Jael

Prior post mentioning Jael (and giving the biblical account). I was looking in Barbara Walker's "A Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" for other information when I came across an entry on Jael! Jael (var. Jaala) "Wild She-Goat," alternate name for the Israelite queen Deborah as a mate of the scapegoat-god, Baal-Gad or Pan. Ja-El was the same as the Persians' primal Goddess Jahi, adopted by tribal queens of the pre-patriarchal period. Jael sacrificed Sisera in a strange way, nailing his head to the ground (Judges 4:21), which may be likened to the priestesses of Artemis Tauropolos nailing the head os their victims to crosses.(1) Notes: (1) Graves, G.M., 2, 78. ************************************************************************************* Hmmmm, well, I don't know about that. I'm skeptical of the definition Walker gives for Ja-El. "El" is "god" - but no "god" is mentioned in "Wild She Goat." If "El" means god, than Ja means goat woman (as "Ba" means goat man)? So Jehovah (Jah) was actually a female goat goddess - or some hybrid form of goat and woman? Well, that's an interesting supposition, but I'd like to know more about the meanings of these words. The conflating of Deborah and Jael is also interesting. In the biblical account they are definitely two distinct women, although it certainly is possible that the death of Sisera was at the hands of Deborah, the "queen," rather than Jael. Deborah, it will be recalled, prophesied the death of Sisera at the hands of a woman rather than her general, Barach, who evidently showed some doubt about Deborah's prophecy that the Israelite army would be victorious over Sisera's forces! Walker's Encyclopedia also has an entry on Jahi the Whore. What a title, oh my! Persian patriarchal epithet for the Great Mother who brought forth, then mated with, the serpent Ahriman, as Lilith or the pre-Adamic Eve was supposed to have done with the biblical serpent. Zoroastrian scriptures said Jahi brought menstruation into the world, for she menstruated for the first time after mating with her serpent. Jahi also brought sex into the world by seducing the first man in the primal gardne. Jewish patriarchs probably derived their notions of the sinfulness of women (by virtue of their descent from Eve) from Persian ascetics who claimed all women were "whores" because they were descendants of Jahi. [Would this have been during the 70-Year Exile in Babylonia?] Oddly enough, some of the earliest forms of the name of the Jewish God seem to have been masculinized versions of the name of Jahi. Variations included Jahu, Jah, Yahu, Yahweh, Iau, Jaho. Some myths indicate that this God like Ahriman once had a serpent form and may have played the part of the Great Mother's serpent. *************************************************************************************** A serpent and a mother-creator-goddess are among the oldest deities (if not the oldest) in Chinese iconography and myth. The pre-dynastic serpent goddess of Egypt is also extremely old. I'm not too familiar with the religious legends of Sumer, but she's probably there, too.

"The Hidden Ones"

I'm going to buy "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. " It's fascinating to reflect on some of the themes raised in the New York Times book review. For instance, "bad behavior" is most often relative, subject to time, place, culture and, sometimes, motivation. Murder, for instance, is universally proscribed by law, and yet there have been and always will be exceptions to our condemnation of such behavior. In the Bible, Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, aids and abets the invading Israelites to kill her own townspeople of Jericho. For her assistance, Rahab and her family are spared after victory by the invading army of Joshua, the leader of the Israelite tribes. Rahab later marries a prominent Israelite, Salmon, and becomes an ancestress in the line of Christ through her son, Boaz. Boaz married Ruth (another "foreigner"), who becomes mother to Obed; Obed is the father of Jesse; and Jesse is the father of David, who is the founder of the Davidic line of Iraelite kings. During the times of the Judges (after Joshua but before Saul was annointed as the first King of Israel), Jael, "the wife of Heber the Kenite," commits an atrocious murder and is hailed for it in a song that praises the suffering of the dead man's mother. There is war between a Canaanite king, Jabin, and the Israelites. An Israelite prophetess, Deborah, who also acts a female Judge (in the days before the kings of Israel were established), calls upon Barak to lead an army against Jabin's forces, which are led by Jabin's general, Sisera. Interestingly, Barak says he will lead the fight, but only if Deborah accompanies him and the troops. Deborah then says yes, she will accompany him, but - perhaps as a result of his doubting the word of God as delivered through Deborah that victory against Sisera would be his - she tells Barak that the death of General Sisera will be at the hands of a woman: Judges 4:9: "Without fail I shall go with you. Just the same, the beautifying thing will not become yours on the way that you are going, for it will be into the hand of a woman that Jehovah will sell Sisera." With that Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh. The Israelite forces are victorious, and Sisera runs for his life, seeking shelter in the tent of Jael. While he sleeps Jael takes a tent spike and strikes it through his temple with a hammer, driving the spike all the way through into the ground below. When the pursuing Israelite forces, led by Barak, arrive at her camp, she comes out to meet him and says "Come and I shall show you the man you are looking for." Judges 4:22: So in he went to her, and look! there was Sistera fallen dead, with the pin in his temples. Jael is hailed as a heroine. Here are parts of the victory song of Deborah and Barak: Judges 5:24: Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, will be most blessed among women, Among women in the tent she will be most blessed. (25) Water he asked, milk she gave; In the large banquet bowl of majestic ones she presented curdled milk. (26) Her hand to the tent pin she then thrust out, And her right hand to the mallet of hard workers. And she hammered Sisera, she pierced his head through, And she broke apart his temples. (27) Between her feet he collapsed, he fell, he lay down; Between her feet he collasped, he fell; Where he collasped, there he fell overcome. (28) From the window a woman looked out and kept watching for him. The mother of Sisera from the lattice, 'Why has his war chariot delayed in coming? Why must the hoofbeats of his chariots be so late?' (29) The wise ones of her noble ladies would answer her. Yes, she too would talk back to herself with her own sayings, (30) 'Ought they not to find, out they not to distribute spoil, A womb - two wombs to every able-bodied man, Spoil of dyed stuffs for Sisera, spoil of dyed stuffs, An embroidered garment, dyed stuff, two embroidered garments For the necks of men of spoil?' But there would be no ransom demand made for the life of Sisera, for which his mother could contribute finely embroidered and dyed garments made with her own hands. Sisera was already dead, at the hands of another woman, who gave him milk - ironically described as "curdled milk," so that rather than being the sustenance of life, as milk from a mother's breast, its curdled form was a precursor of death. Three thousand years later, Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, among others, serve up "curdled milk" to their own children. Their names will live forever in the case-histories of psychiatric tomes. Yes, I think Ulrich is correct. It's the bad girls of history that have gotten publicity - not the good girls.