Golem

An excerpt from Biederman: "A mythical symbolic figure of a robot-like being consisting of matter artificially brought to life and capable of threatening its creator. Whereas Frankenstein's monster (in Mary Shelley's novel of 1818) is supposedly put toget her from parts of human bodies, the golem of Jewish myth is the product of a legendary act of creation through language. 'Golem' literally means something like 'unformed material', like Adam before his soul was breathed into him.[The legendary golem which inspired fear in the heart of his master]can be understood as a warning against the unthinking use of magical powers, which become too much for us, making us lose contol" (156).

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