A is for Adam and ? - by Nan Brooks

 

"Lilith, Adam's erste frau"  Ernst Barlach, 1922

When your computer is giving you trouble, blame Eve, the first woman. (Except she wasn’t.)

Here is what a prolific author on Christian theology, philosophy and apologetics advises:  “By the way, if you get mad at your Mac laptop and wonder who designed this demonic device, notice the manufacturer's icon on top: an apple with a bite out of it.”   Peter Kreeft

The myth of Adam and Eve is pervasive in our culture; no matter what our religion. It affects our beliefs about sin, knowledge, and women. It is a primary excuse for misogyny and underlies the fear of women’s power, women’s bodies, and women’s innate knowledge. This creation myth is powerful.

Myths are not lies, as we sometimes think they are; they are stories created by humans to explain the vast inexplicable universe and humans’ place in it.  Creation myths are important in every culture because they help us make sense of where our world began and how. They help us make sense of the life force, of the intricacies of our natural world, and the ways in which we humans interact with Mother Earth and the complexities of life. Mother Earth is an archetypal figure from an ancient Goddess myth, if you ask me.

The Adam and Eve myth arose from ancient Jewish culture, but it has counterparts in non-Abrahamic religions. (Abrahamic religions being Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.) It may be that the myth began in a culture that predates Judaism. In these stories the world begins as a garden paradise where all is blissful perfection and the couple are immortal. Then something happens, usually one of the humans in paradise disobeys a rule set forth by the divine creator/creatrix and there are consequences. Often the disobedience, aka sin, leads to forbidden knowledge and the whole thing collapses or the offensive humans are evicted to a place where there are evils, suffering, and sorrow.

In the Adam and Eve myth, the culprit, the ultimate sinner, the ruination of it all, is Eve in cahoots with the devil disguised as a serpent.  The serpent is often a symbol of the Goddess, the divine as female principle and may be reference to an earlier matrifocal culture. We are introduced to Eve as the companion of Adam, created from his rib because he was lonely. She is created to serve him, but betrays him and, of far more consequence, God himself. And yes, God is most certainly male.

Another function of myths in a culture is to set forth standards and for human behavior. The Adam and Eve myth comes out of a culture where men are superior to women in just about every way, women’s bodies are suspect, women must be obedient to God and human men, and consequences for questioning or disobeying the rules are dire. We need only notice that women’s bodies are “unclean” at the time of menstruation to realize that women’s cyclical bodies are mysterious and often untouchable. A creature who can bleed for days and not die is a wonder, but also a target of jealousy, methinks.

OK, so much for my quick analysis of the myth of Adam and that uppity Eve. But there is more. Eve was not the first woman this creation myth. First there was Lilith. Much of the information about Lilith is lost to time. There are some texts that name the demonic serpent Lilith, but in other texts and surviving oral stories, she is a separate being.

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes her:

Lilith: female demonic figure of Jewish folklore. Her name and personality are thought to be derived from the class of Mesopotamian demons called lilû (feminine: lilītu), and the name is usually translated as “night monster.” A cult associated with Lilith survived among some Jews as late as the 7th century ce.

So, she is pretty nasty (hmmm, a nasty woman. Where have I heard that recently?)  But what about that cult that survived until as late as the 7^th century. And why did a bunch of rock concert producers call a tour of women musicians Lilith Fair? Was she a bad-ass rocker?

There is another thing about myths and archetypal stories: they last even when they are removed from the canon, that collection of writings or stories deemed holy or legitimate by the authorities (ie the religious leadership).  The stories go underground, they emerge in fragments and become less important “folktales”. They emerge not in songs, in fairy tales, in odd sayings. But they are archetypal, so they do last.

Lilith has survived in stories about her rebellion. Some modern feminists have chosen her as a model of resistance, of rage against injustice, of the refusal to go along with misogyny. The myth has been reframed and retold in various new ways. In these newly-inspired versions of the myth, Lilith is created not from Adam’s rib, but from the same clay God used to make Adam. She does not owe her creation to Adam’s sacrifice or pain; she is her own remarkable creation. When Adam disobeys and causes trouble, Lilith refuses to let him blame her for his actions. She is not the cause of original sin and she is smarter than he is. She sees how she is being set up, so she leaves their garden. She abandons paradise, which turns out to be a false one, and sets out alone to foster (one might even say to mother) her own world.

The reframing of the Lilith myth is one of many new ways at looking at old myths during our time in which, some theologians and philosophers point out, the female principle and human women are coming into power, coming into true equality with men. If this is such a time, it is moving slowly and current politics would indicate that it could be set back in this country quite severely.  In any case, Lilith and her story are still with us.

How might each of us be Lilith or her descendant of any gender? How might we call out injustice, how might we create our own new world?

I’ve been watching the WNBA tournament lately. The players and owners and all involved have placed justice for women of color first in their public imaging, social media, television commercials, interviews, and even their uniform choices. They dedicated the season to Breonna Taylor and Say Her Name. They wore her name on their uniforms. They have raised money for the families of women of color killed by the police. The ceremony in which the Seattle Storm were presented with the championship trophy began with the WNBA commissioner, Cathy Englebert saying, “First of all Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Say Her Name.”  We’ve seen other athletic teams and organizations become outspoken about issues of racism and injustice, but the women led the way in basketball and kept their message clear and prominent.

Lilith is still with us.  Among other places, she has revealed herself on the basketball courts where the women players wear shirts that remind us to “VOTE”.  May she thrive.