Urth Net
Digest urth.v019.n029
↰ answers Peter T. Cash
· by quotation
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Actually, I'd be very interested in learning more about that. Where would one look to find supernatural evil in Judaism? I'm not sure I can find it in the Old Testament, though it's present in the New. Sure, you've got the talking "serpent" in the Garden, but he was just a mischievous dragon, as far as I can tell. You've got the "Accuser" in Job, but he seems part of the heavenly crowd, sort of God's prosecuting attorney. If you're talking about modern Jewish literature, then the supernatural evil couldn't possibly be a pre-Semitic survival, could it?
I've vainly been digging around to find my copy of -Hebrew Myths- by Graves and someone else--not a patch on -Greek Myths-, but still....can't find it. Anyway, the most famous (and popular too, in the feminist millennial crowd) supernatural Hebrew figure is Lilith, akin to the Sumerian Liltu, and Adam's first wife. She ditched him because he insisted on the missionary position during sex while she wanted to be on top from time to time. (This was edited out of Genesis--the rib story follows.) She was then demonized into a) the mother of a huge breed of demons b) a demon who preys on newborns. Typical male revision. Anyway, she is quite similar to Babylonian Jahi (literally Revelation's Whore of Babylon), whom we met in Dr. Talos's play.
-alga