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.
According to earlier legend sof Sumero-Babylonian origin dating from around 3,500 BCE, she was a winged female demon who kills infants and endangers women in childbirth. She was closely related to Lamashtu whose particular evil also included killing children, drinking the blood of man, and eating their flesh. Lamashtu also caused pregnant women to miscarry, disturbed sleep and caused nightmares. There is another Libyan serpent goddess, Lamia who also killed children. She too was beautiful and seduced young men. Lamia is given also as a translation of the Hebrew Lilith, as well as screech owl or monster. All of these demonic women were thought to be the cause of sudden infant death syndrome, for which there was no explanation then or even now. Because of her beauty and lustfulness, these night demons were also useful as an explanation for wet dreams. Lilith was considered a whore. It was also said that she first was the mate of Samuel. But it is also written that she was mate of Samael (satan) and therefore was the Queen of the demons. Eve was portrayed as naïve and sexless and Lilith as a calculating seductress and evil.
The Old Testament mentioned Lilith only once as in the Darby version of Isaiah 34:14, “after the land had turned into a wilderness, there shall the beasts of the desert meet with the jackals and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow, the Lilith also shall settle there and find for herself a place there.” The Isaiah verse locates her in desolate places. The Bible verse thus links Lilith directly to the demon of the Gilgamesh epic who flees “to the desert.” Some sources state that after her desert stay near the red sea, she returned to Adam and had children, but before doing so, she attaches herself to Cain and bears him numerous spirits and demons. She also has a place in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the poem “Song for a Sage” as a demon who strikes without warning, and “leads astray the spirit of understanding, and to make desolate their heart.” Again, this could be reference to the cause of sudden death in infants.
The word Lilith is also translated as screech owl, a bird of prey that flies at night. Although not recognized in the Christian tradition, she has been identified with the serpent in Genesis, and is portrayed in many images with Adam and Eve as the serpent/woman, the seductress who beguiled Eve to eat the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Although Lilith has figured in writings and art of the ancient Hittites, ancient Egypt, Israel and Greece for over 4000 years, she only makes the one solitary appearance in the Bible.
From being portrayed as a female night demon, a seductress, and evil throughout all the ancient folklore of the earth, over the centuries, the name Lilith is now being celebrated as the ideal of female fighting courage and strength, allowing women the ability to survive, and be independent in today’s complicated and troubled World.
Adam, Eve and Lilith A 15th Century Illuminated Manuscript
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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.