It Is Necessary For Jehovah To Make A New Partner For Adam
When Jehovah realized that it was necessary to make another partner for Adam because he could not convince Lilith to return, he began to fashion another partner for Adam and allowed the first man to watch her creation. Jehovah used bones, muscles, tissues, blood, and organs to create Adams new helpmate. This time, Jehovah also ensured that the woman was made from pure dust.
When he had finished, the new woman was called the First Eve and was presented to Adam. Even though the First Eve was incredibly beautiful, Adam could not bear to look at her because of his disgust and nausea from watching her be put together. Jehovah realized that he should not have allowed Adam to watch his creation process and took the First Eve away. No one knows what happened to her.
The Third Times A Charm
Realizing the mistake that he had made, Jehovah waited until Adam had fallen asleep and took one of Adams ribs. He used this rib to fashion the new woman creating her both in his and Adams image. When he had finished creating the new woman, he braided her hair and dressed her as a bride with 24 pieces of jewelry. When he had finished, he brought this new woman to Adam. The first man was immediately taken with Eves beauty and made a union with her.
Their happiness did not last long, however. Soon, the evil serpent entered the Garden of Eden and tempted Adam and Eve into eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Although many in modern day identify this serpent as Satan or Lucifer, there are some ancient texts that claim Lilith was responsible for tempting the two and having them cast out of Jehovahs favor. This raises questions as to whether Lilith is an alternative identity for Satan.
Furthermore, because Lilith had left the Garden of Eden long before Adam and Eves fall, it is known that Lilith is not subjected to death. This factor likely plays into her being perceived as either a demoness or dark goddess by cultures throughout the world.
The Depictions Of Lilith Today
Depictions of her varied from a beautiful woman to a more sinister demon, and some even saw her as the snake in the Garden of Eden who tempted Eve with the forbidden fruit as one final act of revenge.
As time went on, there were folktales at saw Lilith as a demon Queen and thus related to Asmodeus, who many consider being the king of demons.
Asmodeus being mentioned in the book of Tobit, the Talmud and numerous other scriptures means its not a huge surprise that Lilith and he were paired together as the mother and father of demons.
Together, they had thousands of demon children and travelled from village to village causing chaos and destruction.
In some stories, shes also closely linked to Samael, who himself is a rather odd character. Some teachings in the cabal go as far as to say that Lilith was Samaels consort and that it was not God who created her, but instead, Samael who made himself a demon wife, who filled the role later intended for Eve. He also gave her a host of demonic children, one of these being Asmodeus who we mentioned earlier.
Throughout all these stories, there are three main signs of Lilith.
The woman who rebelled against God and Adamwhich is the side we see the least of.The seductive demoness who plagued the dreams of men to grow her demonic family and,Lastly, the monster who preyed upon pregnant women devouring their children.
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Lilith In The Alphabet Of Ben Sira
The earliest depiction of Lilith as the first wife of Adam is in the Medieval text “The Alphabet of Ben Sira” written between 700 100 A.D, which is believed to be satirical in nature, makes references to incest, masturbation, and flatulence, but is best known for its twist on the creation story found in Genesis:
While God created Adam, who was alone, He said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone’ . He also created a woman, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, ‘I will not lie below,’ and he said, ‘I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.’ Lilith responded ‘We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.’ But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: ‘Sovereign of the universe!’ he said, ‘the woman you gave me has run away.’ At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels to bring her back.
The Arslan Tash Amulets
The Arslan Tash amulets are limestone plaques discovered in 1933 at Arslan Tash, the authenticity of which is disputed. William F. Albright, Theodor H. Gaster, and others, accepted the amulets as a pre-Jewish source which shows that the name Lilith already existed in the 7th century BC but Torczyner identified the amulets as a later Jewish source.
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Lilith As Adams First Wife
Scholars are not certain where the character of Lilith comes from, though many believe she was inspired by Sumerian myths about female vampires called Lillu or Mesopotamian myths about succubae called lilin. Lilith is mentioned four times in the Babylonian Talmud, but it is not until the Alphabet of Ben Sira that the character of Lilith is associated with the first version of Creation. In this medieval text, Ben Sira names Lilith as Adams first wife and presents a full account of her story.
According to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith was Adams first wife but the couple fought all the time. They didnt see eye-to-eye on matters of sex because Adam always wanted to be on top while Lilith also wanted a turn in the dominant sexual position. When they could not agree, Lilith decided to leave Adam. She uttered Gods name and flew into the air, leaving Adam alone in the Garden of Eden. God sent three angels after her and commanded them to bring her back to her husband by force if she would not come willingly. But when the angels found her by the Red Sea they were unable to convince her to return and could not force her to obey them. Eventually, a strange deal is struck, wherein Lilith promised not to harm newborn children if they are protected by an amulet with the names of the three angels written on it:
How To Protect Your Child From Lilith
Long before the final version of the Lilith story congealed in the Alphabet of Ben Sirah, Lilith could be found in magical inscriptions on bowls and amulets meant to drive away the demoness from as early as the sixth century A.D. These talismans invoke the names of the angels Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, or sometimes the prophet Elijah, in order to protect young children from the grasp of Lilith. These amulets are mentioned in the Ben Sirah, and in fact, the story probably exists to give a more religious justification for the otherwise pretty superstition-and-magic-heavy amulets. The three angels are also found depicted on walls of childrens rooms, charms, and other talismans, in which they are portrayed as somewhat fearsome beasts themselves, with roosters heads and snakes in place of legs. Others depict Lilith as bound in chains and helpless surrounded by the names of various Jewish patriarchs and luminaries. Some of the invocations found in bowls that were inscribed with the purpose of driving Lilith out of the house were written in the form of divorce papers, which is, you know, a choice.
The need to protect children from Lilith was so prevalent an idea that some people argue that the word lullaby actually derives from the words written on the amulets hung on the walls of infants: Lilith, abi! which means Lilith, begone!
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How Lilith Became A Demon
So far, we can see two distinct images of Liliththe woman and the demonbut what happened in this middle ground from when she was created up until she became a demon?
Stories explaining this were developed in much more detail around the Middle Ages, so from the 5th century to the 15th. The tales of Ben Sira and the alphabet of Sirach are pieces of work that echo a sentiment that many scholars and scribes seem to agree upon.
When Adam and Lilith were created, neither one of them wanted to submit to the other. To some, this just meant who assumed the dominant role in the relationship, whereas others took this to mean neither one wanted to assume the bottom position during sex, as it was a sign of subservience.
With neither one of them willing to compromise, Lilith then fled the Garden of Eden, out loud she then pronounced Gods real name, and in doing so, she instantly became a winged demon.
When the Angels pursued her, in the hopes of bringing her back, she told them she had no intention of returning.
As punishment for her disobedience, the three angels who found her promised to kill 100 of her demon children every dayher purpose now was only to cause illness and sickness to the infants of others.
The lack of information regarding her origin is made up for by how popular her story was. The Middle Ages mark this period like no other with numerous telling and interpretations.
Two Biblical Creation Stories Which Came First
Before we look at the ways in which the Adam and Eve story is echoed in other myth traditions, it’s worth noting that Adam and Eve is actually one of two distinct creation stories in the Bible. Thury explains that the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible was edited together from different authors writing centuries apart.
The first creation story starts with the immortal phrase, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In that account, which comprises Chapter 1 of Genesis, God labors for six days to create the sun and moon, the land and sea, and plants and animals. On the last day, he creates human beings in his own image: “male and female he created them.”
Chapter 2 of Genesis, which contains the Adam and Eve story, seems like a continuation of the creation account from Chapter 1, but it’s actually very different. In this second creation story, God forms the first man before creating any other animal, and when God finds no suitable “helper” for the man from the animal kingdom, he fashions the first woman from one of the man’s ribs.
“There are two creation stories in Genesis which don’t fit together at all,” says Thury. “In one of them, human beings are all made at the same time, and in the second one man is made first and woman second. It probably reflects the views of the culture in which they were written.”
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Enter The Serpent A Classic ‘trickster’ Figure
In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, God places his human creations in the Garden of Eden, and tells them they can freely eat of every tree of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for when you eat from it you will certainly die,”God warns.
Then along comes the serpent, more cunning than other animals , and asks Eve what God said about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When she repeats the prohibition against eating its fruit, the serpent scoffs, “You will not certainly die … For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So Eve, seeking wisdom, takes a bite of the forbidden fruit and gives some to her husband, Adam. As the serpent promised, they don’t die and their eyes are indeed opened to the existence of good, evil and shame . But as punishment for breaking God’s commandment, they are expelled from the garden into our fallen world of pain and toil.
Later Christian theologians cast Satan in the role of the serpent, but to the ancient authors of Genesis, the snake represented an even older mythological figure: the trickster. In mythology, a trickster is a slippery figure who inhabits both the heavenly and earthly realms and refuses to play by anyone’s rules. Loki is the infamous trickster of Norse mythology and Anansi is the trickster of many African myths.
Lilith In The Bablyonian Talmud
The few references to Lilith in rabbinic literature point to a figure very much like the female lilith of the incantation bowls. Rabbi Hanina refers to the sexual danger that the lilith constitutes for men: It is forbidden to sleep in a house alone, and whoever sleeps in a house alone, a lilith seizes him. Two other references to the lilith point to her physical appearance: she has wings and long hair. Drawings of the liliths or demons on the incantation bowls bear out these details of physical appearance. Rav Judah said in the name of Samuel: An abortion with the likeness of a lilith, its mother is impure because of the birth, for it is a child, but it has wings .
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Book Excerpt: Adams First Wife Wasnt Eve But Lilith Heres Why They Broke Up
If we look back at how it all began, we find that, worldwide, sex and gender issues have been expressed in oral traditions such as myths and origin stories, fairytales, animal fables, love poems or cradle songs and proverbs. Such oral wisdom, transmitted from generation to generation, represents a fascinating cultural history. Proverbs, the worlds smallest literary genre, are a most telling part of that serial narrative about humankind. They are our main topic here, but a first brief look into how men and women came into being, as presented in creation myths is an illuminating point of entry.
An oral narrative from the Congolese Kuba people tells of how, in the beginning, God has a sick stomach. He feels so ill that his whole body aches and he begins to throw up. He creates everything from his insides, by vomiting all the plants, trees, animals, and human beings, one after the other onto the earth.
Apparently, being on top during sexual intercourse is an enviable position of power. In Tanzania I recently attended a discussion about who was entitled to have the couples children after divorce, the husband or the wife. Most men insisted that it ought to be the husband, and one of their half-joking arguments was that it is the man who is physically on top when the children are being made. The main conclusion of the Lilith story is that equality between men and women is not such a good idea.
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Lilith And The Biblical Story Of Creation
The biblical book of Genesis contains two contradictory accounts of humanitys creation. The first account is known as the Priestly version and appears in Genesis 1:26-27. Here, God fashions man and woman simultaneously when the text reads: So God created mankind in the divine image, male and female God created them.
The second account of Creation is known as the Yahwistic version and is found in Genesis 2. This is the version of Creation that most people are familiar with. God creates Adam, then places him in the Garden of Eden. Not long afterwards, God decides to make a companion for Adam and creates the animals of the land and sky to see if any of them are suitable partners for the man. God brings each animal to Adam, who names it before ultimately deciding that it is not a suitable helper. God then causes a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and while the man is sleeping God fashions Eve from his side. When Adam awakes he recognizes Eve as part of himself and accepts her as his companion.
Not surprisingly, the ancient rabbis noticed that two contradictory versions of Creation appear in the book of Genesis . They solved the discrepancy in two ways:
Although the tradition of two wives two Eves appears early on, this interpretation of Creations timeline was not associated with the character of Lilith until the medieval period, as we shall see in the next section.
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Her Name Isn’t Mentioned Directly In The Bible
Lilith appears in the Bible only once, and it’s not even by name. In Isaiah 34:14, the author refers to the “night bird,””night monster,” or “nocturnal creature,” depending on which translation of the Bible you’re reading.
When the Book of Isaiah mentions a nefarious night creature living among the ruins, Biblical scholars believe the passage is referring to Lilith. Later translations of the Bible have
Lilitu: The Sumerian Lilith
The antecedent of Lilith is the female demons known from Mesopotamian legends as lilû or lilitu.
In one of the Sumerian poems of Gilgamesh, Gilgames and the Netherworld, there is a prologue about Inanna and her willow tree.
The solitary willow tree was on the bank of the river Euphrates, when it was uprooted by a very fierce storm. Inanna found the tree floating down the Euphrates, so she picked up tree from the water, and planted the tree in Uruk. She did so because she could later use the timber to make her pure throne and pure bed. Inanna had used her foot to plant the tree and water it with care.
Though the tree had grown stout and its bark had not split, it was infested with evil vermin. There was snake at the base or roots, which she could not remove with any spell . There was a Thunderbird had a nest on the branch with young. And there was also phantom maid or Demon-Maiden that made her home at the trunk.
It is this Demon-Maiden or phantom maid, which some had translated from lilitu . Like in the passage of biblical Isaiah, the poem doesnt give any name to the she-demon. The Demon-Maiden laughed happily because the goddess was powerless to remove these vermins.
Gilgames and the Netherworld
The goddess first appealed to her father, An , the Sky God, for help, but he refused. She also appealed to her brother, Utu , the Sun God, but no help was forthcoming from him.
Gilgames and the Netherworld
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