Lilith

• Lilith is first mentioned in ancient Babylonian texts as a class of winged female demons that attack pregnant women and infants.
• The Anunnaki fashioned Lilith from dust and placed her in the garden alongside Adam.
• Disagreeing with Adam, Lilith chose to depart the Garden of Eden.

Names

• Lilith
• Lilitu
• Lillake
• Qarinah
• Lillu

The tziyyim (martens) shall also encounter iyyim (wild cats), and a sa’ir (wild goat) calls to its companion, and lilit (night creature) dwells there and finds for itself a mano’ach (place of rest).

Isaiah 34:14 (OJB)

The King James Version translates lilit in this verse as “the screech owl”.

From the Akashic Records

Cayce reading 364-7

In reading 364-7, Edgar Cayce was asked how the legend of Lilith is connected with the period of Amilius. His answer: in the beginning, male and female were as one.

(Q) How is the legend of Lilith connected with the period of Amilius?

(A) In the beginning, as was outlined, there was presented that that became as the Sons of God, in that male and female were as one, with those abilities for those changes as were able or capable of being brought about.

Edgar Cayce, reading 364-7

Explanation

In the rest of the answer, Cayce says the first beings, the Sons of God, were male and female in one. Through their power to project, a being came to them as a companion. Then the true “helpmeet” was brought forth “from out of self”, not just as a companion of the body.

Cayce calls this the source of the legend of Lilith. The helpmeet was made so that the Sons of God would keep their own nature and not mix with the sons and daughters of men.

Read this way, the companion is Lilith and the helpmeet drawn from within is Eve. The two creation accounts would then line up like this:

• Genesis 1 = The “Sons of God” who were androgynous (male and female as one), created in the spiritual image.
• Genesis 2 = The later physical formation of Adam and the bringing forth of the “helpmeet” (Eve) from within him, so the spiritual beings would have their true counterpart instead of mixing with the “sons and daughters of men.”

What we know about Lilith

According to the Biblical Archaeology Society, Lilith is first mentioned in Babylonian texts as a class of winged female demons who attack pregnant women and infants. In Isaiah 34:14 the lilith is one of the night creatures that will haunt the ruins of Edom. It is her only mention in the Bible.

The Torah’s creation story does not name her. Later Jewish folklore and midrash tell several stories about her. The best known makes her Adam’s first wife.

In this “first Eve” story, God made Lilith from dust, like Adam, and placed her in the garden with him. Adam wanted to rule over her. She refused to lie beneath him, because both of them were made from the earth. Disagreeing with Adam, Lilith chose to depart the Garden of Eden.

Adam complained to God. God sent three angels, Senoi, Sansenoi and Sammangelof, to bring her back. They found her bearing children, and she refused to return.

The angels told her they would kill 100 of her children every day. In the story, she takes revenge on newborns. Boys are in danger from her for 8 days after birth (until circumcision) and girls for 20 days. She agrees to spare any child who wears an amulet with the angels’ names.

Lilith had many children, instead of seeing her as a person, it’s more likely that the name ‘Lilith’ referred to a classification or (sub)group of humans or a bloodline.

If so, can we find evidence that ‘Eve’ also represents a group of humans or a bloodline?

Sumerian roots

Raphael Patai, in The Hebrew Goddess, finds the earliest demon with a similar name in the Sumerian King List. Patai dates the list to about 2400 BC. The list says the father of Gilgamesh was a Lillu-demon. In the ETCSL translation the line reads: “Gilgameš, whose father was a phantom (?), the lord of Kulaba, ruled for 126 years.”

Patai lists four related demons: the Lillu, Lilitu (Lilith), Ardat Lili, who visited men at night, and Irdu Lili, who visited women. He says they began as storm demons. Robert Lebling, in Legends of the Fire Spirits, calls them forerunners of the jinn.

Gilgamesh and the Huluppu Tree

This Sumerian poem is not part of the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh. It is the opening of the tale scholars call Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld. Samuel Noah Kramer translated the woman in the tree as “Lilith”. The ETCSL translation calls her “the phantom maid”.

In the poem, the goddess Inanna finds a huluppu tree on the bank of the Euphrates and plants it in her garden. She wants a chair and a bed from its wood. Three creatures move in:

• A Snake: “a snake immune to incantations” nests at its roots.
• Anzu Bird: the Anzud bird settles its young in its branches.
• Lillake (Lilith): the phantom maid builds her dwelling in its trunk.

Inanna asks the hero-king of Uruk for help. The ETCSL text says Gilgamesh “took his bronze axe used for expeditions” and “killed the snake immune to incantations”. The Anzud bird flies off to the mountains with its young. The phantom maid flees into the wilderness. Gilgamesh uproots the tree and gives its wood to Inanna for her chair and her bed.

Ben Sira

The Alphabet of Ben Sira is a satirical Hebrew text, usually dated between the 8th and 10th centuries CE. It is the first text to tell the full story of Lilith as Adam’s first wife.

Lilith refuses to lie below

In Norman Bronznick’s translation, Lilith refuses to lie beneath Adam, and Adam insists on being on top:

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.”

Alphabet of Ben Sira, tr. Norman Bronznick

Lilith then speaks the name of God, takes flight in the air and leaves Eden. The angels find her in the sea, “in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown”, that is, the Red Sea.

Ibn Ishaq

Robert Lebling retells this story from Gordon Newby’s reconstruction of Ibn Ishaq. After Iblis was expelled from the Garden of Eden, he married the serpent whose mouth he had entered to speak to Adam, and they had children. Iblis also mated with other beings and fathered demons. In Lebling’s book, one of these mates is Lilith, or the Qarinah, the mother of many jinn.

Lebling names five sons of Iblis among the evil jinn:

• Ṭīr (Bird), who causes disaster, injury and loss;
• al-Aʿwar (the One-Eyed), who promotes lewd behavior;
• Sūṭ, the father of lies;
• Dāsim, who sets husband and wife against each other;
• Zalambūr, who presides over dishonesty, theft and fraud in business.

Lilith in Jewish sources

Lilith as Adam’s First Wife

Source: The Alphabet of Ben Sira (8th–10th century CE)

• Lilith is made from the same earth as Adam. She will not submit to him, speaks the name of God and leaves Eden. She becomes a demon who harms infants.

Lilith as a Winged Demon

Source: Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 151b, Eruvin 100b, Niddah 24b)

• Shabbat 151b warns a man not to sleep alone in a house, lest Lilith seize him. Eruvin 100b says she grows long hair. Niddah 24b gives her wings.

Lilith as a Symbol of Independence

Source: Kabbalistic texts, such as the Zohar

• In Kabbalah Lilith becomes the partner of Samael, a figure of the accuser or angel of death.

Lilith as a Threat to Infants

Source: Aramaic incantation bowls (5th–8th centuries CE)

• The bowls name liliths as demons to be driven from homes, wives and children. Later amulets carry the names of the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof.

Lilith in Isaiah’s Prophecy

Source: Isaiah 34:14

• The verse names lilit among the creatures of the ruined land of Edom. Later readers linked her to the Lilith of folklore.