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The Heritage of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East

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The Lord of the Roof (1)

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Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list)
Composite beings
02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs
02.05 Animal/theriomorphic symbols and iconographic motifs
02.05.05 Composite beings
Mesopotamian loanwords in Aramaic
11 Language, communication, libraries and education
11.01 Imperial languages
11.01.05 Shared linguistic items and features
11.01.05.05 Mesopotamian loanwords
11.01.05.05.01 Mesopotamian loanwords in Aramaic

Keywords
Aramaic language
demons
naming

Period
1st century CE
Roman Empire

Channel
Jewish philosophers and scholars
New Testament

Text
The demon of the epilepsy had the name Lugalurra, who seizes the man. The name is Sumerian and means “Lord of the Roof”. The Lord of the Roof has a parallel in the Gospel of Matthew, as translated into Syriac. The epileptic boy healed by Jesus is said to be possessed by “the Son of the Roof” (bar ˀeggārâ, Matthew 17:15). The same demon is found in the Aramaic incantation bowls and, under the name Rišpi in the Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 111b. The Babylonian demon of epilepsy lived on in Syrian lore under a very similar name.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 111b
Matthew 17:15

Bibliography

Stol 1993, 16-18

Stol, M. Epilepsy in Babylonia. Cuneiform Monographs 2. Groningen: Styx Publications 1993.

Amar Annus

URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001082.php

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