Who is Lilith? The First Eve? Serpent? Or Queen of The Demons?
by A look at Lilith, purported by some to be the first wife of Adam, before Eve, by many many documents, except for the Christian Bible.
Lilith, a John Collier Painting
The earliest written mention of Lilith appears in Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree, a Sumerian epic poem found on a tablet at Ur, dated 2000 B.C.E. One of the villains in this epic is Lilith. She had built her house in the nest of a dragon, where a Zu-bird had placed it’s young. Gilgamesh slays the dragon, causing the Zu-bird to fly to the mountains and the terrified Lilith to “flee to the desert.” The ancient name “Lilith” derives from a Sumerian word for female demons or wind spirits, Lilitu.
It is known in ancient lore that Lilith is supposed to have been the first wife of Adam. The Alphabet of Ben Sira shows her to be a destructive, winged creature, sexually lustful, and again, was the first wife of Adam, before Eve. She was said to created as he was, from the dust of the earth, as an equal. But, like many couples, a power struggle erupted. She refused to be subservient and submissive, and lie beneath him during sexual intercourse. (Was this account ever written by a man!) He tried to tell her that he was her Lord and Master and it was her duty to obey him. She of course replied “we are both equal, as we were both created from the dust of the earth and I will not be submissive to you.” And, as in many unions, they could not agree, calling on her creator, she soared up into the air or disappeared. Adam, got kind upset in all of this, and complained to God, the Creator, and cried “the woman thou has given me has fled from me.”
Then God, or the Holy one, sent out three angels to bring her back to Adam. But she refused, and they wanted to drown her in the midst of the Red Sea, but she talked them out of it. (Oh how weak men are from the wiles of a woman.) She told them that she was created to weaken and punish children, infants and babes. She swore that whenever she came upon the names or images or faces of the three angles on an amulet or cameo on the rooms of the babes, she would not punish them. So they let her live, but every day a hundred of her own children, or spirits and demons would die. Now, according to some texts, only when Lilith had rebelled and abandoned Adam did God create Eve.
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Post CommentRinks Desai
On December 11, 2009 at 6:14 am
Good one….
giftarist
On December 11, 2009 at 6:27 am
A very interesting read..
diamondpoet
On December 11, 2009 at 11:13 am
I like this story and I am intrigued and I have to find to time to purchase and read this book, this interest me a lot.
mkd1788
On December 11, 2009 at 1:13 pm
excellent post…interesting…
upeshdaa
On December 27, 2009 at 5:18 am
very surprising and interesting that a single snake can think about an woman and her chastity. How a snake has wrapped one woman in ordr to save her chastity before other men. I like your topic very very much more.
upeshdaa
On December 27, 2009 at 5:19 am
very very interesting one.
Netty net
On April 11, 2010 at 6:01 pm
I had heard of I never saw name in the Bible, I don’t know if for real or not,
Valerie Curtiss
On April 14, 2010 at 10:22 am
There are a lot of books that were “banned from the Bible” if you have ever read any history or know anything about the Bible and how it was created, if you read about these other “book” There is a lot of history that was not included in the Bible.
jothie
On June 25, 2010 at 2:27 am
excellent story. I have also heard it before. I do believe it is real… in hinduism, we believe that the owl is the bearer of death. but even more interesting is the reading about, THE CODEX GIGAS…. said to be the devils bible, it displays the first ever image of the devil. and is absolutely huge! it’s about a metre. and, it is the original. one of its kind
jothie
On June 25, 2010 at 2:28 am
excellent story. I have also heard it before. I do believe it is real… in hinduism, we believe that the owl is the bearer of death. but even more interesting is the reading about, THE CODEX GIGAS…. said to be the devils bible, it displays the first ever image of the devil. and is absolutely huge! it\’s about a metre. and, it is the original. one of its kind
A. Giovanni
On July 16, 2010 at 12:04 am
Very interesting. I’m leaning toward the serpent people theory! The Sumerians have pre-Hebrew stories about hybrid races – part human, part something else.
Great subject matter and well handled in this short article.
janine
On August 29, 2010 at 2:41 am
.. oh !!! this will help me complete my research paper …..
hehe , very intresting …
Hugh
On October 14, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I’ve read this account before of Lilith and it is sexiest; painting Adam to be a chauvinist. This is a poor judgement of the story. It takes two to tango, Lilith made her choice and her choice had nothing to do with ‘lying on the bottom’. We’re talking about the first creations that G-d made. Any sex would have been to a level we can not possibly comprehend. Lilith hates. She accepted the love of another, and couldn’t move on to anything true. She abandoned G-d and light. PTSD and attachement theory begins to explain this. She was abused like a girl to a pimp and couldn’t let go of him. Always, runs back or does his bidding. That is just an inkling of what was really going on. Lilith embraced evil as the way. The Zohar talks about Eve being infused with ‘Zoma’ from the devil to bare Cain. I believe the idea holds true for Lilith as well. But, there’s a difference. Some people are hurt and they use that as an excuse to be cruel to others. Some people are hurt and they become noble leaders caring for the weak.
Sex as we know it, hmh, that’s child’s play. The orgasm these first beings were having they were on a completely different level. Your talking about G-d’s light here.
Arguing about sex, that’s an analogy – raise your game.
Valerie Curtiss
On November 3, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Commenting on Hugh’s comment, fist of all sexist is spelled wrong! Who or what is G_?, are we not able to say GOD? You can’t spell bear either, bare is naked, bearing a child is BEAR. Eve came after Lilith. Lilith was created as was Adam, Eve was created taking a rib from Adam and was part of Adam. Why the heck should an orgasm be different in ancient times than in the present? Sex and domination are two different animals. Man is both mortal (the body we live in) and immortal, the spirit that comes from the light and never dies. The bible is an incomplete book, Constantine when he embraced Christianity along with his “priests” and lawyers rewrote the scriptures embraced salvationism to makeover the scriptures and produce the Bible as we know it today, only saving those “gospels” which suited the rulers in order to control the population as they were converted to Christianity. Read the Lost Books of the Bible, and the papers of the Nag Hammadi Library to see what was discarded, and destroyed as heresy.
Hugh
On March 22, 2011 at 8:29 pm
I prefer the account that when God created ‘man, he’ was something of a hemaphrodite. From a Christian bible ….Genesis 1 verse 27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he himl male and female created he THEM”. In Genesis 2 verse 21 God causes Adam to fall into a deep sleep and then he creates Eve from Adam. The rib and all, this is the Christian view. Another interpretation is that God ’separated’ Adam and Eve…….Adam said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. The Zohar and Talmud intrepret the bible slightly different here. They say that Adam and Eve were one and were spearated and that the English translation of ‘rib’ is not accurate. I won’t get into it here, but the Hebrew/Jewish account is different and very interesting if you care to look it up.
Submission is a two way streak. A man must submit to the woman and a woman must submit to a man. Perhaps the word ’submit’hits a little hard for some, but that’s the idea. Give and take. The common story is that lilith would not lie underneathe Adam during intercourse. The meaning is deeper than simply intercourse, that was the point that i was making.
Writing G-d is a form of respect for the Almighty in Judaism. Not biggie, I wasn’t even thinking when I wrote it like that.