Lilith

Legend of the Demon Queen

lilitu: The Sumerian Lilith
Sources

Legend of the Demon Queen

Who was the first woman? Eve or Lilith?
The Christians know only from their version of the Old Testament Bible that Eve was the first woman created from
Adam's rib [Gen 2.2124]. There is Jewish legend found in rabbinic literature that the first woman was Lilith, who out
of pride, stubbornness and rebellious nature, abandoned Adam, and she was transformed into a demon.
The only one reference to female demon in the Bible's Old Testament, but not explicitly to Lilith is found in the
passage inIsaiah, in regarding to punishing the people of Edom.
And the wildcats shall
meet with the jackals, and
the satyr shall cry to his
fellow; yea, thenight
monstershall repose
there, and shall find her a
place of rest.
Isaiah34:14 (KJV)

With this translation from theKing James' Version(KJV), most people believed that thisnightmonsterwas a female
demon. TheNew Jewish Publication Society(NJPS) is more explicit in mentioning Lilith.
Wildcats shall meet the
hyenas,
Goatdemons shall greet
each other;
There too thelilithshall
repose
And find herself a resting
place.
Isaiah34:14 (NJPS)
There are no other mention of Lilith in the Old Testament. Nor are there mentions of Lilith in any of the apocryphal
and pseudepigraphal writings.
Many scholars now believed that the Genesis has 2 different versions of about the Creation. The style of writing in
Genesis 1 is different to that of Genesis 23. Genesis 23 is written in more storytelling style, being more dramatic
than the 1st chapter. It would seem that Eve was created from Adam's rib, after the 7th day of Creation in Genesis
2:2024. Genesis 1:2628, on the other hand, had both man and woman on the same day the 6th day. It make no
mention of Eden, the creation of man out of earth, and woman out of man's rib. The fact that they were never named
in Genesis 1.
So could this unnamed woman from Genesis 1 actually be the 1st wife of Adam?

Of course this is only impression or interpretation of the text. It is not substantial evidence of the existence of Lilith.
Just because woman is unnamed in Genesis 1, doesn't mean she is Lilith. But the fact that the woman is somewhat a
mystery, Jewish scholars during the Second Temple Period have speculated on the identity of the mystery woman,
enough so to produced a narrative of just that Lilith being the 1st woman.
The rabbinic text that I had mentioned, comes from what the Jews calledHaggada, was used to explain or interpret
the narratives of the Bible. TheHaggadacomprised of the legend from the Creation to Esther. So the Haggada was
actually extracted from JewishTalmudand some part ofMidrash, but without dealing with Jewish law. Writing of
theHaggadabegan in 5th century BC, and continued well into 4th century AD.
The accounts of the Creation and Adam, is actually longer than what is found in the Torah's or the Bible'sGenesis.

Below is a summary about Lilith in theHaggada(Chapter II).

After the Creation of the world and all of the animals, God created Adam out of the dust from the Garden of Eden, he
placed the soul in this physical human body. Adam's soul was actually created on the 1st day of Creation, when the
face of God reflected from the water. Adam had a perfect body beautiful, strong, and in the image of God.
I won't go into more detail about the Fall of Satan, except to say that Satan and his followers refused to bow to the
First Man, and was flung out of heaven.
God saw that Adam was just one human, so he will need a partner to keep him company, but the relationship didn't
last long.
Like Adam, Lilith was created out of the soil. Since she was made out of the same substance as Adam, she regarded
herself as Adam's equal, not inferior in any way to Adam. Lilith demanded equality, because she argued that she
created from the dust of the ground, just like Adam. Adam refusal to accept her as his equal, led to her rejecting and
abandoning him.
According to a medieval text, known asThe Alphabet of Ben Sira(10th century), Lilith refused to lie below when
they were having sex. Lilith refused to the passive and submissive partner. This refusal, however, is not found in
theHaggada.
Speaking God's name, she grew wings and flew away to the Red Sea. In the desert, she had spawned a hundred of
demons. Adam complained to God that his wife had abandoned him, and now he was alone. God commanded angels to
bring Lilith back to Adam. The angels tried to force her to return to Adam, or she would lose her children. Lilith
adamantly refused to live with Adam.
She took her revenge by killing human babies; boys when they are only a day old, while girls up to 20 days old. The
only way to ward her off, was to adorn each baby with an amulet with the names of three angels; the same three
angels who had confronted Lilith.
So, God created another woman for Adam Eve. Like in theGenesis, God created her from Adam's rib.

Lilith reappeared in Chapter III of the Haggada, where it listed the descendants of Adam and Lilith.
After the murder of his son, Abel, by his elder son, Cain, Adam refused to sleep with Eve. Adam deserted Eve, rather
than fathers another child that would die. During the nights, Lilith visited him and mated with him while he slept, and
she bore him countless demons that would beset the world.

Genealogy of Adam, Eve and Lilith, according to theHaggada.

It wasn't until he was 130 year of age, when Adam returned to Eve, and she bore to him another son Seth. The
Genesis does mention Adam and Eve had other children, but the number and their names are not given. According

toBook of Jubilees, Adam had nine other sons after the fratricide, including Seth. Unlike the Genesis, theJubileesalso
mentioned a couple of daughters of Adam wn (eldest) and Azr; there are most likely to be a number of other
daughters, but we are not certain of number nor their names. Cain took wn as his wife, while Seth married Azr.
It was said that after the translation of Enoch to heaven, God's favourite patriarch became an archangel, named
Metatron; it was left to Methuselah, his son, to get rid of all the demons that were descendants of demons that Adam
had unknowingly begotten on Lilith.
Methuselah had used the sword with God's name etched on the blade. Methuselah slay 94 demons, before Agrimus, the
firstborn demon of Lilith, surrendered to the great patriarch. Methuselah placed all the demonkings in iron fetters,
while the lesser demons or imps fled and hid in the deepest ocean.
As you can see, the TalmudicHaggada, contained many details that were not included in theGenesisof the Hebrew
Torah and in Christian Bible. There are other references to Lilith.
According to theHaggada(vol. 2, chapter 3) about Job, it was Lilith who killed his oxen and his asses, when Satan
went to test Job's piety and loyalty to God. The text referred Lilith to as the Queen of Sheba.
In volume 4, chapter 2 (in regarding to Joshua), Lilith was mentioned with another shedevil Mahlah. Who is Mahlah,
I have not yet being able to determine, but I did find that she can go by her full name Agrat bat Mahlah.
In the Haggada (volume 1, Naamah, daughter of Lamech, sister of TubalCain, and descendant of Cain, was one of the
women who had copulated with Shamdon, one of the Fallen Watchers (seeEnoch & the Watchers, where you will find
more detail about Naamah), the angels that had come to earth to take mortal women as wives. Naamah became
mother of demon Asmodeus.
And in chapter 5 (vol. 4) about Solomon, he suspected that the Queen of Sheba was a demoness. When the Queen of
Sheba looked at the floor, she thought the king had a throne sitting on water. The Queen lifted her dressed and walked
towards the king's dais, and the glass on the floor revealed that she has hairy feet a sign of demoness.

The Mishnah alluded to is

short and simple, viz,
Where is it taught that a
ship is clean to the touch?
From Prov. xxx. 19, "The
way of a ship in the midst
of the sea" (i. e., as the sea
is clean to the touch,
therefore a ship must also
be clean to the touch).
It is indiscreet for one to
sleep in a house as the sole
occupant, for Lilith will
seize hold of him.
Shabbath, fol. 151, col. 2.
Lilith (the nightvisiting
one) is the name of a night
spectre, said to have been
Adam's first wife, but who,
for her refractory conduct,
was transformed into a
demon endowed with
power to injure and even
destroy infants
unprotected by the
necessary amulet or
charm.
"Thou hast acknowledged
the Lord this day to be thy
God; and the Lord hath
acknowledged thee this day

to be His peculiar people"

(Deut. xxvi. 17, 18). The
Holy Oneblessed be He!
said unto Israel, "Ye have
made Me a name in the
world, as it is written
(Deut. vi. 4), 'Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God is
one Lord;' and so I will
make you a name in the
world, as it is said (1
Chron. xvii. 21), 'And what
one nation in the earth is
like Thy people Israel?'"
Chaggigah, fol. 3, col. 1.
Talmud, The Talmud, the
Midrashim, and Kabbala

lilitu: The Sumerian Lilith

The antecedent of Lilith is the female demons known from Mesopotamian legends aslilorlilitu.
In one of the Sumerian poems of Gilgamesh,Gilgames and the Netherworld, there is a prologue about Inanna (the
AkkadianBabylonian Ishtar) and her willow tree.
The solitary willow tree (halubtree) 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 (SnakethatKnowsnoCharm). There was a Thunderbird
(Anzud bird) had a nest on the branch with young. And there was also phantom maid or DemonMaiden (lilitu?) that
made her home at the trunk.
It is this DemonMaiden or phantom maid, which some had translated from lilitu (Lilith). Like in the passage of biblical
Isaiah, the poem doesn't give any name to the shedemon. The DemonMaiden laughed happily because the goddess
was powerless to remove these vermins.
'...in its trunk a Demon
Maiden had built her
home.' The maiden who
laughs with happy heart,
holy Inanna was weeping.
Gilgames and the
Netherworld, 8789
translated by Andrew
George
The goddess first appealed to her father, An (Anu), the Sky God, for help, but he refused. She also appealed to her
brother, Utu (Shamash), the Sun God, but no help was forthcoming from him.
Finally she appealed to Gilgames (Gilgamesh), as her brother. With his axe, the hero smote the SnakethatKnowsno
Charm. Thunderbird seeing danger, gathered its brood and flew to the mountains. As to the Lilith (lilitu)....

...in its trunk the Demon

Maiden abandoned her
home, and fled to the
wastelands.
Gilgames and the
Netherworld, 142143
translated by Andrew
George

Lilith also resembled the cannibal monster, known asLamia, from the Greek myth, who preyed on children at night.
She was a lover of Zeus, but went insane when Hera killed her baby. Lamia snatched other babies from their cribs,
before devouring them.

Sources
InternetSacredTextArchive

Haggada
TheLegendsoftheJews(Haggada)
trans.byLouisGinzberg,1909
InternetSacredTextArchive
ThistextisknowninHebrewastheHaggada.TheHaggadaispartoftheTalmudicliterature
containingthenarrativefromtheCreationtothetimeofEsther.Mostofitisparalleltothe
narrativeoftheHebrewBibleandtheChristianOldTestamentBible.TheHaggadafollowed
closelytotheGenesis,butitcontainedalotofinterpretationthatcanbeusedtosupplement
detailsorextralegendthatarelackingintheGenesis.ItisintheHaggadathatwecanfindthe
legendofLilith.

Bible
InternetSacredTextArchive
Bible:KingJames'Version
NJPS/index.htm"target="_blank">NewJewishPublicationSociety
(HebrewBibletranslationofTanakh)
Herearethefollowingtextsusedfromthisbible:
Genesis14
Isaiah34.14

GoodNewsBible:TodayEnglishVersion
UnitedBibleSocieties
1976reprinted1986
Herearethefollowingtextsusedfromthisbible:
Genesis14
Isaiah34.14

Genesis
Tanakh:ANewTranslationoftheHolyScriptures
AccordingtotheTraditionalHebrewText
TheNewJewishPublicationSociety1985
Genesis14
Isaiah34.14

TheApocryphaandPseudepigraphaoftheOldTestament
trans.byR.H.Charles
Oxford:ClarendonPress,1913(2vols)
ThoughtherearenomentionofLilithanythesetext,theBookofJubileehasgenealogythat
mentiondaughtersofAdamandEve,aswellaswivesofmanypatriarchs.
Fortunately,copiesofthesetranslationscanalsobefoundinacoupleofwebsites.
AtWesleyCollege,Ihaveusedthefollowingworksasmysourcesfromtheabovesite:
BookofJubilee
BookofEnoch(1Enoch)
BookoftheSecretsofEnoch(2Enoch)

GilgamesandtheNetherworld,p142143
TheEpicofGilgamesh
trans.byAndrewGeorge
PenguinClassics,1999
TheantecedentofLilithcanbefoundintheSumerianpoemsofGilgamesh,inGilgamesandthe
Netherworld.

MythsFromMesopotamia
StephanieDalley
Oxford'sWorldClassics,1989

Gilgamec,Enkiduandthenetherworld
trans.byKrecher,JoachimandJagersma
TheElectronicTextCorpusofSumerianLiterature

TheAlphabetofBenSira
translatedbyNormanBronznick
fromLilith(http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/Lilith/lilith.html)
(TherearealsoanothernumberoftranslationfromdifferentsourcesaboutLilith.)