THE BIBLE AND MYTH

I’m sure that today’s blog title immediately intrigued all the humanists out there. Calm down kids, it isn’t what you think. 

The Senses Novels deal with Biblical phenomena in a modern setting, just as the later books in the series begin to deal with some of the myths that have been around for millennia. But it really becomes interesting to me when there are myths that have somehow sprung up about what is in the Bible.

Let’s take Lilith as an example. Many of you have heard of Lilith, the demon/woman that was supposed to have been Adam’s first wife. TOTAL FABRICATION AND MYTH. Here is what happened, in Genesis 1:27 we get this:

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

All well and good, right? But pay very close attention to the wording in that passage. He created man in his own image…male and female He created them. Remember this because we are going to come 

back to it.

Next, we get this passage of scripture about the creation of woman:

Genesis 2:21 – 22: 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.
22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Two very different accounts of how Adam’s wife came to be. And therein lies the issue. Some Talmud scholars of old believed that these were separate accounts and that two women had been created. The first was a wife with no name and the second was Eve. I don’t believe that is what happened at all and I will get to where the whole ‘Lilith’ thing comes from shortly.

We need to remember that God is not only omnipotent, But He is also omniscient as well. In other words, He knows everything. When He said, He created man and then said He created them, He already KNEW that Eve was inside of Adam. The whole, “let’s go through all of the animals to see if we can find you a helper” thing was no different than anything a parent would do for their child. It was a teaching moment to show Adam that nothing else in the animal kingdom came up to the level of man.

If all of that is the case, where did Lilith come from? The only actual mention of a Lilith in the entire Bible is in Isaiah 34:14 where the term or name lilith translates to "night creatures," "night monster," "night hag," or "screech owl." The lilith of the Old Testament was a demon of some sort. The ancient scholars (it wasn’t THAT ancient, 3rd to 5th centuries) created an entire mythos around Adam having a first wife. She was a pretty awful creature by all accounts, and if it had been true, our first ancestor would have been well rid of her it seems.

The facts are simple, some people just couldn’t imagine that God already knew what lay ahead for Adam. Instead, they created a false doctrine and developed the myth of Lilith.

This isn’t as rare as we would like to believe. How many times do we hear about ‘end of the world’ preachers and cults? Jesus warned us of false teachers and teachings. I’m sure He had seen a few already Himself.

Myths can be fun to read and discuss, but don’t let them take away from the true history told in the Bible.

I pray that you are having a great week!

KM