The Seductress of Qumran
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Endnotes
The title “The Seductress” is based on the translation by John M. Allegro, who published the first critical edition of the poem. See Allegro, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert V,
John Allegro’s rendering “the sins in her skirt are many,” followed by subsequent translators, is subject to serious doubt. For a detailed explication, see Joseph M. Baumgarten, “On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184,” Revue de
James P. Pritchard, Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1955), p. 106.
Henri Frankfort, “The Burney Relief,” Archiv für Orientforschung 12 (1937–1939), pp. 128–135; Emil G.H. Kraeling, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 67 (1937), p. 18. Today, however, some scholars identify the figure as Ishtar.
However, the phrase might instead be a variant of te ‘uphot and thus refer to demons that fly by night. It would thus be a counterpart to the demons that fly by day in Psalm 91:5–6 and recalls the Arslan Tash relief that exhorts, “To the female demon that flies in the dark chamber, say, ‘Pass by, time and again, Lilith.’” See Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 658.