)
        

        re .14 et al (Lilith):

    From my Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, quoted without any other
    background on the subject, FWIW:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Lilith, Jewish female demon, probably originally the Assyrian
    storm demon Lilitu. In Jewish folklore she is a vampirelike
    child-killer and the symbol of lust.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    
    Bebe Neuwirth, the woman who portrays Lilith on "Cheers", said that 
    according to her research, Lilith was a Greek mythological woman who 
    pre-dated Eve.  She was a powerful demon who wanted to be on top, 
    who wanted to dominate Adam.  Similar to what Paul wrote in .15.
    
    Carla
    

Referencing 690.17 ("-d"):

   The Greeks may not have cared about Adam and Eve, but that does not
mean that the Hebrews (who originated the story of Genesis) or the Christians
(who have supplied us with our modern interpretation of Genesis) didn't care
about Lillith.

   In fact, many "demons" known in Hebrew and Christian demonology were... 
um... "borrowed" from other cultures. Usually they started out as various gods
and goddesses that the Christians in particular disapproved of for various 
(legitimate and not- so- legitimate) reasons.

   Lillith, the demon, was borrowed. The story of Lillith as we know it 
today is a corruption of an earlier allegory. In certain branches of Jewish
Mysticism, it is said that the story of Adam and Eve, as well as other stories
in Genesis, is an allegorical study of the development of spiritual Man (read
person, here).

   But the story mentioned in 690.16 is correct (from a modern standpoint).
That Lillith was Greek means simply that she was borrowed from Greek 
culture for the Pre- Eve story.

                                                -Robert Brown III

    Just finished reading "When God was a Woman" by Merlin Stone (I think?)
    and "Truth & Dare" by Starhawk both have MANY references to Lillith.  
    
    Hebrew texts refer to her as Adam's partner/mate before Eve, who refused 
    to OBEY Adam, including her refusal to lay "under" him, which OBVIOUSLY
    made her evil and in-human and got her thrown out of Eden.  Eve on the
    other hand was much more agreeable to being ordered around by Adam and
    got to stay until her curiosity got the better of her and she got them
    both thrown out of Eden. 
    
    "When God was a Woman" and "Truth & Dare" start from the view that 
    matriarcal/pastoral societies were in place and functional B.C.
    They included men as partners (although since Women were the ones who 
    created life, Goddesses were more powerful than Gods).
    
    These societies had contact with tribes who were led by men from patriarcal
    societies and over time the men first joined the temples as equals, then 
    became priests, then usurped the power of the priestesses.  Initially
    the Priestess (acting as the Goddess) would pick her Son/God and he
    would have influence for a year.  Then it changed from a year to
    several years (possibly due to wars), then it evolved to an appointment
    "until death", then finally the inheritance of power/influence moved
    from the Women to the Men. 
    
    Eventually the legends were re-written to support the masculine/patriarchal
    viewpoint and Lillith was modified/created to keep Hebrew Women from 
    questioning the difference between their station in life and what they
    saw going on around them (Women owning property, living alone or in
    groups, being educated, having sex when they wanted to and with whom
    they wanted to, etc.).  Of course these other Women were evil and going
    to hell and they were good Women (what matter if their life on earth
    was hell?) and going to heaven when they died (how often, I wonder as a
    result of beatings/neglect/abuse at the hands of their husbands?).
    
    Both are excellent books and I can find specific sections or pages if
    anyone is interested.  Along the same vein, I've begun re-reading "Herland"
     (I forget the authors name right now, she wrote the short story about the
    yellow wallpaper?) which is a story about a "land" composed/evolved of 
    only Women.
    
    Miriam 

    I posted the following excerpt from Arthur Waskow's book _Godwrestling_
    in the RELIGION conference some time ago.  The author refers to Lilith
    in the context of the biblical creation myths, and suggests an
    interesting exegesis of his own.  I don't know what to make of his
    androgynous "adam", but I find it more appealing than the more sexist
    traditional interpretations of the Adam and Eve myth:

	To begin with:  who was Adam?  We have been taught to think that he
	was male and that the woman was created from his rib; but the
	tradition did not always think so.  The tradition had to face a text
	that said, "And God said: 'Let us make Adam in Our image, after Our
	likeness; and let them have dominion...'"  Them?  What "them"?  Our
	image, our likeness?  What "Our"?  And the tradition had to face a
	text that said, "And God created Adam in His own image, in the image
	of God created He him; male and female created He them."  What
	"him", what "them"?  And finally the tradition faced a text that
	said, "In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God made
	He him; male and female created He them, and called their name Adam,
	in the day when they were crated."  Called *their* name Adam?

	There were several ways to explain these baffling ambiguities, these
	shifts from "him" to "them" and back again, this frightening
	reference by God to "Our own image," as if God were plural--God
	forbid!  Some of the rabbis collapsed the question by saying these
	texts were simply summaries of the familiar story of the rib and
	Eve--and this became the main line of interpretation.  Some rabbis
	had a darker, nightmare vision.  They imagined a woman created
	before Eve, created from the earth, the "Adamah," and therefore
	equal to the male Adam.  They imagined this woman, Lilith, "the
	night one," insisting on her equality and freedom--to the
	destruction of Adam's peace and dignity.  These rabbis feared free
	womanhood, and they saw Lilith become a demon, devourer of children,
	destroyer of men.  And this dark fear colored hundreds of years
	of Jewish history--dark days and darker nights when men and women
	feared the furious energy of free and passionate womanhood.

	But there were still other rabbis.  Jeremiah Ben Eleazar and Samuel
	ben Nachman, may they be remembered for a blessing to our
	generation, said that Adam was male and female in one person.

	And to my own eyes this is the only way the text makes sense.  God
	in one moment "Our," in the next "His"; Adam in one moment "them,"
	in the next "him."  To me this sounds like an effort to express
	"two-in-one"; to say with all the clumsiness of human language that
	which humans had no word for; to describe what they could only
	envision because there was no place to see it:  a non-dualistic
	duality, a unity of opposites, androgyny.  And the Torah even
	reveals to us the difference in the understandings of this unified
	duality from God's standpoint and from our own.  For God from the
	outside, to the human observer, looks utterly One:  in His Image,
	says the Torah from the outside.  But from inside God knows that the
	Unity contains all opposites:  "in Our image," says God's own voice
	speaking about God's own Self.

	So let us hear the story in in this way:  God makes an androgynous
	Human in the image of an androgynous God.  And then God decides it
	is not good for the Human to be alone.  Perhaps it is the Human who
	thinks so first, learning from the procession of male and female
	beasts that go past him to be named, that it is not good to be
	alone.  But if it is Adam who notices, it is God who agrees...

	So the original Adam, the androgynous Adam, is divided.  So that
	each human might have a counterpart, the two sides of Adam, male and
	female, are separated.  Not a rib but a side (they are the same word
	in Hebrew, as Samuel ben Nachman pointed out) is taken to make the
	woman; the other side becomes the man...
    
    -- Mike

    re: -1
    
    Excellent!  Another addition to the never-ending bookstore list!
    
    Miriam

    .20
    
    I think Herland was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
    
    D.