Sorry i blocked u i was very upset at the hatred(miso) of synchretism i see on here. i’m jewish i don’t need their or anyone elses opinion on Open vs Closed. i don’t think nonjews need their opinions either. though you are keen to summon them. as a sumerian polytheist i disagree that Lilith has no place to be deified up from her demonic origins. I believe Inanna may forgive her for shitting up in that tree. I agree that pseudohistorical declarations are laughable but i dont think theyre harmful in religious context. We don’t go after the exodus lie, and shouldnt! Why any modern mythologies about lilith? Fraudulent behavior! Recreating christian persecution in a way.
I love lilith and to me lilith is as free as the chill of the swift starkissed winds! Despite our differences I pray may Peace be upon you :3
I have no problems with you blocking me, please block people like me if we upset you. My unease was being blocked after someone asked an open ended accusatory question—which I now realize you didn't do. I didn't realize that you used the word misosyncretism, I have dyslexia and misunderstood and thought you were saying I was a misogynist so I am sorry for that misunderstanding and will erase those tags.
If you don't need anyone's opinion on whether or not something is closed don't reblog a post saying a particular thing is open. You are inviting dissenting opinions— whether its from Jews or non-Jews— when you reblog someone else's post with your own opinion. If you don't want to discuss open vs closed then simply ignore posts that say Lilith is closed, block people who say she is closed, do whatever, but don't engage if it makes you upset.
People are going to have opinions and, again, my opinion is that Lilith is closed based on numerous Jewish voices I have listened to. I recognize not every person in a group is going to agree with each other because no group is a monolith, but I do my best to listen to the voices of a paticular culture and come to a conclusion.
Yes, I am "very keen to summon" my own opinions because its my blog. If I reblog and add to a post I'm giving an opinion... thats kind of the point of blogging.
My conclusion is that non-Jews worship Lilith as a part of cultural Christianity, an ahistorical mythology they refuse to admit is modern, ignore all open entities that still fit the bill, and I see a lot of antisemitism among them. As well as a lot of Islamaphobia & Chrsitophobia. It is a form of cultural appropriation for their own comfort because they cannot be bothered to learn actual history.
My observation is that the majority of Lilith worshippers don't actually care about Lil-demons, they use the demons as a tool to try and validate their worship as something rooted in a non-Jewish historical tradition, when it is not. Lil demons are a convenient excuse. In reality they cling to her because they see her as a feminist icon who stood up the the Big Bad Misogynistic Abrahamic God™.
There is no need for non-Jews to worship a Jewish figure ahistorically when there are plenty of actual Ancient Near Eastern Goddesses who are open.
Thats my opinion. Its what I'm standing by.
Now again, I'm not going to try and argue from the Jewish side it is not my place. But I can and will argue from a Sumerian Polytheism and accuracy in history side.
Lilith is not a member of the Lil demons, she is not Ardat-Lilî even if there are some similarities. I show information about Lil-demons here and they are not Lilith. Syncretism is not the problem that was common in the Ancient Near East— Inana, Nanaya, Ištar, Šaušga— as one example. There may be some connection between Lilith and Ardat Lilî: mainly influencing the characterization of the Hebrew Lilith in the Book of Isaiah, but there is no evidence they are one in the same. There is no evidence they were ever considered one in the same by any ancient people or traditions. The issue isn't syncretism its pseudo-history.
They were not syncretic in history. Lil demons come from Mesopotamian tradition which spans the 4th millennium BCE to the 1st millennium BCE; while the Sumerian language continued as a liturgical language for quite some time the Sumerian Civilization ended circa 2000-1700 BCE. Aside from the extremely minor mention in Isiah 34:14, the story most Lilith worshippers base her on comes from a midrash written at some point during the 1st millennium CE. This is a significant time difference and people just seem to wipe away time differences as if they don't matter, or they simply can't wrap their head around them.
Pseudo-history absolutely can be harmful and I absolutely abhor pseudo history and always will. I literally have an entire tag, #letsdebunk , for it and its been apart of my blogging since I started in 2017.
"We don't go after the Exodus lie"
Plenty do, plenty of Jews debate the historicity of stories in Jewish literature including the Tanakh, as do many Christians when reading the 'Old Testament'. (Also I would call it a myth not a lie). But whether or not Exodus actually happened in history is very different than making things up and claiming that it was a real religion and real mythology people once believed. Saying "Exodus is a story in the Tanakh and Old Testament and it says [insert story]," is different than saying "Lilith was originally a Sumerian Goddess of love and war," when she wasn't.
You are comparing apple to oranges. The fake history around Lilith is more akin to saying something like "Exodus is a story about how an ancient Egyptian God punished Egyptians for there bad deeds and Jewish slaves escaped while their was chaos and then they found a tribe worshiping a God named YHWH and adopted the religion of that tribe" <- that is not the story of Exodus its abunch of made up bullshit. Made up bullshit is what I consider most modern neo-pagan/left hand path/witch claims about Lilith.
Pseudo-history is used to culturally appropriate many things not just Lilith. It has many problems:
It's used to make bigoted claims against Jews, such as "the Jews killed Jesus" which is historically factually wrong and one of the most damaging sources of antisemitism in history.
Bigotry against Christians, by claiming their only role in history is oppression and the silencing of any Christian voices including POC the world over. Like the dumb St Patrick pagan persecution story which is listed as a false meme by Snopes but shows up as a real belief among neo-pagans. This is also extremely dangerous towards African Diaspora Religions that are syncretized with Christianity, as just one example of how Christophobia is dangerous.
Bigotry against Muslims, by claiming they have solely been a patriarchal oppressor that made no advancements to humanity and only offer "violent jihadism." Which is false and ignores actual Islamic history because real history is very inconvenient for the narrative
Its used to validate bullshit like the Burning Times, blood based witchcraft lineage, and a false sense of persecution among modern neo-pagans. A completely toxic belief.
Its used by feminists who claim a unsubstantiated matriarchal pre-historic religion destroyed by evil patriarchy. They use it to deny anyone who isn't a cis-woman from Goddess worship, witchcraft, and other neo-pagan traditions and claim transwomen and transfemmes are just another iteration of the evil patriarchy trying to taint there ancient Goddess faith. A faith that never existed. Pseudo-history as a tool of transphobia.
Its used by Wiccans and neo-pagans to ignore real Irish history. And add things like Ostara a made up holiday based on the Goddess "Ēsotre" of dubious historicity according to medieval historian Bede & Mabon's fabrication by Aiden Kelly based on the name of a Welsh folk hero.
Its used to fabricate stories about deities that may or may not be real, like Ēsotre mentioned above, and then connect her to the holiday of Easter, and then make a huge leap and connect that to real historical deities like Ištar. Which is also used as a false sense of persecution among neo-pagans.
It can be a weapon for racial/ethnic supremacists. For example, the idea that Hellenic Polytheism was a national religion unique to the Hellenes is pseudo-history used by the boarding on ethnic supremacist YSEE organization.
Not to mention all the horrific pseudo-history of the extremely antisemitic Satanism group that I won't name. That constantly claims Lucifer is a Sumerian God or whatever and spams the inboxes of neo-pagans/witches/polytheists.
Its used by new agers to validate their appropriation of traditions from Dharmic religions for their own inaccurate purposes.
Its used to support, often very racist, "ancient alien" claims.
I could keep going and going and going with fake history touted among neo-pagans, witches, polytheists, left hand path folk, occultists, and new agers that is dangerous but hopefully I've gotten my point across.
"Recreating Christian persecution in a way"
If its not abundantly clear from my above examples pseudo-history is used to fabricate a lot of Christian persecution claims that have serious negative impacts. I don't even know what you mean by this so honestly I'm not going to try arguing against it.
Bottom line: pseudo-history absolutely is harmful in a religious context.
As for "deifying" her up in Sumerian Polytheism. No I am 100% against that. Don't deify up demons and claim its still Sumerian polytheism because it isn't— its modern demonolatry.
First, Lilith isn't Sumerian.
Second, demons have their place in Sumerian cosmology and I'm not going to deify them. If a demon was honored, such as Pazuzu, then I many honor them. But I will not view Sumerian/Mesopotamian demons as Diĝir.
Third, I am a revivalist with a heavy reconstructionist approach, I value the real history of Ancient Near Eastern religions, cosmologies, and mythologies with a particular focus on Sumerian times (Ur III and prior) for my own faith.
This means I will always stand against pseudo-history, debunk claims, and defend actual ANE & Sumerian history. Ancient cultures deserve to be respected and not lied about. Pseudo-history is a lie.
Please do not pray to Lilith for me the mention in the ask made me feel uncomfortable.
Just like the "recreating Christian persecution" sentence in your ask I don't understand the "fraudulent behavior" statement so I can't really address it.
Tone clarification: The tone of this post is meant to be informative and explanatory not hostile and argumentative.
TL;DR Lil demons are not Lilith. Lilith is Jewish and I stand by my opinion that she is apart of a closed tradition. Pseudo-history is dangerous and I will always reject it.
EDIT: After reading their tags on this (x) and their rhetoric in the first reply to this post I think its better for me to not interact with this person. So I've decided to block. They've stated their stance and its literally just strawman arguments, many false equivalences, and whataboutisms; I have no time or patience for that. But this post is still useful as a rebuke against pseudo- history in our communities so I'll leave it up, I worked hard on it. I also deleted the original response post since it's redundant now. [Edit 2] The person has been extremely ableist towards me more than once, threatened me, tried to bypass my blocks, wished violent death on me more than once. I did report them and tumblr took one of their posts down... which is not enough but I won't waste my time trying to get tumblr moderators to do their job.
