Idle thought on language and culture

[redbird]

What would be implied by a person or culture (possibly, but not necessarily, one of the Fair Folk) addressing people as "Daughter of Adam" and "Son of Eve"?

Comments

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Besides the assumption of Christianity?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, if that's a necessary distinction, there being Lilim out there somewhere ?

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Now that's a scary thought. 8o

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Why Christianity, and not Judaism (or Islam)?

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

It is a good question! For me the answer is probably because "I read it in the Chronicles of Narnia and I know C.S. Lewis was Christian." Such impressions are hard to shake, I guess.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone who's read the Narnia books would be able to disassociate that formulation from Narnia. IMO.

[erik]

on the face of it, that they do not consider themselves a member of that group.
Or that they read The Chronicles Of Narnia and it made too big an impression.

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

The obvious one is that the person has a religious background that includes the Old Testament. The not so obvious one is that the person/culture finds distinguishing by gender to be important.

The crossed genders (daughter of male, son of female) is a little harder to disentangle. If it were consistently applied, there would certainly be implications for family and social structures. Some of these structures might involve inheiritance, matri- and patri-locality, marriage, and definitions of kinship.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

It would certainly imply that the culture had discovered a work-around for the misogyny inherent in the apportioning of blame for the Fall.

Although, it just occurs to me in connection with rysmiel's comment about the Lilim, that "Daughters of Adam" (like "Sons of Adam," although Lewis is so very very careful not to go there) doesn't necessarily mean ANYTHING about Daughter by Which Wife. Adam had three wives, after all.

Also, the Sons of Eve are Cain and Abel. Another point which the gender chiasmus highlights.

"Daughters of Adam, Sons of Eve" is a good formulation. Just look at all the questions it raises!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Seth, the good son who brought flowers and take-out and who everyone forgets about because he isn't exciting.

And Lewis does go there, the White Witch was a daughter of Adam by his first wife, Lilith, on her mother's side, IIRC, at least in LWW, if not in her Charn incarnation in the retcon in tMN.

I think the address would provide a triangulation point for a culture. You'd need the others to know what it was doing precisely, but it would certainly imply a raftload of things about religion, gender issues, gender inheritance customs...

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

And Lewis does go there, the White Witch was a daughter of Adam by his first wife, Lilith, on her mother's side, IIRC, at least in LWW, if not in her Charn incarnation in the retcon in tMN.

Okay, yes, good point, I was forgetting that about the White Witch's spurious claim as a Daughter of Adam.

There's something weird in there somewhere about why being a Daughter of Adam (the White Witch) is bad and being a Son of Adam (Peter, Edmund) is good, but I have a head cold and feel dreadful and can't articulate it.

[kristenj.livejournal.com]

There's something weird in there somewhere about why being a Daughter of Adam (the White Witch) is bad and being a Son of Adam (Peter, Edmund) is good...

Actually, in LWW it doesn't work out like that. The White Witch is not human at all - not "Daughter of Adam" or "Daughter of Eve."

(pg. 77, LWW)
"...But she's no Daughter of Eve. She comes of your father Adam's --" (here Mr. beaver bowed) "your father Adam's first wife, her they called Lilith. And she was one of the Jinn. That's what she comes from on one side. And on the other she comes of giants. No, no, there isn't a drop of real Human blood in the Witch."

In LLW, then, Lilith is identified as a demon, not a human. The White Witch is descended from a demon and a giant; the point is that she looks human, and tries to trade on that, but she is not.

For C.S. Lewis in the Chronicles, "Daughter of Eve" meant human girl, "Son of Adam" meant human boy. Both were titles of royalty. For Lewis, the Biblical allusion was meant to invoke both original blessing and original sin, and applied equally to the boys and the girls. (from pg. 211-12, PC) "I do indeed, Sir," said Caspian. "I was wishing that I came of a more honourable lineage." "You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth. Be content."

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Three wives? I'm aware of the legend of Lilith, originally courtesy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (it is definitely not part of an extremely traditional Orthodox Jewish education; I doubt my father has ever heard of it), but who was the third wife?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Actually, the legend of Lilith is originally from the Talmud -- my books are at home and I'm in Florida, so I can't look it up. The second wife had no name.

[liv]

Lilith is in the Talmud, yes (isn't everything?) but I don't think the legend originates there. I'm pretty certain she's in Apocrypha somewhere, (the Book of Ben Sirach if my memory's not completely letting me down here), and also I think in one of the major Targumim. I think those are earlier sources than the Talmud, though of course dating the latter is always a problem.

The second wife I don't know much about other than that she existed; when you do get to your books, if you felt like providing more detail I'd be most grateful.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My memory is that that is all the detail there is: there was this second wife who Hashem created in front of Adam which just grossed him out so much that he couldn't deal with her at all.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't categorically state that no such thing appears in the entire Talmud, let alone in any Jewish source, but I very much doubt it. If you ever find a reference, please let me know. As I said in my other comment, I have tried chasing down those references that I did find cited, and none of them turned out to even hint at this legend, which is why I'm skeptical of such claims.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

A few years ago, I came across a list of alleged Talmudic references to the Lilith legend, and looked them all up - not a single one panned out. The one biblical usage seems to mean a type of bird, possibly an owl of some sort. There are a few references in the Talmud that could either mean a type of bird or a type of demon, and some more that seem clearly to mean a type of demon, but not one specific demon (the word used in almost all these places is 'lilin', which could be a plural of 'lilith'). And there was one reference which seemed clearly to refer to one specific demon with the name 'Lilith', but there was no indication that she had any connection to Adam.

Now it could be that there is a clear Talmudic reference to the Lilith legend, that wasn't on the list I saw, but I'm skeptical.

[thette.livejournal.com]

Lilith (a female demon) is referred to in Job 18:15 and Isa 34:14, and the note (in the new Swedish translation) says the Adam coupling is a post-biblical tradition.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

The 'lilith' in Isa 34:14 (http://kodesh.snunit.k12.il/i/t/t1034.htm) ('there the lilith rests, and found itself a resting place') could be read as a species of demon, but it could just as easily be any sort of animal or bird which can be found in old ruins. There certainly seems to me no basis for reading it as a reference to an individual (of any species) with the name Lilith.

As for Job 18:15 (http://kodesh.snunit.k12.il/i/t/t2718.htm) I assume your source is translating mibelilo as 'from in his lilith', which is a vast stretch, to say the least; a much more likely translation is 'from not being his' or 'that which is not his' (mibeli lo).

[zsero.livejournal.com]

For some reason the online version of Job I linked to above represents mibelilo as one word. Last night I looked it up in a printed version, and it's two words: mibeli lo. That absolutely explodes any notion of it referring to Lilith. Mibeli, literally, means ‘for lack of’, and lo means ‘to him’.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

The version I learned (from the curator of the Jewish Museum in Athens) is that Adam had three wives: Lilith, Wisdom, and Eve. Lilith got kicked out for demanding to be on top during sex, and I can't remember what happened to Wisdom.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

My immediate reaction is a lack of gender roles, or at least an openness to crossing between them

[stealthpup.livejournal.com]

Isn't that one of the big Narnian addresses to humans?

I would certainly presume strong Christian (or at least Biblical) influence. Fundamentalist leanings, as well.

Or were you looking for something more? Time to read the other comments....

[kightp.livejournal.com]

In some sense, it could imply that the person/culture doing the speaking is non-human.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That they've had Genesis explained to them and do not consider themselves to have descended from that line.

Not necessarily not-human, but considering themselves distinct from the human(s) they are addressing.

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

It might be a reference to the Fall, that one "race" is decended from those that ate that naughty fruit and the other isn't. This could very likely tie in with the Christian theory of Original Sin.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I'd read it as very strong connotations of Other, with very deep and old connections with human culture. Specifically western culture. I like this formulation much better than Lewis' "Son of Adam" and "Daughter of Eve," for the implied gender flexibility, the suggestion that a woman partakes of her (umpteen great-grand-)father's nature.

[snippy]

Certainly it precludes the Covenant (which is why my Hebrew name is Channah bat Avraham, not bat Adam).

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

Except that God regularly addresses Ezekiel as "Ben Adam."

And Israelis address each other (of all genders) as "benadam" all the time. It's sort of like calling someone "man" or "dude." Not as affectionate as calling them "achi" (my brother) or "achoti" (my sister), which is another thing Israelis like to call each other.

Aethereal Girl, bringing you data from the land where people actually speak the language in question.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I've read that one branch of Christian Identity believes Jews are descended from the Snake and Eve. And, as has already been said here, Adam can be considered to have had at least two wives.

Speculative ethnography

[maryread.livejournal.com]

I would like to see it done. As others pointed out in much more detail, it plays on the gender-assignments assumed in western lit that Lewis was embroidering on, in a way that implies familiarity with his bias, but foreign or alien to it. I think the connotations of each title need to be worked out separately: one at a time is enough to hit people with, given the strong Narnia-flavored readings (& misreadings) shown by commentators. Given that Lewis' usage seemed to arise quite naturally in its context, it is also a natural & logical next question, that proposes a restoration of some lost archetypal balance.

[cheshyre]

Not terribly helpful, but my gut reaction is that they read too much Narnia...

Otherwise, it'd imply that (a) Adam & Eve were genuine (and apparently made a big splash), and (b) these creatures far predated Adam & Eve enough that they would refer to all A&E's decendants by that term.