The Case for Lilith

  Of all the ancient Jewish myths, the story of Lilith is undoubtedly the most fascinating.  According to her legend Lilith was  the first wife of Adam.  But she was a failed mate who rebelled against her husband and fled from the garden to become  the mother of demons.  Her legend has influenced more modern monster mythologies than any other Jewish myth.  Her  tale was not only the original source material for medieval beliefs in succubae and night-hags, but as the mother of  estries she also lies at the root of modern vampire lore.  Her creation story also fueled ancient Jewish notions about  Golems, and has thus helped inspired the modern version of this myth, Frankenstein.  Although Lilith is not widely known  amongst those normally considered well versed in scripture, given the validity of her legend, her prominence in the  Bible more than matches her prominence in modern monster mythologies..  As we shall see, Lilith is the first Sotah, the  archetype of the adulterous wife who turned aside from her husband and who was subjected to the supernatural bitter  water trial.  She is the Serpent who caused Adam and Eve to fall.  She and her seed are the chess pieces of Lucifer’s  struggle against God and man.  Her firstborn, Azazel, is the infamous seed of the Serpent.  He is locked in epic battle with  the promised seed of Eve.  Due to his exalted position Azazel plays a prominent role in Israel’s Yom Kippur ceremony.   He is the recipient of the sacrificial scapegoat, or literally, the goat “to Azazel”.  There are intriguing evidences that in  her quest to conceive Azazel Lilith was responsible for bringing upon the earth the race of Nephilim, the giant offspring  of angels and women, and as such she was the ultimate cause for Noah’s flood. 

  According to commonly known versions of her legend, Lilith was created by God from the soil of the earth at the same  time as Adam.  She was intended as Adam’s mate, but Lilith was rebellious against her husband.  She quarreled  continuously with Adam and refused to sexually submit to him from an inferior position below.  At her rebellion’s  culmination she unleashed her long hair and shouted the ineffable name of God.  She thereby supernaturally sprouted  wings and took flight from the garden.  After her departure Adam became lonely and sought to recover his errant wife.  At  his behest Jehovah sent three angels to return her.  They found Lilith in the midst of the Red Sea.  But she refused to  return with them.  She chose instead to become the mother of demons.  She did this not only by mating with demons, but  by also stealing semen from men at night while they slept.  Because of Lilith’s refusal, the angels cursed her that every  day 100 of her demon seed would die, and for Adam God created Eve as a replacement for his rebellious mate.  In  revenge Lilith resolved that she would visit Eve’s children in childbirth and kill those whom she found were not  protected by the names of the three angels.   

 As we shall see, there are deeper mysteries to Lilith’s legend that may be derived from a careful study of the Biblical  text.  These details confirm tenets held by the Zohar of Kabalah concerning Lilith.  The Zohar is perhaps the most  important book on Lilith outside of the Bible.  The Zohar explains Lilith’s rebellious nature.  It states that after God had  formed Adam’s and Lilith’s bodies from the earth, Lilith became animated by the defective light of Lucifer, whereas Adam  became animated by the holy spark of God’s perfect light.  From Genesis it is apparent that Lucifer’s defective light  entered Lilith through a defiling mist which erupted from the ground and watered her body.  This preempted God’s spirit  in animating her.  Therefore Lilith is said to be created from filth and sediment, whereas Adam is said to be created from  dry dust, as he was untouched by the defiling mist.  He was animated by God’s perfect light that entered him with the  breath of God’s holy spirit filled his nostrils. 

  According to the Zohar and numerous Biblical evidences, Lilith later returned to the garden under the title of the  Serpent.  Genesis reveals that the Serpent Lilith deceived Eve into eating of the forbidden tree and thereby caused her  and Adam to fall.  Because of this God cursed the Serpent Lilith and her seed.  He declared that a doomed rivalry would  exist between Lilith and Eve and between their seed.  Lilith would bruise the heal of Eve’s seed, but Eve’s seed would  crush the head of Lilith.  Lilith being identified as the Serpent also links her to Leviathan, which Job 26 and Isa 27  describe as a winged serpent fleeing before God.  Leviathan is commonly held to refer to the Serpent of Eden, and thus  Lilith.  From a study of Leviathan we learn again that Lucifer is intimately fused with Lilith, and that Lilith was created in  the same fashion as Adam.  She was a golem fashioned from the dust of the earth and animated by Lucifer’s defective light.

  Lilith’s legend is ancient and preceeds Judaism.  Her first mention is found in a Sumerian king list which dates from  about 2400 BCE.   That list states that the father of the great hero Gilgamesh was a Lillu demon.  The first substantial  written record of Lilith comes in the epic Gilgamesh and the Huluppu Tree (circa 2000 BCE).  In that epic the demoness  Lilith and a snake haunt a great tree situated in a holy garden of the gods.  As we shall see later, this tale has strong  parallels with Genesis’ story of the garden of Eden and tree of knowledge of good and evil.   

 Lilith appears by name only once in the Bible.  This comes in Isaiah 34, which describes her as a bird like demon who  dwells in an utterly desolate land once at the ocean’s floor.  She is intimately fused with a snake, and she is a killer of  younglings.  There is also a reference to Lilith in Proverbs 30 under the title of Alukah.  Proverbs’ heavily mystic  passages speak of two types of barren women given over to the power of Alukah .  Alukah serves as a source of cursing  and death to one barren woman and the catalyst in granting a promised seed to the other.  As we shall see, Alukah has  strong parallels to the cursing agent in the bitter water trial of the Sotah.  According to the Zohar this agent is the spirit  of Lilith.  In the Middle Ages legends became prevalent that Alukah was the mother of estries – female bird-like winged  monsters whom were said to devour children and drink their blood.  Esteries are the earliest known incarnations of the  modern vampire legend, and their similarity to Lilith are obvious.   

 Lilith makes a handful of appearances in the Talmud (circa 400 CE).  Her mentions are painfully brief, as the writers  assume she is known entity to the reader.  One Talmudic writer warns that she comes in secret at night to men in their  sleep, much like a succubus or night hag, to steal semen from them.  Another writer holds that she stole semen from  Adam in such a manner, and with this she inseminated her first seed.   

 Lilith’s legend struck a cord in medieval Christian circles.  Michelangelo depicted Lilith as the Serpent in his famous  paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and she is likewise depicted as the tempting Serpent in a carving on the  Notre Dame cathedral in France.  Lilith appears in many other artworks of the era as the Serpent.  

  

 Lilith Tempting Adam and Eve "The Fall of Man and the Expulsion From Paradise" Michelangelo - Sistine Chapel Vatican

   Lilith Tempting Adam and Eve Notre Dame Cathedral  

  Most people acquainted with the Bible consider Lilith’s legend as merely a colorful and interesting fictional myth with no  Biblical basis.  This is certainly an understandable position, as the legend’s version of early events in the garden appear  completely incongruous with the plain written record of Genesis as it is commonly known.  Yet, if there is such scant evidence  for Lilith, how could the rabbis of the Talmud and Zohar teach her existence?  These writers are the most learned and  sophisticated Jewish scholars over the last two thousand years.  On what basis did these most sage experts adopt ideas that  appear in conflict with the plain Biblical record?  As we shall see, the plain Biblical record is perhaps not so plain afterall.   There is actually numerous textual evidences in Genesis supporting most of Lilith’s legend.  This evidence lies in the literal  Hebrew of the account and the logical deductions that may be therefore derived by applying the literal wording.  This Genesis  evidence supports all the essential facets of Lilith’s legend, such as why she is said to be created from mud and muck, and not  dust like Adam.  It also identifies her as the Serpent.  The analysis by which this evidence will be developed in this section is  probably much the same means by which the ancient rabbis originally concluded details of her legend.  Based solely on Biblical  evidence, this analysis makes a strong case for Lilith.  And the details of her history and nature surmised from the analysis is  remarkably in sync which her most ancient legends, both Jewish and non-Jewish.


  I have found that a coherent collection of Biblical arguments supporting the case for Lilith has been heretofore non existent in  the public domain.  In fact, the only argument usually put forward - that Genesis speaks of two creation accounts of a man and  woman - is almost always presented in an outrageously flawed manner.  The faulty argument generally follows the notion that  none of the creation events described in Ge 2 are a recap or retelling of creation events that happened in Ge 1.  Thus the  reasoning goes, when Ge 1:26-29 speaks of the creation of a man and woman and Ge 2:18-22 then speaks of the creation of  Eve, the two passages must refer to different events.  This simplistic argument is based on outrageously faulty logic.  If all of  Ge 2 was read as documenting new events not specified in Ge 1, then Ge 2:7 would imply there are also two Adams!   Furthermore, there would be two whole planets, each with its own ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere!  We must recognize that  parts of Genesis 2 do recap Genesis 1, and the Lilith argument must be put forth with more care and much more rigor.

 Critics of the Lilith legend could argue that if the Lilith legend was true, then why is her existence in Genesis so tenuously  written that simply misinterpreting a few verses makes her seemingly disappear from the account.  While it is true that for  mystical reasons much of Genesis’ early accounts of Lilith seem to have been written so as to purposely obscure her role, in  Genesis’ later text she does play a very prominent and overt role as the Serpent of Eden.  The Serpent is second in  prominence only to Adam himself in the early chapters of Genesis. (The prominence of the Serpent in early Genesis is demonstrated in  several ways.  The Serpent is the first speaking character other than Adam (Ge 3:1).  The Serpent also has a more dominate role than Eve based on the  number of words each speaks and the number of words spoken to each.  The Serpent speaks 26 Hebrew words compared to Eve’s 22.  The Serpent also  receives more attention from God.  The curses God heaps upon the Serpent consist of 33 Hebrew words.  The curses God inflicts upon Eve takes a mere 13  words.)   We shall see that there is strong textual evidence in Genesis that the Serpent can be safely identified as Lilith.   Perhaps the most indisputable evidence is the parallels between God’s curses upon the Serpent and upon Eve.  Part of the  Serpent’s curse is that it and its seed would be locked in enemity with Eve and her seed, and that although the Serpent would  wound Eve’s seed, Eve’s seed would crush the head of the Serpent.  This curse clearly establishes that the Serpent plays the  role of a rival to Eve.  Thus the Serpent is implied to be a woman.  This notion is strongly reinforced by the parallelism between  the curses of the Serpent and Eve to the bitter water trial.  The Serpent, in the role of the defiled Sotah, eats dust and is  cursed in her belly, and she shall be slain by the innocent seed.  Eve, as the innocent woman in trial, shall endure pain in  childbirth, but shall be saved by her seed.  There is also evidence that the Hebrew for “serpent”, nachash, cannot indicate a  snake, but rather implies the serpent was a human inhabited by demonic spirits.  Job 26:13 and Isa 27:1 identify the Serpent  (under the title of Leviathan) as fleeing upon wings.  This is certainly suggestive of the Lilith legend.  Furthermore, Job 26:13  implies that the Serpent was created in a manner similar to Adam, that it was fashioned and formed from the dust of the earth  into a golem like Adam.  This also supports the Serpent’s identity as Lilith.