Lilith is a female Mesopotamian night demon believed to harm male children. In Isaiah 34:14, Lilith (לִּילִית, Standard Hebrew Lilit) is a kind of night-demon or animal, translated as onokentauros; in the Septuagint, as lamia; "witch" by Hieronymus of Cardia; and as screech owl in the King James Version of the Bible. In the Talmud and Midrash, Lilith appears as a night demon. She is often identified as the first wife of Adam, a legend that arose in the Middle Ages.
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Lilith as Adam's first wife
The passage in Genesis 1:27 — "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (before describing a mate being made of Adam's rib and being called Eve in Genesis 2:22) is sometimes believed to be an indication that Adam had a wife before Eve.
A medieval reference to Lilith as the first wife of Adam is the anonymous The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, written sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries. Lilith is described as refusing to assume a subservient role to Adam during sexual intercourse and so deserting him ("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 promptly uttered the name of God, took to the air, and left the Garden, settling on the Red Sea coast.
Lilith then went on to mate with Asmodeus and various other demons she found beside the Red Sea, creating countless lilin. Adam urged God to bring Lilith back, so three angels were dispatched after her. When the angels, Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, made threats to kill one hundred of Lilith's demonic children for each day she stayed away, she countered that she would prey eternally upon the descendants of Adam and Eve, who could be saved only by invoking the names of the three angels. She did not return to Adam.
The background and purpose of The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is unclear. It is a collection of stories about heroes of the Bible and Talmud, it may have been a collection of folk-tales, a refutation of Christian, Karaite, or other separatist movements; its content seems so offensive to contemporary Jews that it was even suggested that it could be an anti-Jewish satire [1], although, in any case, the text was accepted by the Jewish mystics of medieval Germany.
The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is the earliest surviving source of the story, and the conception that Lilith was Adam's first wife became only widely known with the 17th century Lexicon Talmudicum of Johannes Buxtorf.
In the late 19th century, the Scottish Christian author George MacDonald incorporated the story of Lilith as Adam's first wife and predator of Eve's children into a mythopoeic fantasy novel in the Romantic style.
The role of Lilith as Adam's faithless wife has parallels with the ideas about Eve herself in the Unification theology of Sun Myung Moon.
Modern magic
An 18th or 19th century Persian amulet, a protective charm for a newborn boy, kept in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, depicts Lilith in chains, with "Bind Lilith in chains" written under each arm.
Lilith appears as a succubus in Aleister Crowley's De Arte Magica.
Lilith in popular culture
- The title of the Lilith Fair was taken from the legend of Lilith as Adam's first wife, honoring her modern image as a feminist icon.
- George MacDonald's seminal fantasy Lilith (1895) builds upon the notion of Lilith as both Adam's first wife and the epitome of a creature in need of Divine redemption.
- In C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the central antagonist, the White Witch, is said to be a descendant of Lilith.
- In the roleplaying game Vampire: The Masquerade, Lilith is said to be the first wife of Adam who was cursed by God for her insubordination and thus became the first vampire who later imparted her knowledge to an outcast Caine.
- In the roleplaying game In Nomine, Lilith was Adam's first wife who exercised her Free Will to leave the Garden of Eden, and was later offered power by Lucifer in exchange for her ability to create the Lilim, a band of demon that only she can create. Although a human, she holds the rank of Demon Princess. She holds the word of Freedom, and is the only human known to be word-bound.
- In Neil Gaiman's long running comic book series The Sandman, Lilith is mentioned as Adam's first wife. One of her offspring (the Lilim) "Mazikeen" is a companion of Lucifer Morningstar (Sandman #23,p. 21).
See also
References
- Talmudic References: b. Erubin 18b; b. Erubin 100b; b. Nidda 24b; b. Shab. 151b; b. Baba Bathra 73a-b
- Kabbalist References: Zohar 3:76b-77a; Zohar Sitrei Torah 1:147b-148b; Zohar 2:267b; Bacharach,'Emeq haMelekh,19c; Zohar 3:19a; Bacharach,'Emeq haMelekh,102d-103a; Zohar 1:54b-55a
- Dead Sea Scroll References: 4QSongs of the Sage/4QShir; 4Q510 frag.11.4-6a//frag.10.1f; 11QPsAp
- An overview of the Lilith Mythos including analysis of the Burney Relief
- Kramer's Translation of the Gilgamesh Prologue. Kramer, Samuel Noah. "Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree: A reconstructed Sumerian Text." Assyriological Studies of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago 10. Chicago: 1938.
External links
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Lilith
- Lilith by Alan Humm
- International standard Bible Encyclopedia: Night-Monster
- A criticism of the Lilith myth in Jewish feminism