I had some serious doubts on writing this thread. But decided to write it anyway as I am quite curious to what your responses and oppinions on the topic will be.

Let me be clear when I say, I do not follow or belong to any specific religion as I am still trying to find my bearings on this whole religion thing. I have alot to learn and this is my way of gaining some sense of understanding.

Lately, I have been quite interested in Lilith and Jewish folklore. We cannot dispute the fact that this woman did exist, as she is metioned on various occations in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and not so much in the King James Bible. After all, there is some truth to everything. I am inclined to think that were there's smoke, there's fire. So, Jewish folklore tales might be a bit like playing broken telephone. But it is important to realise that they have root from which they stem. In my opinion, they deserve some serious considiration and disscusion.

So, after going through my Bible this afternoon in persuit if clarifying some things I have recently read. I found myself quite annoyed and frustrated at the ambiguity of the Bible. Quite frankly, I am infuriated at the fact that Lilith was left out of the Bible, leaving women made out to be a lessor to men. Even more so, after reading some of these tales (if there is truth in these) I am confused as to why God would go through so much trouble to create various wives for Adam, after he shows that he is not happy with any of God's previous creations of them.

Here is what sent my brain into a flat spin-
(Excerpt from The Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69.)

Having decided to give Adam a helpmeet lest he should be alone of his kind, God put him into a deep sleep, removed one of his ribs, formed it into a woman, and closed up the wound, Adam awoke and said: 'This being shall be named "Woman", because she has been taken out o f man. A man and a woman shall be one flesh.' The title he gave her was Eve, 'the Mother of All Living''

(b) Some say that God created man and woman in His own image on the Sixth Day, giving them charge over the world; [2] but that Eve did not yet exist. Now, God had set Adam to name every beast, bird and other living thing. When they passed before him in pairs, male and female, Adam-being already like a twenty-year-old man-felt jealous of their loves, and though he tried coupling with each female in turn, found no satisfaction in the act. He therefore cried: 'Every creature but I has a proper matel', and prayed God would remedy this injustice. [3]

(c) God then formed Lilith, the first woman, just as He had formed Adam, except that He used filth and sediment instead of pure dust. From Adam's union with this demoness, and with another like her named Naamah, Tubal Cain's sister, sprang Asmodeus and innumerable demons that still plague mankind. Many generations later, Lilith and Naamah came to Solomon's judgement seat, disguised as harlots of Jerusalem'. [4]

(d) Adam and Lilith never found peace together; for when he wished to lie with her, she took offence at the recumbent posture he demanded. 'Why must I lie beneath you?' she asked. 'I also was made from dust, and am therefore your equal.' Because Adam tried to compel her obedience by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name of God, rose into the air and left him

Adam complained to God: 'I have been deserted by my helpmeet' God at once sent the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof to fetch Lilith back. They found her beside the Red Sea, a region abounding in lascivious demons, to whom she bore lilim at the rate of more than one hundred a day. 'Return to Adam without delay,' the angels said, `or we will drown you!' Lilith asked: `How can I return to Adam and live like an honest housewife, after my stay beside the Red Sea?? 'It will be death to refuse!' they answered. `How can I die,' Lilith asked again, `when God has ordered me to take charge of all newborn children: boys up to the eighth day of life, that of circumcision; girls up to the twentieth day. None the less, if ever I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet above a newborn child, I promise to spare it.' To this they agreed; but God punished Lilith by making one hundred of her demon children perish daily; [5] and if she could not destroy a human infant, because of the angelic amulet, she would spitefully turn against her own. [6]

(e) Some say that Lilith ruled as queen in Zmargad, and again in Sheba; and was the demoness who destroyed job's sons. [7] Yet she escaped the curse of death which overtook Adam, since they had parted long before the Fall. Lilith and Naamah not only strangle infants but also seduce dreaming men, any one of whom, sleeping alone, may become their victim. [8]

(f) Undismayed by His failure to give Adam a suitable helpmeet, God tried again, and let him watch while he built up a woman's anatomy: using bones, tissues, muscles, blood and glandular secretions, then covering the whole with skin and adding tufts of hair in places. The sight caused Adam such disgust that even when this woman, the First Eve, stood there in her full beauty, he felt an invincible repugnance. God knew that He had failed once more, and took the First Eve away. Where she went, nobody knows for certain. [9]

(g) God tried a third time, and acted more circumspectly. Having taken a rib from Adam's side in his sleep, He formed it into a woman; then plaited her hair and adorned her, like a bride, with twenty-four pieces of jewellery, before waking him. Adam was entranced. [10]

(h) Some say that God created Eve not from Adam's rib, but from a tail ending in a sting which had been part of his body. God cut this off, and the stump-now a useless coccyx-is still carried by Adam's descendants. [11]

(i) Others say that God's original thought had been to create two human beings, male and female; but instead He designed a single one with a male face looking forward, and a female face looking back. Again He changed His mind, removed Adam's backward-looking face, and built a woman's body for it. [12]

Continue below....

Lilith was one of the fallen angles I believe, but don't quote me on this. My pastor loves it when I come to him with questions you have proposed, so if you don't mind waiting until Sunday I may be able to answer your question then.

LILITUT Is said to be the first woman the = woman to ADAM interesting. She is believed to have been created from the same DIRT (MICROORGANASIMS) as ADAM when GOD CREATED MAN AND WOMEN IN HIS OWN IMAGE (2) CREATIONS. Later it is believed that ADAM HAD ISSUES WITH LILITUT because she didnt want to surcome to his ways remember she was = so ADAM & HER HAD TO WORK THINGS OUT. LILITUT was said to be furious with ADAM SO MUCH that she said our CREATORS name tru name of GOD NOT JESUS and was then LIFTED UP INTO THE HEAVENS, interesting RIGHT. 1c ADAM WAS ALONE it is written that GOD put ADAM to sleep to take a RIB (GENETIC SAMPLE) FROM him, hence CREATING A LESSER WOMAN EVE WHOM ADAM CAN BE MORE POWERFULL OVER which was believed to make ADAM HAPPY.
LILITUT IS SAD TO BE THE QUEEN OF SAMIAL AND SHE ALSO HAS OFFSPRING, WHERE ARE THEY NOW??????????????????????
????????????????????THAT IS SOME OF WHAT I KNOW OF LILITUT
BASICALLY TODAY HER OFFSPRING ARE EXISTING. And some MEN today cannot take the thought of a WOMAN who is = to them strength wise mental wise and especially $$$$$$$ wise makes sense somehow. I personally prefer a = woman they tend to have STRONGER MINDS.




[edit on 9/16/09 by Ophiuchus 13]

Lilith wasn't left out, Christianity turned her into the sinful but submissive Eve and was ruled by her man for the rest of her days.

(j) Still others hold that Adam was originally created as an androgyne of male and female bodies joined back to back. Since this posture made locomotion difficult, and conversation awkward, God divided the androgyne and gave each half a new rear. These separate beings He placed in Eden, forbidding them to couple. [13]

What sends me over the edge is this- Why in the world would god send Lilith back to Adam in the garden of eden, after Adam had forcefully tried to get Lilith to 'lay beneath him'. You know, these days that constitutes as rape. So, why would God expect from her to endure such abuse from Adam?

Then, she is transformed into a demon, who preys on pregnant woman and babies. Let us not skip the part where Lilith sais "God has ordered me to take charge of all newborn children: boys up to the eighth day of life, that of circumcision; girls up to the twentieth day. None the less, if ever I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet above a newborn child, I promise to spare it.'"

Another theory that interests me is this one-

Quoting Bacharach, ’Emeq haMelekh 23c-d

"And the Serpent, the Woman of Harlotry, incited and seduced Eve through the husks of Light which in itself is holiness. And the Serpent seduced Holy Eve, and enough said for him who understands. An all this ruination came about because Adam the first man coupled with Eve while she was in her menstrual impurity -- this is the filth and the impure seed of the Serpent who mounted Eve before Adam mounted her.Behold, here it is before you: because of the sins of Adam the first man all the things mentioned came into being. For Evil Lilith, when she saw the greatness of his corruption, became strong in her husks, and came to Adam against his will, and became hot from him and bore him many demons and spirits and Lilin."

I would say that it is more likely that Lilith was the serpent who decieved Eve in the garden of Eden. As a woman, I could see why she would do this. I say that because in my oppinion, she was trying to make Eve look bad in the eyes of God, and maybe prove that no woman created for Adam could be perfect. Thus, Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of Eden, and Adam had to live with the woman who 'caused' his downfall and 'caused' him to sin. I'm sure Lilith got her revenge on Adam there.

What really buggs me though(if these do have truth to them)is why all the important females are left out of the Bible, as is the case of Mary Magdeline? For what reason?? I cannot think of any but to glorify men, make as if they are superior to woman from the begining. It seems God is far to fogiving for the sins of man than of the sins commited by women.

Below I will post the authers comments on the above posted 'Myths'.

1. The tradition that man's first sexual intercourse was with animals, not women, may be due to the widely spread practice of bestiality among herdsmen of the Middle East, which is still condoned by custom, although figuring three times in the Pentateuch as a capital crime. In the Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic, Enkidu is said to have lived with gazelles and jostled other wild beasts at the watering place, until civilized by Aruru's priestess. Having enjoyed her embraces for six days and seven nights, he wished to rejoin the wild beasts but, to his surprise, they fled from him. Enkidu then knew that he had gained understanding, and the priestess said: 'Thou art wise, Enkidu, like unto a godl'

2. Primeval man was held by the Babylonians to have been androgynous. Thus the Gilgamesh Epic gives Enkidu androgynous features: `the hair of his head like a woman's, with locks that sprout like those of Nisaba, the Grain-goddess.' The Hebrew tradition evidently derives from Greek sources, because both terms used in a Tannaitic midrash to describe the bisexual Adam are Greek: androgynos, 'man-woman', and diprosopon, 'twofaced'. Philo of Alexandria, the Hellenistic philosopher and commentator on the Bible, contemporary with Jesus, held that man was at first bisexual; so did the Gnostics. This belief is clearly borrowed from Plato. Yet the myth of two bodies placed back to back may well have been founded on observation of Siamese twins, which are sometimes joined in this awkward manner. The two-faced Adam appears to be a fancy derived from coins or statues of Janus, the Roman New Year god.

3. Divergences between the Creation myths of Genesis r and n, which allow Lilith to be presumed as Adam's first mate, result from a careless weaving together of an early Judaean and a late priestly tradition. The older version contains the rib incident. Lilith typifies the Anath-worshipping Canaanite women, who were permitted pre-nuptial promiscuity. Time after time the prophets denounced Israelite women for following Canaanite practices; at first, apparently, with the priests' approval-since their habit of dedicating to God the fees thus earned is expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy xxIII. I8. Lilith's flight to the Red Sea recalls the ancient Hebrew view that water attracts demons. 'Tortured and rebellious demons' also found safe harbourage in Egypt. Thus Asmodeus, who had strangled Sarah's first six husbands, fled 'to the uttermost parts of Egypt' (Tobit viii. 3), when Tobias burned the heart and liver of a fish on their wedding night.

4. Lilith's bargain with the angels has its ritual counterpart in an apotropaic rite once performed in many Jewish communities. To protect the newborn child against Lilith-and especially a male, until he could be permanently safeguarded by circumcision-a ring was drawn with natron, or charcoal, on the wall of the birthroom, and inside it were written the words: 'Adam and Eve. Out, Lilith!' Also the names Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof (meanings uncertain) were inscribed on the door. If Lilith nevertheless succeeded in approaching the child and fondling him, he would laugh in his sleep. To avert danger, it was held wise to strike the sleeping child's lips with one finger-whereupon Lilith would vanish.

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5. 'Lilith' is usually derived from the Babylonian-Assyrian word lilitu, ,a female demon, or wind-spirit'-one of a triad mentioned in Babylonian spells. But she appears earlier as 'Lillake' on a 2000 B.G. Sumerian tablet from Ur containing the tale of Gilgamesh and the Willow Tree. There she is a demoness dwelling in the trunk of a willow-tree tended by the Goddess Inanna (Anath) on the banks of the Euphrates. Popular Hebrew etymology seems to have derived 'Lilith' from layil, 'night'; and she therefore often appears as a hairy night-monster, as she also does in Arabian folklore. Solomon suspected the Queen of Sheba of being Lilith, because she had hairy legs. His judgement on the two harlots is recorded in I Kings III. 16 ff. According to Isaiah xxxiv. I4-I5, Lilith dwells among the desolate ruins in the Edomite Desert where satyrs (se'ir), reems, pelicans, owls, jackals, ostriches, arrow-snakes and kites keep her company.

6. Lilith's children are called lilim. In the Targum Yerushalmi, the priestly blessing of Numbers vi. 26 becomes: 'The Lord bless thee in all thy doings, and preserve thee from the Lilim!' The fourth-century A.D. commentator Hieronymus identified Lilith with the Greek Lamia, a Libyan queen deserted by Zeus, whom his wife Hera robbed of her children. She took revenge by robbing other women of theirs.

7. The Lamiae, who seduced sleeping men, sucked their blood and ate their flesh, as Lilith and her fellow-demonesses did, were also known as Empusae, 'forcers-in'; or Mormolyceia, 'frightening wolves'; and described as 'Children of Hecate'. A Hellenistic relief shows a naked Lamia straddling a traveller asleep on his back. It is characteristic of civilizations where women are treated as chattels that they must adopt the recumbent posture during intercourse, which Lilith refused. That Greek witches who worshipped Hecate favoured the superior posture, we know from Apuleius; and it occurs in early Sumerian representations of the sexual act, though not in the Hittite. Malinowski writes that Melanesian girls ridicule what they call `the missionary position', which demands that they should lie passive and recumbent.

8. Naamah, 'pleasant', is explained as meaning that 'the demoness sang pleasant songs to idols'. Zmargad suggest smaragdos, the semi-precious aquamarine; and may therefore be her submarine dwelling. A demon named Smaragos occurs in the Homeric Epigrams.

9. Eve's creation by God from Adam's rib-a myth establishing male supremacy and disguising Eve's divinity-lacks parallels in Mediterranean or early Middle-Eastern myth. The story perhaps derives iconotropically from an ancient relief, or painting, which showed the naked Goddess Anath poised in the air, watching her lover Mot murder his twin Aliyan; Mot (mistaken by the mythographer for Yahweh) was driving a curved dagger under Aliyan's fifth rib, not removing a sixth one. The familiar story is helped by a hidden pun on tsela, the Hebrew for 'rib': Eve, though designed to be Adam's helpmeet, proved to be a tsela, a 'stumbling', or 'misfortune'. Eve's formation from Adam's tail is an even more damaging myth; perhaps suggested by the birth of a child with a vestigial tail instead of a coccyx-a not infrequent occurrence.

10. The story of Lilith's escape to the East and of Adam's subsequent marriage to Eve may, however, record an early historical incident: nomad herdsmen, admitted into Lilith's Canaanite queendom as guests (see 16. 1), suddenly seize power and, when the royal household thereupon flees, occupy a second queendom which owes allegiance to the Hittite Goddess Heba

Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69.

Lilith was in fact, marginalized by those forming a structure for "Mainstream Christianity".. When the many other gospels, such as Thomas, Judas, Mary, et cetera were chosen to be excluded from the main design of the religion.

She was marginalized because Lilith refused to always be on the bottom during her love making with Adam (TRUTH). She demanded to be equal with Adam, so the old fellows hammering out the structure of the Mainstream design of christianity got rid of her and decided that God would make Adam another mate.

This time, they made his mate a more acceptable Subservient Eve.

Well, here is one point to consider. As others have mentioned there was a process over the years about what to include and what to exclude from the Bible.

God (in the Bible) is usually presented as all knowing, all wise, all powerful. Not the type of God to make a mistake.

However, in the Lilith story it could be argued that God's first attempt at making a woman (Lilith) didn't work out too well and could be considered a mistake by some. That may very well be one of the reasons it was left out.



[edit on 16-9-2009 by Frogs]

Originally posted by jinx880101
But if she appears over and over in the Torah, and the torah is older than the Bible...what makes the Bible the right version?

Can you please show me where in the Torah Lilith is mentioned specifically? 'Over and over again' or at least a few examples?

No worries. The Torah is really just the first five books of the Bible, Genesis-Deuteronomy, and Lilith is not mentioned within those texts at all. Some believe the following passage in Genesis 2 is a reference to Lilith but I don't see anything that would make that indisputable. It's just as easy to believe it's a reference to Eve:

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."

I think Isaiah is the only book that specifically mentions the name but it's a similar root word in reference to owls.

So I do believe the mythology of Lilith as Adam's first wife came after the Bible which is why she was not included because we do not believe tradition necessarily equates to fact or inspiration. Same thing with Christian folklore that came along centuries later in tradition and was not included in the Bible. Such as Jesus' episode in the wilderness with the animals who flocked to him or Mary's bodily ascension into heaven.

It doesn't mean they were given the shaft- the stories just didn't exist yet but were later incorporated into tradition in some sects.

The quotes are from the Zohar.

There are also parts of the Talmud which mention Lilith.

The story goes that Adam was actually a hermaphrodite (of sorts) and Lilith is the female portion of Adam that was split off.

The woman made from his rib IS Eve.

Using Gematria on the line:

"but as for man, he did not find a helper corresponding to him"

Is where you find a hint of the Adam's initial feminine side being Lilith

It is true that Lilith has her origins in early mythology and that she didn't become part of the region's folklore till after the temple period. Lilith is not mentioned by name in the Torah at all.

The Zohar has its own issues, I wont corrupt the thread with them.

Yes Ive never been able to find the origin of the story of the second women.

Also its probably worth pointing out that Adam (and thereby Lilith though extension if your accepting the jeudo-lilith story) was not human in the same way you and I are, modern humanity as we know it descends from Noahs line by which time the "spiritual essence" that Adam was full of had diluted through hes offspring.

Demon Queen etc are titles, not a racial distinction, in jewdiasm there are multiple forms of demons, some of which are allowed in heaven and interact with the heavenly hierachy. Demons are effectively non human entities that are not part of the heavenly host.