LILITU. (ᴀᴘ)

there’s not a lot to choose from (the bible is such a sausage fest on the real) but still the ones i love i love A LOT

DELILAH my absolute fav always, i love her so much. What little is written about her in Judges still paints a picture of someone so complex, and like - we don’t know why she betrayed Samson. Like, she and Samson are together way before she cuts his hair, they’re essentially married, and it’s just like wHY DID YOU DO IT, DELILAH? WHY DID YOU BREAK HIM was it because she could? Was it because she was loyal to her people and she femme fatale’d their greatest enemy just so she could tear him down herself? Did she do it because she knew that as long as Samson had his strength, he would always have to fight, and it was her warped way of trying to keep him safe? I THINK ABOUT THIS SO MUCH I CARE ABOUT THEM SO MUCH WE DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HER DID SHE DIE WITH SAMSON? DID SHE HAVE TO LIVE THE REST OF HER LIFE KNOWING SHE SENT THE MAN SHE LOVED ON THE PATH TO HIS DEATH????? ??? the bible needs to sort out its priorities

LILITH Lilith is just… my favourite story about Lilith is that she is the only person who knew God’s true name, is the only one of all the angels and men who can speak it without going mad or dying. I love that she didn’t care about God’s plans or Adam’s plans for her, that she came out of the ground fully formed and refusing to bow to anyone’s will but her own. I love that the garden wasn’t enough for her, that she chose to leave someone else’s idea of paradise and create her own. And I love that the ancient dudebros who wrote about her were all like ‘lilith was EVIL she made her home on the gulf of aqaba and CONSORTED with DEMONS’ because lilith’s whole thing is that she is a woman - the only woman - born free of the influence of men and so of course she’s a sorceress, and wild and elemental and and uncontrollable and free

EVE honestly she and lilith are a dead even in my mind, ppl who hold them up as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or adversarial female archetypes are missing the real point and falling into the dudebro bible trap AVOID THIS. Eve is like… Eve is like female Prometheus, you know? And I love Eve because she’s a figure written by men to explain why it’s a woman’s fault that she’s subjugated, that reaching higher than her station means she deserves to be struck down, when really all the story does is show how terrified men are, and how they hold desperately onto the status quo because it means control, and there’s something they just fear so badly about a woman who comes along and throws everything in to chaos. And it’s always seen as a bad thing, original sin, and they get thrown out of the garden, and Eve becomes the Woman We Blame - but if you don’t leave Eden, how can the story begin?

MARY MAGDALENE i think about what it would be like for her to love jesus as much as she did a lot. Like, to love someone as a man even when they’ve dedicated themselves to being a leader and a prophet, to have to give up the person you love to the cause that is their life’s work, to look in their eyes and know that no matter how much they love you, there’s always going to be something that comes before you in their life. About how angry she must have when Jesus didn’t try to defend himself or take the out Pontius Pilate gave him, how he sacrificed his life and the life they could’ve had together to give hope to his people, and in doing so took her hope away, about how strong she had to be to survive and endure and just to live IT IS A LOT