Lilith and Adam

[pam]

What are your thoughts?

 

http://askgramps.org/4997/is-there-any-truth-to-the-story-about-lilith-being-adams

[Lakumi]

I always found the story of Lilith facinating, I also like the name a lot as a name.

And Pan, ah Pan, he's the God of Nature. And one of many horned Gods in Pagan religions, Cernunnos being probably the most well known (at least most reconized)

Now I am on a tirade.

But if one takes the story of Adam and Eve as a story to teach a lession (as I was always told it was since I don't believe in creationism and never have) then Lilith fits in quite well with it's message.

The bible has had a lot cut out of it, and some is hanging around the world today for people to read, I do wonder if there's a bible with it all in there...

[pam]

And this is the LDS Gospel Discussion so we are discussing this as LDS views.

[Lakumi]

Well I liked the article at any rate, I do enjoy biblical history (as in the history of the bible itself) though I still feel the Book of Mormon is a better read (far easier to understand for one).

I ought to ask a question sometime, I do have a lot of them.

[Just_A_Guy]

I think Gramps took the right approach from a doctrinal standpoint. But if you're asking for my speculative opinion: I prefer to keep an open mind. Brigham Young is on-record (in, admittedly, a discourse widely interpreted as promoting the Adam-God theory) as saying that Eve was one of Adam's wives.

[Quin]

When I asked local leadership about L in passing around the time of my conversion, they had never head of it, so I dropped it.

Being rather wrapped up in other things at the time, I never looked back into it.

So this is pretty cool to look into down the line.

My feeling when I was 12 or so & first came across the reference was that it seemed a lot like the Greek Play / satire...

Where Persephone bemoaned having only 6 months with her husband and the other 6 -sob!- with. her. mother!

<roll eyes>

Like our current crop of re-invented fairy tales...

The Greeks went through a period where they turned classic tales & turned them inside out

Same story, (6months with Hades, 6 months with Demeter) different conclusions; instead of mom rescuing her from her enemy,

it's mom forcing her away from her beloved.

Layla/Lillith FELT like that.

Like someone in the 800s or 1000s went "What IF Adams first wife had been a harridan? A real piece of work? A complete nightmare?"

Or the church, wanting to codify "wifely" behavior cast a terrible shrew as an object lesson? Treat your man well, and by well we mean NOT like this, or be consigned to hell.

I prefer the first version, although the middle aged church (especially after dealing with the female warriors north of Hadrian's wall, and shield maids from Sweden & Norway pillaging and burning churches in England in the 800 ish era right along with male vikings) was sort of notoriously anti-female, so IF either were the case, it's probably the second.

Honestly, it STILL feels like that.

That Layla/Lilith is a parody of a wife.

Which feels more like an invention of Man, than of God.

Mosquitos aside... HF seemed to go about the rest of Creation a lot more carefully.

Q

[estradling75]

In many ways I am glad that Lilith is not part of LDS Doctrine. 

 

Lets summarize the most common parts of this myths.

Lilith's sin/crime/rebellion was in not submitting to her Husband's (Adam) authority..

 

The consequence were two fold.  One she was replaced by Eve (who did submit) and she became a baby killing demon.

 

That is a story that I am very glad don't have to try to reconcile with what I understand the role of women in the church and their role in the world

[mirkwood]

I've always found myth's to be interesting.  We make a specific set of covenants in the temple and we are taught true doctrine at the same time.  I think that answers any question regarding Lilith.

[NeuroTypical]

Just another reason to love the old '90's sitcom Cheers.  Dr. Lilith Crane.  So aptly named.

[Latter Days Guy]

Hasn't Richard Dutcher made a film about this?

[Guest Silarias]

The story of Lilith sounds just like what Ask Gramps posted: a Jewish tradition.  Not sure if The Alphabet of Ben Sira is part of the Talmud, a collection of traditional Jewish stories not truly scriptural in nature, but I wouldn't be surprised.  And the fact that the story first appeared around 800-1000 AD as it states in the article makes it further unlikely to be true in my eyes.

Eve was Adam's first wife.  I think that's pretty clear in Genesis and in the Pearl of Great Price (the Book of Moses) as they present her as the second human being created, and Adam names the wife Eve.  What I've learned in the Holy Temple has made that pretty clear to me too.  If any other woman was Adam's first wife, I would think that Moses would have taken the time to write down that crucial fact, no matter her nature. 

[Traveler]

As a hobby I have studied ancient myths.  Part of the myth of Lilith is that she ends up as the consort to Satan.  This particular myth of Satan having a consort has some interesting undertones in legends in many ancient civilizations that predate the earliest known references to Lilith by as much as a few thousand years.   I also find it interesting that Lilith and other such consorts of Satan has evolved in to a demon that kills infant babies.    I find this interesting in lieu of modern feminism embrace with abortion and that one of the safest abortion techniques of the ancient world was the killing of infant babies.  This would make the Lilith legacy not so far removed from modern feminism that has a strong distaste for women bearing children.

 

It is interesting that Isaiah tells us that nothing that happens on earth has not already happened before – perhaps referring to the pre-existence?  Maybe the Lilith myth is not as farfetched as many would like to write it off as.

[The Folk Prophet]

"...Pan, Cupid, Santa Claus, the Boogy Man, etc. Lilith us just such a figure from Hebrew lore."

 

You forgot Michael Jackson in the list.

[Traveler]

"...Pan, Cupid, Santa Claus, the Boogy Man, etc. Lilith us just such a figure from Hebrew lore."

 

You forgot Michael Jackson in the list.

 

 

3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

 4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

 5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

 6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

 7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

 8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

 9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

 10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

 11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.