Wednesday, March 23, 2011

First Lillith, now Asherah

So here's an interesting news clip.

The Huffington Post posted an article last night titled God's Wife, Asherah, May Have Been Edited Out Of The Bible Says Theologian. Now, how's that for an attention grabbing headline?

So, quick review, a British Theologian named Francesca Stavrakopoulou is presenting evidence that the female counterpoint of Yahweh, or God, was edited out of the early editions of the bible. It is widely known and accepted that early Israelites were polytheists, so it truly isn't a far stretch to say that in the fervor of promoting the new monotheistic dogma of a fledgling religion that poor Asherah fell by the wayside.

In fact, this wouldn't be the first instance of a powerful female figure being written out of the early texts of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Ever heard of the Lilith Fair? Ever wonder who the fuck Lilith was, and why so many bra-burning feminists found her inspiring enough to use her as the name-sake for the most powerful pro-feminist music event of the western hemisphere?

Lilith, according to ancient text, was Adam's first wife. That's right, Eve was neither the first woman, nor Adam's first lay. According to the story Lilith, like Adam, was created from dust and brought to life with the breath of God. As the legend goes, Lilith was far too independent and fiery for Adam's taste. Apparently Lilith decided during the first act of coitus that she wanted to get on top and take a ride, and Adam wasn't too comfortable with being a bottom. He flipped out and kicked her out of paradise and asked God nicely for a replacement wife. And that is why Eve was constructed from Adam's rib and not of the dust like he was, instilling her with a sense of female subservience and started the paradigm of females being of a lower class than males that has been so prevalent in society for centuries.

And what happened to poor Lilith? After she was expelled from the garden she spent her time lurking around the borders or paradise, waiting for the fall of man and becoming the first ever recognized demon in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and ultimately was written out of the story entirely. So if we know that Lilith was sacrificed to the god of ecumenical politics, why would it be so hard to believe that God's wife was left by the side of the road in the same manner?

My point is this. The whole concept of these religious texts being the unadulterated word of god is fucking bullshit. Even in the highly unlikely event that the original texts were indeed passed down from divine influence to the hands of man, they have been held in the hands of men for millenia. And if history has proven nothing else, it's that man will do just about anything for personal benefit. I'm not saying that having faith is a bad thing, but people need to realize that just because people have been saying something for a really long time in no way makes it true. So stop getting offended just because someone came up with a little evidence actually proving that the fables you've been basing your life off are little more than fables. Nice pretty stories that help to instill morality in impressionable youth. The problem is when you start taking those stories as dogmatic law, because that is how people end up getting so enthralled with the concept of the divine that they are willing to kill people for disagreeing with their version of the story.

So the next time some whack-job is going off the handle about the infallible nature of the word of God in the bible, remember poor Lilith and how she wound up forgotten in the turning of the page. That book ain't nothing but the greatest game of Telephone in human history, and any graduate of a kindergarten class will be able to tell you how those exercises end up.


It's easy, if you try.

2 comments:

  1. "Adam wasn't too comfortable with being a bottom" - I'm sure if you saw the size of Lilith's giant wooden strap-on you'd understand his plight. Legend has it that Adam would shit himself as Lilith sanded it down before each use, leading to the name "shittim" wood, which, in coming to recognize its durability, was the same wood God asked Moses to use to construct the Ark of the Covenant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hahahaha, best comment I've gotten since I started this thing. Thanks for reading

    ReplyDelete