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Lilith

May 04, 2023

This article is about the Jewish religious figure Lilith. For other uses, see Lilith (disambiguation).

Lilith (/ˈlɪlɪθ/ LIH-lith; Hebrew: לִילִית, romanized: Līlīṯ), also spelt Lilit, Lilitu, or Lilis, is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology, theorized to be the first wife of Adam[1] and supposedly the primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished"[2] from the Garden of Eden for not complying with and obeying Adam.[2] She is thought to be mentioned in Biblical Hebrew in the Book of Isaiah,[3] and in Late Antiquity in Mandaean mythology and Jewish mythology sources from 500 CE onward. Lilith appears in historiolas (incantations incorporating a short mythic story) in various concepts and localities[4] that give partial descriptions of her. She is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Eruvin 100b, Niddah 24b, Shabbat 151b, Baba Bathra 73a), in the Book of Adam and Eve as Adam's first wife, and in the Zohar Leviticus 19a as "a hot fiery female who first cohabited with man".[5] Many traditional rabbinic authorities, including Maimonides and Menachem Meiri, reject the existence of Lilith.[6]

Lilith

The name Lilith stems from lilû, lilîtu, and (w)ardat lilî). The Akkadian word lilu is related to the Hebrew word lilith in Isaiah 34:14, which is thought to be a night bird by some modern scholars such as Judit M. Blair.[7] In the Ancient Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia Lilith signifies a spirit or demon.[1][8][9]

Lilith continues to serve as source material in today's popular culture, Western culture, literature, occultism, fantasy, and horror.

History

In some Jewish folklore, such as the satirical Alphabet of Sirach (c. 700–1000 AD), Lilith appears as Adam's first wife, who was created at the same time and from the same clay as Adam.[a] The legend of Lilith developed extensively during the Middle Ages, in the tradition of Aggadah, the Zohar, and Jewish mysticism.[12] For example, in the 13th-century writings of Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she had coupled with the archangel Samael.[13]

Interpretations of Lilith found in later Jewish materials are plentiful, but little information has survived relating to the Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian view of this class of demons. While researchers almost universally agree that a connection exists, recent scholarship has disputed the relevance of two sources previously used to connect the Jewish lilith to an Akkadian lilītu – the Gilgamesh appendix and the Arslan Tash amulets[14] (see below for discussion of these two problematic sources). In contrast, some scholars, such as Lowell K. Handy, hold the view that though Lilith derives from Mesopotamian demonology, evidence of the Hebrew Lilith being present in the sources frequently cited - the Sumerian Gilgamesh fragment and the Sumerian incantation from Arshlan-Tash being two - is scant, if present at all.[13]: 174 

In Hebrew-language texts, the term lilith or lilit (translated as "night creatures", "night monster", "night hag", or "screech owl") first occurs in a list of animals in Isaiah 34.[15] The Isaiah 34:14 Lilith reference does not appear in most common Bible translations such as KJV and NIV. Commentators and interpreters often envision the figure of Lilith as a dangerous demon of the night, who is sexually wanton, and who steals babies in the darkness. In the Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q510-511, the term first occurs in a list of monsters. Jewish magical inscriptions on bowls and amulets from the 6th century AD onward identify Lilith as a female demon and provide the first visual depictions of her.

Etymology

In the Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, the terms lili and līlītu mean spirits. Some uses of līlītu are listed in the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD, 1956, L.190), in Wolfram von Soden's Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (AHw, p. 553), and Reallexikon der Assyriologie (RLA, p. 47).[16]

The Sumerian female demons lili have no etymological relation to Akkadian lilu, "evening".[17]

Archibald Sayce (1882)[18][page needed] considered that Hebrew lilit (or lilith) לילית and the earlier Akkadian līlītu are derived from Proto-Semitic. Charles Fossey (1902) has this literally translating to "female night being/demon", although cuneiform inscriptions from Mesopotamia exist where Līlīt and Līlītu refers to disease-bearing wind spirits.[19][20]

Mesopotamian mythology

Main article: Lilu (mythology)

The spirit in the tree in the Gilgamesh cycle

Samuel Noah Kramer (1932, published 1938)[21] translated ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as "Lilith" in Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh dated c. 600 BC. Tablet XII is not part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but is a later Assyrian Akkadian translation of the latter part of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.[22] The ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is associated with a serpent and a zu bird.[b] In Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, a huluppu tree grows in Inanna's garden in Uruk, whose wood she plans to use to build a new throne. After ten years of growth, she comes to harvest it and finds a serpent living at its base, a Zu bird raising young in its crown, and that a ki-sikil-lil-la-ke made a house in its trunk. Gilgamesh is said to have killed the snake, and then the zu bird flew away to the mountains with its young, while the ki-sikil-lil-la-ke fearfully destroys its house and runs for the forest.[23][24] Identification of the ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith is stated in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (1999).[25] According to a new source from late antiquity, Lilith appears in a Mandaean magic story where she is considered to represent the branches of a tree with other demonic figures that form other parts of the tree, though this may also include multiple "Liliths".[26]

Suggested translations for the Tablet XII spirit in the tree include ki-sikil as "sacred place", lil as "spirit", and lil-la-ke as "water spirit",[27] but also simply "owl", given that the lil is building a home in the trunk of the tree.[28]

A connection between the Gilgamesh ki-sikil-lil-la-ke and the Jewish Lilith was rejected on textual grounds by Sergio Ribichini (1978).[29]

The bird-footed woman in the Burney Relief

Main article: Burney Relief
 
Burney Relief, Babylon (1800–1750 BC)

Kramer's translation of the Gilgamesh fragment was used by Henri Frankfort (1937)[30] and Emil Kraeling (1937) to support identification of a woman with wings and bird-feet in the disputed Burney Relief as related to Lilith. Frankfort and Kraeling identified the figure in the relief with Lilith.[31] Modern research has identified the figure as one of the main goddesses of the Mesopotamian pantheons, most probably Ereshkigal.[32]

The Arslan Tash amulets

Main article: Arslan Tash amulets

The Arslan Tash amulets are limestone plaques discovered in 1933 at Arslan Tash, the authenticity of which is disputed. William F. Albright, Theodor H. Gaster,[33] and others, accepted the amulets as a pre-Jewish source which shows that the name Lilith already existed in the 7th century BC but Torczyner (1947) identified the amulets as a later Jewish source.[34]

In the Hebrew Bible

The word lilit (or lilith) only appears once in the Hebrew Bible, in a prophecy regarding the fate of Edom,[3] while the other seven terms in the list appear more than once and thus are better documented. The reading of scholars and translators is often guided by a decision about the complete list of eight creatures as a whole.[35][c] Quoting from Isaiah 34 (NAB):

(12) Her nobles shall be no more, nor shall kings be proclaimed there; all her princes are gone. (13) Her castles shall be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She shall become an abode for jackals and a haunt for ostriches. (14) Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call to one another; There shall the Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest. (15) There the hoot owl shall nest and lay eggs, hatch them out and gather them in her shadow; There shall the kites assemble, none shall be missing its mate. (16) Look in the book of the LORD and read: No one of these shall be lacking, For the mouth of the LORD has ordered it, and His spirit shall gather them there. (17) It is He who casts the lot for them, and with His hands He marks off their shares of her; They shall possess her forever, and dwell there from generation to generation.

Hebrew text

In the Masoretic Text:

Hebrew: ,וּפָגְשׁוּ צִיִּים אֶת-אִיִּים, וְשָׂעִיר עַל-רֵעֵהוּ יִקְרָא; אַךְ-שָׁם הִרְגִּיעָה לִּילִית, וּמָצְאָה לָהּ מָנוֹח

u-pagšu ṣiyyim et-ʾiyyim, w-saʿir ʿal-rēʿēhu yiqra; ʾak-šam hirgiʿa lilit, u-maṣʾa lah manoaḥ

34:14 "And shall-meet wildcats[36] with jackals
the goat he-calls his- fellow
lilit (lilith) she-rests and she-finds rest[d]
34:15 there she-shall-nest the great-owl, and she-lays-(eggs), and she-hatches, and she-gathers under her-shadow:
hawks [kites, gledes] also they-gather, every one with its mate.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, among the 19 fragments of Isaiah found at Qumran, the Great Isaiah Scroll (1Q1Isa) in 34:14 renders the creature as plural liliyyot (or liliyyoth).[37][38]

Eberhard Schrader (1875)[39] and Moritz Abraham Levy (1855)[40] suggest that Lilith was a demon of the night, known also by the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Schrader's and Levy's view is therefore partly dependent on a later dating of Deutero-Isaiah to the 6th century BC, and the presence of Jews in Babylon which would coincide with the possible references to the Līlītu in Babylonian demonology. However, this view is challenged by some modern research such as by Judit M. Blair (2009) who considers that the context indicates unclean animals.[7]

Greek version

The Septuagint translates both the reference to Lilith and the word for jackals or "wild beasts of the island" within the same verse into Greek as onokentauros, apparently assuming them as referring to the same creatures and omitting "wildcats/wild beasts of the desert" (so, instead of the wildcats or desert beasts meeting with the jackals or island beasts, the goat or "satyr" crying "to his fellow" and lilith or "screech owl" resting "there", it is the goat or "satyr", translated as daimonia "demons", and the jackals or island beasts "onocentaurs" meeting with each other and crying "one to the other" and the latter resting there in the translation).[e]

Latin Bible

The early 5th-century Vulgate translated the same word as lamia.[41][42]

et occurrent daemonia onocentauris et pilosus clamabit alter ad alterum ibi cubavit lamia et invenit sibi requiem

— Isaiah (Isaias Propheta) 34.14, Vulgate

The translation is, "And demons shall meet with monsters, and one hairy one shall cry out to another; there the lamia has lain down and found rest for herself".

English versions

Wycliffe's Bible (1395) preserves the Latin rendering lamia:

Isa 34:15 Lamya schal ligge there, and foond rest there to hir silf.

The Bishops' Bible of Matthew Parker (1568) from the Latin:

Isa 34:14 there shall the Lamia lye and haue her lodgyng.

Douay–Rheims Bible (1582/1610) also preserves the Latin rendering lamia:

Isa 34:14 And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for herself.

The Geneva Bible of William Whittingham (1587) from the Hebrew:

Isa 34:14 and the screech owl shall rest there, and shall finde for her selfe a quiet dwelling.

Then the King James Version (1611):

Isa 34:14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.

The "screech owl" translation of the King James Version is, together with the "owl" (yanšup, probably a water bird) in 34:11 and the "great owl" (qippoz, properly a snake) of 34:15, an attempt to render the passage by choosing suitable animals for difficult to translate Hebrew words.

Later translations include:

Jewish tradition

Major sources in Jewish tradition regarding Lilith in chronological order include:

Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain one indisputable reference to Lilith in Songs of the Sage (4Q510–511)[43] fragment 1:

And I, the Instructor, proclaim His glorious splendour so as to frighten and to te[rrify] all the spirits of the destroying angels, spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith, howlers, and [desert dwellers] ... and those which fall upon men without warning to lead them astray from a spirit of understanding and to make their heart and their ... desolate during the present dominion of wickedness and predetermined time of humiliations for the sons of lig[ht], by the guilt of the ages of [those] smitten by iniquity – not for eternal destruction, [bu]t for an era of humiliation for transgression.[44]

 
Photographic reproduction of the Great Isaiah Scroll, which contains a reference to plural liliyyot

As with the Massoretic text of Isaiah 34:14, and therefore unlike the plural liliyyot (or liliyyoth) in the Isaiah scroll 34:14, lilit in 4Q510 is singular, this liturgical text both cautions against the presence of supernatural malevolence and assumes familiarity with Lilith; distinct from the biblical text, however, this passage does not function under any socio-political agenda, but instead serves in the same capacity as An Exorcism (4Q560) and Songs to Disperse Demons (11Q11).[45] The text is thus, to a community "deeply involved in the realm of demonology",[46] an exorcism hymn.

Joseph M. Baumgarten (1991) identified the unnamed woman of The Seductress (4Q184) as related to the female demon.[46][47] However, John J. Collins[48] regards this identification as "intriguing" but that it is "safe to say" that (4Q184) is based on the strange woman of Proverbs 2, 5, 7, 9:

Her house sinks down to death,
And her course leads to the shades.
All who go to her cannot return
And find again the paths of life.

— Proverbs 2:18–19

Her gates are gates of death, and from the entrance of the house
She sets out towards Sheol.
None of those who enter there will ever return,
And all who possess her will descend to the Pit.

— 4Q184

Early Rabbinic literature

Lilith does not occur in the Mishnah. There are five references to Lilith in the Babylonian Talmud in Gemara on three separate Tractates of the Mishnah:

  • "Rav Judah citing Samuel ruled: If an abortion had the likeness of Lilith, its mother is unclean by reason of the birth, for it is a child even if it has wings." (Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Nidda 24b)[49]
  • "[Expounding upon the curses of womanhood] In a Baraitha it was taught: Women grow long hair like Lilith, sit when urinating like a beast, and serve as a bolster for her husband." (Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Eruvin 100b)
  • "For gira he should take an arrow of Lilith and place it point upwards and pour water on it and drink it. Alternatively he can take water of which a dog has drunk at night, but he must take care that it has not been exposed." (Babylonian Talmud, tractate Gittin 69b). In this particular case, the "arrow of Lilith" is most probably a scrap of meteorite or a fulgurite, colloquially known as "petrified lightning" and treated as antipyretic medicine.[50]
  • "Rabbah said: I saw how Hormin the son of Lilith was running on the parapet of the wall of Mahuza, and a rider, galloping below on horseback could not overtake him. Once they saddled for him two mules which stood on two bridges of the Rognag; and he jumped from one to the other, backward and forward, holding in his hands two cups of wine, pouring alternately from one to the other, and not a drop fell to the ground." (Babylonian Talmud, tractate Bava Bathra 73a-b). Hormin who is mentioned here as the son of Lilith is most probably a result of a scribal error of the word "Hormiz" attested in some of the Talmudic manuscripts. The word itself in turn seems to be a distortion of Ormuzd, the Zendavestan deity of light and goodness. If so, it is somewhat ironic that Ormuzd becomes here the son of a nocturnal demon.[50]
  • "R. Hanina said: One may not sleep in a house alone [in a lonely house], and whoever sleeps in a house alone is seized by Lilith." (Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Shabbath 151b)

The above statement by Hanina may be related to the belief that nocturnal emissions engendered the birth of demons:

  • "R. Jeremiah b. Eleazar further stated: In all those years [130 years after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden] during which Adam was under the ban he begot ghosts and male demons and female demons [or night demons], for it is said in Scripture: And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot a son in own likeness, after his own image, from which it follows that until that time he did not beget after his own image ... When he saw that through him death was ordained as punishment he spent a hundred and thirty years in fasting, severed connection with his wife for a hundred and thirty years, and wore clothes of fig on his body for a hundred and thirty years. – That statement [of R. Jeremiah] was made in reference to the semen which he emitted accidentally." (Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Eruvin 18b)

The Midrash Rabbah collection contains two references to Lilith. The first one is present in Genesis Rabbah 22:7 and 18:4: according to Rabbi Hiyya God proceeded to create a second Eve for Adam, after Lilith had to return to dust.[51] However, to be exact the said passages do not employ the Hebrew word lilith itself and instead speak of "the first Eve" (Heb. Chavvah ha-Rishonah, analogically to the phrase Adam ha-Rishon, i.e. the first Adam). Although in the medieval Hebrew literature and folklore, especially that reflected on the protective amulets of various kinds, Chavvah ha-Rishonah was identified with Lilith, one should remain careful in transposing this equation to the Late Antiquity.[50]

The second mention of Lilith, this time explicit, is present in Numbers Rabbah 16:25. The midrash develops the story of Moses's plea after God expresses anger at the bad report of the spies. Moses responds to a threat by God that He will destroy the Israelite people. Moses pleads before God, that God should not be like Lilith who kills her own children.[50] Moses said:

[God,] do not do it [i.e. destroy the Israelite people], that the nations of the world may not regard you as a cruel Being and say: 'The Generation of the Flood came and He destroyed them, the Generation of the Separation came and He destroyed them, the Sodomites and the Egyptians came and He destroyed them, and these also, whom he called My son, My firstborn (Ex. IV, 22), He is now destroying! As that Lilith who, when she finds nothing else, turns upon her own children, so Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land... He hath slain them' (Num. XIV, 16)![52]

Incantation bowls

 
Incantation bowl with an Aramaic inscription around a demon, from Nippur, Mesopotamia, 6–7th century

An individual Lilith, along with Bagdana "king of the lilits", is one of the demons to feature prominently in protective spells in the eighty surviving Jewish occult incantation bowls from Sassanid Empire Babylon (4th–6th century AD) with influence from Iranian culture.[47][53] These bowls were buried upside down below the structure of the house or on the land of the house, in order to trap the demon or demoness.[54] Almost every house was found to have such protective bowls against demons and demonesses.[54][55]

The centre of the inside of the bowl depicts Lilith, or the male form, Lilit. Surrounding the image is writing in spiral form; the writing often begins at the centre and works its way to the edge.[56] The writing is most commonly scripture or references to the Talmud. The incantation bowls which have been analysed, are inscribed in the following languages, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Syriac, Mandaic, Middle Persian, and Arabic. Some bowls are written in a false script which has no meaning.[53]

The correctly worded incantation bowl was capable of warding off Lilith or Lilit from the household. Lilith had the power to transform into a woman's physical features, seduce her husband, and conceive a child. However, Lilith would become hateful toward the children born of the husband and wife and would seek to kill them. Similarly, Lilit would transform into the physical features of the husband, seduce the wife, she would give birth to a child. It would become evident that the child was not fathered by the husband, and the child would be looked down on. Lilit would seek revenge on the family by killing the children born to the husband and wife.[57]

Key features of the depiction of Lilith or Lilit include the following. The figure is often depicted with arms and legs chained, indicating the control of the family over the demon(ess). The demon(ess) is depicted in a frontal position with the whole face showing. The eyes are very large, as well as the hands (if depicted). The demon(ess) is entirely static.[53]

One bowl contains the following inscription commissioned from a Jewish occultist to protect a woman called Rashnoi and her husband from Lilith:

Thou liliths, male lili and female lilith, hag and ghool, I adjure you by the Strong One of Abraham, by the Rock of Isaac, by the Shaddai of Jacob, by Yah Ha-Shem by Yah his memorial, to turn away from this Rashnoi b. M. and from Geyonai b. M. her husband. [Here is] your divorce and writ and letter of separation, sent through holy angels. Amen, Amen, Selah, Halleluyah! (image)

— Excerpt from translation in Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur.[58]

Alphabet of Ben Sira

Main article: Alphabet of Ben Sira
 
Lilith, illustration by Carl Poellath from 1886 or earlier

The pseudepigraphical[59] 8th–10th centuries Alphabet of Ben Sira is considered to be the oldest form of the story of Lilith as Adam's first wife. Whether this particular tradition is older is not known. Scholars tend to date the Alphabet between the 8th and 10th centuries AD. The work has been characterized by some scholars as satirical, but Ginzberg concluded it was meant seriously.[60]

In the text an amulet is inscribed with the names of three angels (Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof) and placed around the neck of newborn boys in order to protect them from the lilin until their circumcision.[61] The amulets used against Lilith that were thought to derive from this tradition are, in fact, dated as being much older.[62] The concept of Eve having a predecessor is not exclusive to the Alphabet, and is not a new concept, as it can be found in Genesis Rabbah.[citation needed] However, the idea that Lilith was the predecessor may be exclusive to the Alphabet.

The idea in the text that Adam had a wife prior to Eve may have developed from an interpretation of the Book of Genesis and its dual creation accounts; while Genesis 2:22 describes God's creation of Eve from Adam's rib, an earlier passage, 1:27, already indicates that a woman had been made: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The Alphabet text places Lilith's creation after God's words in Genesis 2:18 that "it is not good for man to be alone"; in this text God forms Lilith out of the clay from which he made Adam but she and Adam bicker. Lilith claims that since she and Adam were created in the same way they were equal and she refuses to submit to him:

After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, "It is not good for man to be alone." He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. 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 responded, "We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth." But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air.

Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: "Sovereign of the universe!" he said, "the woman you gave me has run away." At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, to bring her back.

Said the Holy One to Adam, "If she agrees to come back, what is made is good. If not, she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day." The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, "We shall drown you in the sea."

"Leave me!' she said. "I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days."

When the angels heard Lilith's words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: "Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant." She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels' names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers.

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,[63] although, in any case, the text was accepted by the Jewish mystics of medieval Germany.[50]

 
Adam clutches a child in the presence of the child-snatcher Lilith. Fresco by Filippino Lippi, basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Florence

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 German scholar Johannes Buxtorf.

In this folk tradition that arose in the early Middle Ages Lilith, a dominant female demon, became identified with Asmodeus, King of Demons, as his queen.[64] Asmodeus was already well known by this time because of the legends about him in the Talmud. Thus, the merging of Lilith and Asmodeus was inevitable.[65] The second myth of Lilith grew to include legends about another world and by some accounts this other world existed side by side with this one, Yenne Velt is Yiddish for this described "Other World". In this case Asmodeus and Lilith were believed to procreate demonic offspring endlessly and spread chaos at every turn.[65]

Two primary characteristics are seen in these legends about Lilith: Lilith as the incarnation of lust, causing men to be led astray, and Lilith as a child-killing witch, who strangles helpless neonates. These two aspects of the Lilith legend seemed to have evolved separately; there is hardly a tale where she encompasses both roles.[65] But the aspect of the witch-like role that Lilith plays broadens her archetype of the destructive side of witchcraft. Such stories are commonly found among Jewish folklore.[65]

The influence of the rabbinic traditions

Although the image of Lilith of the Alphabet of Ben Sira is unprecedented, some elements in her portrayal can be traced back to the talmudic and midrashic traditions that arose around Eve.

First and foremost, the very introduction of Lilith to the creation story rests on the rabbinic myth, prompted by the two separate creation accounts in Genesis 1:1–2:25, that there were two original women. A way of resolving the apparent discrepancy between these two accounts was to assume that there must have been some other first woman, apart from the one later identified with Eve. The Rabbis, noting Adam's exclamation, "this time (zot hapa‘am) [this is] bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" (Genesis 2:23), took it as an intimation that there must already have been a "first time". According to Genesis rabbah 18:4, Adam was disgusted upon seeing the first woman full of "discharge and blood", and God had to provide him with another one. The subsequent creation is performed with adequate precautions: Adam is made to sleep, so as not to witness the process itself (Sanhedrin 39a), and Eve is adorned with fine jewellery (Genesis rabbah 18:1) and brought to Adam by the angels Gabriel and Michael (ibid. 18:3). However, nowhere do the rabbis specify what happened to the first woman, leaving the matter open for further speculation. This is the gap into which the later tradition of Lilith could fit.

Second, this new woman is still met with harsh rabbinic allegations. Again playing on the Hebrew phrase zot hapa‘am, Adam, according to the same midrash, declares: "it is she [zot] who is destined to strike the bell [zog] and to speak [in strife] against me, as you read, 'a golden bell [pa‘amon] and a pomegranate' [Exodus 28:34] ... it is she who will trouble me [mefa‘amtani] all night" (Genesis Rabbah 18:4). The first woman also becomes the object of accusations ascribed to Rabbi Joshua of Siknin, according to whom Eve, despite the divine efforts, turned out to be "swelled-headed, coquette, eavesdropper, gossip, prone to jealousy, light-fingered and gadabout" (Genesis Rabbah 18:2). A similar set of charges appears in Genesis Rabbah 17:8, according to which Eve's creation from Adam's rib rather than from the earth makes her inferior to Adam and never satisfied with anything.

Third, and despite the terseness of the biblical text in this regard, the erotic iniquities attributed to Eve constitute a separate category of her shortcomings. Told in Genesis 3:16 that "your desire shall be for your husband", she is accused by the Rabbis of having an overdeveloped sexual drive (Genesis Rabbah 20:7) and constantly enticing Adam (Genesis Rabbah 23:5). However, in terms of textual popularity and dissemination, the motif of Eve copulating with the primeval serpent takes priority over her other sexual transgressions. Despite the rather unsettling picturesqueness of this account, it is conveyed in numerous places: Genesis Rabbah 18:6, and BT Sotah 9b, Shabbat 145b–146a and 156a, Yevamot 103b and Avodah Zarah 22b.[50]

Kabbalah

Main article: Lilith (Lurianic Kabbalah)

Kabbalistic mysticism attempted to establish a more exact relationship between Lilith and God. With her major characteristics having been well developed by the end of the Talmudic period, after six centuries had elapsed between the Aramaic incantation texts that mention Lilith and the early Spanish Kabbalistic writings in the 13th century, she reappears, and her life history becomes known in greater mythological detail.[66] Her creation is described in many alternative versions.

One mentions her creation as being before Adam's, on the fifth day, because the "living creatures" with whose swarms God filled the waters included Lilith. A similar version, related to the earlier Talmudic passages, recounts how Lilith was fashioned with the same substance as Adam was, shortly before. A third alternative version states that God originally created Adam and Lilith in a manner that the female creature was contained in the male. Lilith's soul was lodged in the depths of the Great Abyss. When God called her, she joined Adam. After Adam's body was created a thousand souls from the Left (evil) side attempted to attach themselves to him. However, God drove them off. Adam was left lying as a body without a soul. Then a cloud descended and God commanded the earth to produce a living soul. This God breathed into Adam, who began to spring to life and his female was attached to his side. God separated the female from Adam's side. The female side was Lilith, whereupon she flew to the Cities of the Sea and attacked humankind.

Yet another version claims that Lilith emerged as a divine entity that was born spontaneously, either out of the Great Supernal Abyss or out of the power of an aspect of God (the Gevurah of Din). This aspect of God was negative and punitive, as well as one of his ten attributes (Sefirot), at its lowest manifestation has an affinity with the realm of evil and it is out of this that Lilith merged with Samael.[67]

An alternative story links Lilith with the creation of luminaries. The "first light", which is the light of Mercy (one of the Sefirot), appeared on the first day of creation when God said "Let there be light". This light became hidden and the Holiness became surrounded by a husk of evil. "A husk (klippa) was created around the brain" and this husk spread and brought out another husk, which was Lilith.[68]

Midrash ABKIR

The first medieval source to depict Adam and Lilith in full was the Midrash A.B.K.I.R. (c. 10th century), which was followed by the Zohar and other Kabbalistic writings. Adam is said to be perfect until he recognises either his sin or Cain's fratricide that is the cause of bringing death into the world. He then separates from holy Eve, sleeps alone, and fasts for 130 years. During this time "Pizna", either an alternate name for Lilith or a daughter of hers, desires his beauty and seduces him against his will. She gives birth to multitudes of djinns and demons, the first of them being named Agrimas. However, they are defeated by Methuselah, who slays thousands of them with a holy sword and forces Agrimas to give him the names of the rest, after which he casts them away to the sea and the mountains.[69]

Treatise on the Left Emanation

Main article: Treatise on the Left Emanation

The mystical writing of two brothers Jacob and Isaac Hacohen, Treatise on the Left Emanation, which predates the Zohar by a few decades, states that Samael and Lilith are in the shape of an androgynous being, double-faced, born out of the emanation of the Throne of Glory and corresponding in the spiritual realm to Adam and Eve, who were likewise born as a hermaphrodite. The two twin androgynous couples resembled each other and both "were like the image of Above"; that is, that they are reproduced in a visible form of an androgynous deity.

19. In answer to your question concerning Lilith, I shall explain to you the essence of the matter. Concerning this point there is a received tradition from the ancient Sages who made use of the Secret Knowledge of the Lesser Palaces, which is the manipulation of demons and a ladder by which one ascends to the prophetic levels. In this tradition it is made clear that Samael and Lilith were born as one, similar to the form of Adam and Eve who were also born as one, reflecting what is above. This is the account of Lilith which was received by the Sages in the Secret Knowledge of the Palaces.[68]

Another version[70] that was also current among Kabbalistic circles in the Middle Ages establishes Lilith as the first of Samael's four wives: Lilith, Naamah, Eisheth, and Agrat bat Mahlat. Each of them are mothers of demons and have their own hosts and unclean spirits in no number.[71] The marriage of archangel Samael and Lilith was arranged by Tanin'iver ("Blind Dragon"), who is the counterpart of "the dragon that is in the sea". Blind Dragon acts as an intermediary between Lilith and Samael:

Blind Dragon rides Lilith the Sinful – may she be extirpated quickly in our days, Amen! – And this Blind Dragon brings about the union between Samael and Lilith. And just as the Dragon that is in the sea (Isa. 27:1) has no eyes, likewise Blind Dragon that is above, in the likeness of a spiritual form, is without eyes, that is to say, without colors.... (Patai 81:458) Samael is called the Slant Serpent, and Lilith is called the Tortuous Serpent.[72]

The marriage of Samael and Lilith is known as the "Angel Satan" or the "Other God", but it was not allowed to last. To prevent Lilith and Samael's demonic children Lilin from filling the world, God castrated Samael. In many 17th century Kabbalistic books, this seems to be a reinterpretation of an old Talmudic myth where God castrated the male Leviathan and slew the female Leviathan in order to prevent them from mating and thereby destroying the Earth with their offspring.[73] With Lilith being unable to fornicate with Samael anymore, she sought to couple with men who experience nocturnal emissions. A 15th or 16th century Kabbalah text states that God has "cooled" the female Leviathan, meaning that he has made Lilith infertile and she is a mere fornication.[citation needed]

 
The Fall of Man by Cornelis van Haarlem (1592), showing the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a woman

The Treatise on the Left Emanation also says that there are two Liliths, the lesser being married to the great demon Asmodeus.

The Matron Lilith is the mate of Samael. Both of them were born at the same hour in the image of Adam and Eve, intertwined in each other. Asmodeus the great king of the demons has as a mate the Lesser (younger) Lilith, daughter of the king whose name is Qafsefoni. The name of his mate is Mehetabel daughter of Matred, and their daughter is Lilith.[74]

Another passage charges Lilith as being a tempting serpent of Eve.

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. And 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. (Patai81:455f)

Zohar

References to Lilith in the Zohar include the following:

She roams at night, and goes all about the world and makes sport with men and causes them to emit seed. In every place where a man sleeps alone in a house, she visits him and grabs him and attaches herself to him and has her desire from him, and bears from him. And she also afflicts him with sickness, and he knows it not, and all this takes place when the moon is on the wane.[75]

This passage may be related to the mention of Lilith in Talmud Shabbath 151b (see above), and also to Talmud Eruvin 18b where nocturnal emissions are connected with the begettal of demons.

According to Rapahel Patai, older sources state clearly that after Lilith's Red Sea sojourn (mentioned also in Louis Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews), she returned to Adam and begat children from him by forcing herself upon him. Before doing so, she attaches herself to Cain and bears him numerous spirits and demons. In the Zohar, however, Lilith is said to have succeeded in begetting offspring from Adam even during their short-lived sexual experience. Lilith leaves Adam in Eden, as she is not a suitable helpmate for him.[76] Gershom Scholem proposes that the author of the Zohar, Rabbi Moses de Leon, was aware of both the folk tradition of Lilith and another conflicting version, possibly older.[77]

The Zohar adds further that two female spirits instead of one, Lilith and Naamah, desired Adam and seduced him. The issue of these unions were demons and spirits called "the plagues of humankind", and the usual added explanation was that it was through Adam's own sin that Lilith overcame him against his will.[76]

17th-century Hebrew magical amulets

 
Medieval Hebrew amulet intended to protect a mother and her child from Lilith

A copy of Jean de Pauly's translation of the Zohar in the Ritman Library contains an inserted late 17th century printed Hebrew sheet for use in magical amulets where the prophet Elijah confronts Lilith.[78]

The sheet contains two texts within borders, which are amulets, one for a male ('lazakhar'), the other one for a female ('lanekevah'). The invocations mention Adam, Eve and Lilith, 'Chavah Rishonah' (the first Eve, who is identical with Lilith), also devils or angels: Sanoy, Sansinoy, Smangeluf, Shmari'el (the guardian) and Hasdi'el (the merciful). A few lines in Yiddish are followed by the dialogue between the prophet Elijah and Lilith when he met her with her host of demons to kill the mother and take her new-born child ('to drink her blood, suck her bones and eat her flesh'). She tells Elijah that she will lose her power if someone uses her secret names, which she reveals at the end: lilith, abitu, abizu, hakash, avers hikpodu, ayalu, matrota ...[79]

In other amulets, probably informed by The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, she is Adam's first wife. (Yalqut Reubeni, Zohar 1:34b, 3:19[80])

Charles Richardson's dictionary portion of the Encyclopædia Metropolitana appends to his etymological discussion of lullaby "a [manuscript] note written in a copy of Skinner" [i.e. Stephen Skinner's 1671 Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ], which asserts that the word lullaby originates from Lillu abi abi, a Hebrew incantation meaning "Lilith begone" recited by Jewish mothers over an infant's cradle.[81] Richardson did not endorse the theory and modern lexicographers consider it a false etymology.[81][82]

Alsatian Krasmesser (16th to 20th century)

Not so much an amulet as a ritual object for protection, the “Krasmesser” (or “Kreismesser”, circle knife) played a role in Jewish birth rituals in the area of Alsace, Switzerland and Southern Germany between the 16th and 20th century. The Krasmesser would be used by a midwife or by the husband to draw a magic circle around the pregnant or birthing woman to protect her from Lilith and the evil eye, which were considered to represent the greatest danger for children and pregnant women.[83]

Rabbi Naphtali Hirsch ben Elieser Treves described this custom as early as 1560, and later references to a knife or sword by the birthing bed by both Paul Christian Kirchner and Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz indicate its continuance. A publication about birth customs by the Jewish Museum of Switzerland also includes oral accounts from 20th century Baden-Württemberg which likewise mention circling movements with a knife in order to protect a woman in childbirth.[83]

Greco-Roman mythology

Main article: Lamia (mythology)
 
Lamia (first version) by John William Waterhouse, 1905

In the Latin Vulgate Book of Isaiah 34:14, Lilith is translated lamia.

According to Augustine Calmet, Lilith has connections with early views on vampires and sorcery:

Some learned men have thought they discovered some vestiges of vampirism in the remotest antiquity; but all that they say of it does not come near what is related of the vampires. The lamiae, the strigae, the sorcerers whom they accused of sucking the blood of living people, and of thus causing their death, the magicians who were said to cause the death of new-born children by charms and malignant spells, are nothing less than what we understand by the name of vampires; even were it to be owned that these lamiae and strigae have really existed, which we do not believe can ever be well proved. I own that these terms [lamiae and strigae] are found in the versions of Holy Scripture. For instance, Isaiah, describing the condition to which Babylon was to be reduced after her ruin, says that she shall become the abode of satyrs, lamiae, and strigae (in Hebrew, lilith). This last term, according to the Hebrews, signifies the same thing, as the Greeks express by strix and lamiae, which are sorceresses or magicians, who seek to put to death new-born children. Whence it comes that the Jews are accustomed to write in the four corners of the chamber of a woman just delivered, "Adam, Eve, be gone from hence lilith." ... The ancient Greeks knew these dangerous sorceresses by the name of lamiae, and they believed that they devoured children, or sucked away all their blood till they died.[84]

According to Siegmund Hurwitz the Talmudic Lilith is connected with the Greek Lamia, who, according to Hurwitz, likewise governed a class of child stealing lamia-demons. Lamia bore the title "child killer" and was feared for her malevolence, like Lilith. She has different conflicting origins and is described as having a human upper body from the waist up and a serpentine body from the waist down.[85] One source states simply that she is a daughter of the goddess Hecate, another, that Lamia was subsequently cursed by the goddess Hera to have stillborn children because of her association with Zeus; alternatively, Hera slew all of Lamia's children (except Scylla) in anger that Lamia slept with her husband, Zeus. The grief caused Lamia to turn into a monster that took revenge on mothers by stealing their children and devouring them.[85] Lamia had a vicious sexual appetite that matched her cannibalistic appetite for children. She was notorious for being a vampiric spirit and loved sucking men's blood.[86] Her gift was the "mark of a Sibyl", a gift of second sight. Zeus was said to have given her the gift of sight. However, she was "cursed" to never be able to shut her eyes so that she would forever obsess over her dead children. Taking pity on Lamia, Zeus gave her the ability to remove and replace her eyes from their sockets.[85]

In Mandaeism

In Mandaean scriptures such as the Ginza Rabba and Qolasta, liliths (Classical Mandaic: ࡋࡉࡋࡉࡕ) are mentioned as inhabitants of the World of Darkness.[87]

Arabic culture

The occult writer Ahmad al-Buni (d. 1225), in his Sun of the Great Knowledge (Arabic: شمس المعارف الكبرى), mentions a demon called "the mother of children" (ام الصبيان), a term also used "in one place".[88] Folkloric traditions recorded around 1953 tell about a jinn called Qarinah, who was rejected by Adam and mated with Iblis instead. She gave birth to a host of demons and became known as their mother. To take revenge on Adam, she pursues human children. As such, she would kill a pregnant mother's baby in the womb, causes impotence to men or attacks little children with illnesses. According to occult practises, she would be subject to the demon-king Murrah al-Abyad, which appears to be another name for Iblis used in magical writings. Stories about Qarinah and Lilith merged in early Islam.[89]

In Western literature

See also: Lilith in popular culture

In German literature

 
Faust and Lilith by Richard Westall (1831)

Lilith's earliest appearance in the literature of the Romantic period (1789–1832) was in Goethe's 1808 work Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy.

Faust:
    Who's that there?
Mephistopheles:
    Take a good look.
    Lilith.
Faust:
    Lilith? Who is that?
Mephistopheles:
    Adam's wife, his first. Beware of her.
    Her beauty's one boast is her dangerous hair.
    When Lilith winds it tight around young men
    She doesn't soon let go of them again.

— 1992 Greenberg translation, lines 4206–4211

After Mephistopheles offers this warning to Faust, he then, quite ironically, encourages Faust to dance with "the Pretty Witch". Lilith and Faust engage in a short dialogue, where Lilith recounts the days spent in Eden.

Faust: [dancing with the young witch]
    A lovely dream I dreamt one day
    I saw a green-leaved apple tree,
    Two apples swayed upon a stem,
    So tempting! I climbed up for them.
The Pretty Witch:
    Ever since the days of Eden
    Apples have been man's desire.
    How overjoyed I am to think, sir,
    Apples grow, too, in my garden.

— 1992 Greenberg translation, lines 4216 – 4223

In English literature

 
Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1866–1868, 1872–1873)

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which developed around 1848,[90] were greatly influenced by Goethe's work on the theme of Lilith. In 1863, Dante Gabriel Rossetti of the Brotherhood began painting what would later be his first rendition of Lady Lilith, a painting he expected to be his "best picture hitherto".[90] Symbols appearing in the painting allude to the "femme fatale" reputation of the Romantic Lilith: poppies (death and cold) and white roses (sterile passion). Accompanying his Lady Lilith painting from 1866, Rossetti wrote a sonnet entitled Lilith, which was first published in Swinburne's pamphlet-review (1868), Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition.

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flower; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! As that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

— Collected Works, 216

The poem and the picture appeared together alongside Rossetti's painting Sibylla Palmifera and the sonnet Soul's Beauty. In 1881, the Lilith sonnet was renamed "Body's Beauty" in order to contrast it and Soul's Beauty. The two were placed sequentially in The House of Life collection (sonnets number 77 and 78).[90]

Rossetti wrote in 1870:

Lady [Lilith] ... represents a Modern Lilith combing out her abundant golden hair and gazing on herself in the glass with that self-absorption by whose strange fascination such natures draw others within their own circle.

— Rossetti, W. M. ii.850, D. G. Rossetti's emphasis[90]

This is in accordance with Jewish folk tradition, which associates Lilith both with long hair (a symbol of dangerous feminine seductive power in Jewish culture), and with possessing women by entering them through mirrors.[91]

The Victorian poet Robert Browning re-envisioned Lilith in his poem "Adam, Lilith, and Eve". First published in 1883, the poem uses the traditional myths surrounding the triad of Adam, Eve, and Lilith. Browning depicts Lilith and Eve as being friendly and complicitous with each other, as they sit together on either side of Adam. Under the threat of death, Eve admits that she never loved Adam, while Lilith confesses that she always loved him:

As the worst of the venom left my lips,
I thought, 'If, despite this lie, he strips
The mask from my soul with a kiss — I crawl
His slave, — soul, body, and all!

— Browning 1098

Browning focused on Lilith's emotional attributes, rather than that of her ancient demon predecessors.[92]

Scottish author George MacDonald also wrote a fantasy novel entitled Lilith, first published in 1895. MacDonald employed the character of Lilith in service to a spiritual drama about sin and redemption, in which Lilith finds a hard-won salvation. Many of the traditional characteristics of Lilith mythology are present in the author's depiction: Long dark hair, pale skin, a hatred and fear of children and babies, and an obsession with gazing at herself in a mirror. MacDonald's Lilith also has vampiric qualities: she bites people and sucks their blood for sustenance.

Australian poet and scholar Christopher John Brennan (1870–1932), included a section titled "Lilith" in his major work "Poems: 1913" (Sydney : G. B. Philip and Son, 1914). The "Lilith" section contains thirteen poems exploring the Lilith myth and is central to the meaning of the collection as a whole.

C. L. Moore's 1940 story Fruit of Knowledge is written from Lilith's point of view. It is a re-telling of the Fall of Man as a love triangle between Lilith, Adam and Eve – with Eve's eating the forbidden fruit being in this version the result of misguided manipulations by the jealous Lilith, who had hoped to get her rival discredited and destroyed by God and thus regain Adam's love.

British poet John Siddique's 2011 collection Full Blood has a suite of 11 poems called The Tree of Life, which features Lilith as the divine feminine aspect of God. A number of the poems feature Lilith directly, including the piece Unwritten which deals with the spiritual problem of the feminine being removed by the scribes from The Bible.

Lilith is also mentioned in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis. The character Mr. Beaver ascribes the ancestry of the main antagonist, Jadis the White Witch, to Lilith.[93]

"Lilith" is a poem by Vladimir Nabokov, written in 1928. Many have connected it to Lolita, but Nabokov adamantly denies this: "Intelligent readers will abstain from examining this impersonal fantasy for any links with my later fiction."[94]

In Western esotericism and modern occultism

The depiction of Lilith in Romanticism continues to be popular among Wiccans and in other modern Occultism.[90] A few magical orders dedicated to the undercurrent of Lilith, featuring initiations specifically related to the arcana of the "first mother", exist. Two organisations that use initiations and magic associated with Lilith are the Ordo Antichristianus Illuminati and the Order of Phosphorus. Lilith appears as a succubus in Aleister Crowley's De Arte Magica. Lilith was also one of the middle names of Crowley's first child, Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith Crowley (1904–1906), and Lilith is sometimes identified with Babalon in Thelemic writings. Many early occult writers that contributed to modern day Wicca expressed special reverence for Lilith. Charles Leland associated Aradia with Lilith: Aradia, says Leland, is Herodias, who was regarded in stregheria folklore as being associated with Diana as chief of the witches. Leland further notes that Herodias is a name that comes from west Asia, where it denoted an early form of Lilith.[95][96]

Gerald Gardner asserted that there was continuous historical worship of Lilith to present day, and that her name is sometimes given to the goddess being personified in the coven by the priestess. This idea was further attested by Doreen Valiente, who cited her as a presiding goddess of the Craft: "the personification of erotic dreams, the suppressed desire for delights".[97] In some contemporary concepts, Lilith is viewed as the embodiment of the Goddess, a designation that is thought to be shared with what these faiths believe to be her counterparts: Inanna, Ishtar, Asherah, Anath, Anahita and Isis.[98] According to one view, Lilith was originally a Sumerian, Babylonian, or Hebrew mother goddess of childbirth, children, women, and sexuality.[99][100]

Raymond Buckland holds that Lilith is a dark moon goddess on par with the Hindu Kali.[101][page needed]

Many theistic Satanists consider Lilith as a goddess. She is considered a goddess of independence by those Satanists and is often worshipped by women, but women are not the only people who worship her. Lilith is popular among theistic Satanists because of her association with Satan. Some Satanists believe that she is the wife of Satan and thus think of her as a mother figure. Others base their reverence for her on her history as a succubus and praise her as a sex goddess.[102] A different approach to a Satanic Lilith holds that she was once a fertility and agricultural goddess.[103]

The western mystery tradition associates Lilith with the Qliphoth of kabbalah. Samael Aun Weor in The Pistis Sophia Unveiled writes that homosexuals are the "henchmen of Lilith". Likewise, women who undergo wilful abortion, and those who support this practice are "seen in the sphere of Lilith".[104] Dion Fortune writes, "The Virgin Mary is reflected in Lilith",[105] and that Lilith is the source of "lustful dreams".[105]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Compare Genesis 1:27[10] (this contrasts with Eve, who was created from one of Adam's ribs).[11]
  2. ^ Kramer translates the zu as "owl", but most often it is translated as "eagle", "vulture", or "bird of prey".
  3. ^ See The animals mentioned in the Bible Henry Chichester Hart 1888, and more modern sources; also entries Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew Lexicon for tsiyyim, 'iyyim, sayir, liylith, qippowz and dayah.
  4. ^ מנוח, manoaḥ, used for birds as Noah's dove, Gen.8:9 and also humans as Israel, Deut.28:65; Naomi, Ruth 3:1.
  5. ^ 34:14 καὶ συναντήσουσιν δαιμόνια ὀνοκενταύροις καὶ βοήσουσιν ἕτερος πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον ἐκεῖ ἀναπαύσονται ὀνοκένταυροι εὗρον γὰρ αὑτοῖς ἀνάπαυσιν Translation: And daemons shall meet with onocentaurs, and they shall cry one to the other: there shall the onocentaurs rest, having found for themselves [a place of] rest.

References

  1. ^ a b McDonald, Beth E. (2009). "In Possession of the Night: Lilith as Goddess, Demon, Vampire". In Sabbath, Roberta Sternman (ed.). Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an As Literature and Culture. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 175–178. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004177529.i-536.42. ISBN 978-90-04-17752-9.
  2. ^ a b "Blood, Gender and Power in Christianity and Judaism". www2.kenyon.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-08.
  3. ^ a b Isaiah 34:14
  4. ^ Müller-Kessler, Christa (2001). "Lilit(s) in der aramäisch-magischen Literatur der Spätantike". Altorientalische Forschungen. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. 28 (2): 338–352. doi:10.1524/aofo.2001.28.2.338. S2CID 163723903.
  5. ^ Davidson, Gustav (1971) Dictionary of Angels.pdf A Dictionary of Angels including the Fallen Angels, New York, The Free Press, p. 174. ISBN 002907052X
  6. ^ B., Shapiro, Marc (2008). Studies in Maimonides and his interpreters. University of Scranton Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-58966-165-3. OCLC 912624714.
  7. ^ a b Blair
  8. ^ Farber, Walter (1990) Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie (RLA), 7, Berlin, de Gruyter, pp. 23–24, ISBN 3-11-010437-7.
  9. ^ Hutter, Manfred (1999) "Lilith", in K. van der Toorn et al. (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Leiden, Brill, pp. 520–521. ISBN 90-04-11119-0.
  10. ^ Genesis 1:27
  11. ^ Genesis 2:22
  12. ^ Schwartz, Howard (2006). Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism. Oxford University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-19-532713-7.
  13. ^ a b Kvam, Kristen E.; Schearing, Linda S.; Ziegler, Valarie H. (1999). Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender. Indiana University Press. pp. 220–221. ISBN 978-0-253-21271-9.
  14. ^ Freedman, David Noel (ed.) (1997, 1992). Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday. "Very little information has been found relating to the Akkadian and Babylonian view of these figures. Two sources of information previously used to define Lilith are both suspect."
  15. ^ Isaiah 34:14
  16. ^ Ebeling, Erich; Meissner, Bruno; Edzard, Dietz Otto Reallexikon der Assyriologie Vol. 9, pp. 47, 50. De Gruyter.
  17. ^ Astour, Michael C. (1965) Hellenosemitica: an ethnic and cultural study in west Semitic impact on Mycenaean. Greece. Brill. p. 138.
  18. ^ Archibald Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on Babylonian Religion 1887.
  19. ^ Charles Fossey, La Magie Assyrienne, Paris: 1902.
  20. ^ Fossey, Charles (1902). La magie assyrienne; étude suivie de textes magiques, transcrits, traduits, et commentés (in French). Paris: E. Leroux. p. 37. Le lilú, la lilît et l'ardat lili, un mâle et deux femelles, formant une trinité de démons que les textes ne séparent guère. Ils personnifient les forces perturbatrices de l'atmosphère...
  21. ^ Kramer, S. N. (1938) Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree: A Reconstructed Sumerian Text. Assyriological Studies 10. Chicago.
  22. ^ George, A. (2003) The epic of Gilgamesh: the Babylonian epic poem and other texts in Akkadian. p. 100 Tablet XII. Appendix The last Tablet in the 'Series of Gilgamesh' . ISBN 9780713991963
  23. ^ Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Chicago: University of Chicago. 1956.
  24. ^ Hurwitz, p. 49
  25. ^ Manfred Hutter article in Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter Willem van der Horst – 1999 pp. 520–521, article cites Hutter's own 1988 work Behexung, Entsühnung und Heilung Eisenbrauns 1988. pp. 224–228.
  26. ^ Müller-Kessler, C. (2002) "A Charm against Demons of Time", in C. Wunsch (ed.), Mining the Archives. Festschrift Christopher Walker on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday (Dresden), p. 185. ISBN 9783980846608
  27. ^ Sterman Sabbath, Roberta (2009) Sacred tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an as literature and culture.
  28. ^ Sex and gender in the ancient Near East: proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Helsinki, July 2–6, 2001, Part 2 p. 481.
  29. ^ Ribichini, S. (1976) "Lilith nell-albero Huluppu", pp. 25 in Atti del 1° Convegno Italiano sul Vicino Oriente Antico, Rome.
  30. ^ Frankfort, H. (1937). "The Burney Relief". Archiv für Orientforschung. 12: 128–135. JSTOR 41680314.
  31. ^ Kraeling, Emil (1937). "A Unique Babylonian Relief". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 67 (67): 16–18. doi:10.2307/3218905. JSTOR 3218905. S2CID 164141131.
  32. ^ Albenda, Pauline (2005). "The "Queen of the Night" Plaque: A Revisit". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 125 (2): 171–190. JSTOR 20064325.
  33. ^ Gaster, T. H. (1942). A Canaanite Magical Text. Or 11:
  34. ^ Torczyner, H. (1947). "A Hebrew Incantation against Night-Demons from Biblical Times". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. University of Chicago Press. 6 (1): 18–29. doi:10.1086/370809. S2CID 161927885.
  35. ^ de Waard, Jan (1997). A handbook on Isaiah. Winona Lake, IN. ISBN 1-57506-023-X.
  36. ^ "Isaiah 34:14 (JPS 1917)". Mechon Mamre. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  37. ^ Blair, p. 27.
  38. ^ Morray-Jones, Christopher R. A. (2002) A transparent illusion: the dangerous vision of water in Hekhalot. Brill. ISBN 9004113371. Vol. 59, p. 258: "Early evidence of the belief in a plurality of liliths is provided by the Isaiah scroll from Qumran, which gives the name as liliyyot, and by the targum to Isaiah, which, in both cases, reads" (Targum reads: "when Lilith the Queen of [Sheba] and of Margod fell upon them.")
  39. ^ Jahrbuch für Protestantische Theologie 1, 1875. p. 128.
  40. ^ Levy, [Moritz] A.[braham] (1817–1872)]. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Vol. ZDMG 9. 1885. pp. 470, 484.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  41. ^ "The Old Testament (Vulgate)/Isaias propheta". Wikisource (Latin). Retrieved 2007-09-24.
  42. ^ "Parallel Latin Vulgate Bible and Douay-Rheims Bible and King James Bible; The Complete Sayings of Jesus Christ". Latin Vulgate. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  43. ^ Davis, Michael T.; Strawn, Brent A. (2007) Qumran studies: new approaches, new questions. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 9780802860804. p. 47: "two manuscripts that date to the Herodian period, with 4Q510 slightly earlier".
  44. ^ Chilton, Bruce; Bock, Darrell and Gurtner, Daniel M. (2010) A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of Mark. Brill. p. 84. ISBN 9789004179738
  45. ^ "Lilith". Biblical Archaeology Society. 2019-10-31. Retrieved 2020-05-30.
  46. ^ a b Baumgarten, J. M. (1991). "On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184". Revue de Qumran. 15 (1/2 (57/58)): 133–143. JSTOR 24608925.
  47. ^ Baumgarten, J. M. (2001). "The seductress of Qumran". Bible Review. 17 (5): 21–23, 42.
  48. ^ Collins, J. J. (1997) Jewish wisdom in the Hellenistic age. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664221096
  49. ^ Tractate Niddah in the Mishnah is the only tractate from the Order of Tohorot which has Talmud on it. The Jerusalem Talmud is incomplete here, but the Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Niddah (2a–76b) is complete.
  50. ^ a b c d e f Kosior, Wojciech (2018). "A Tale of Two Sisters: The Image of Eve in Early Rabbinic Literature and Its Influence on the Portrayal of Lilith in the Alphabet of Ben Sira". Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues (32): 112–130. doi:10.2979/nashim.32.1.10. S2CID 166142604.
  51. ^ Aish (18 August 2011). "Lillith". Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  52. ^ Numbers Rabbah, in: Judaic Classics Library, Davka Corporation, 1999. (CD-ROM).
  53. ^ a b c Shaked, Shaul (2013). Aramaic bowl spells : Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls. Volume one. Ford, James Nathan; Bhayro, Siam; Morgenstern, Matthew; Vilozny, Naama. Leiden. ISBN 9789004229372. OCLC 854568886.
  54. ^ a b Lesses, Rebecca (2001). "Exe(o)rcising Power: Women as Sorceresses, Exorcists, and Demonesses in Babylonian Jewish Society of Late Antiquity". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 69 (2): 343–375. doi:10.1093/jaarel/69.2.343. JSTOR 1465786. PMID 20681106.
  55. ^ Descenders to the chariot: the people behind the Hekhalot literature, p. 277 James R. Davila – 2001: "that they be used by anyone and everyone. The whole community could become the equals of the sages. Perhaps this is why nearly every house excavated in the Jewish settlement in Nippur had one or more incantation bowl buried in it."
  56. ^ Yamauchi, Edwin M. (October–December 1965). "Aramaic Magic Bowls". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 85 (4): 511–523. doi:10.2307/596720. JSTOR 596720.
  57. ^ Isbell, Charles D. (March 1978). "The Story of the Aramaic Magical Incantation Bowls". The Biblical Archaeologist. 41 (1): 5–16. doi:10.2307/3209471. JSTOR 3209471. S2CID 194977929.
  58. ^ Montgomery, James Alan (2011). Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-511-79285-4.
  59. ^ The attribution to the sage Ben Sira is considered false, with the true author unknown.
  60. ^ "BEN SIRA, ALPHABET OF - JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2022-06-23.
  61. ^ Alphabet of Ben Sirah, Question #5 (23a–b).
  62. ^ Humm, Alan. Lilith in the Alphabet of Ben Sira
  63. ^ Segal, Eliezer. Looking for Lilith
  64. ^ Schwartz, p. 7.
  65. ^ a b c d Schwartz, p. 8.
  66. ^ Patai, pp. 229–230.
  67. ^ Patai, p. 230.
  68. ^ a b Patai, p. 231.
  69. ^ Geoffrey W. Dennis, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism: Second Edition.
  70. ^ "Jewish Encyclopedia demonology".
  71. ^ Patai, p. 244.
  72. ^ Humm, Alan. Lilith, Samael, & Blind Dragon
  73. ^ Patai, p. 246.
  74. ^ R. Isaac b. Jacob Ha-Kohen. (1986) "Lilith in Jewish Mysticism: Treatise on the Left Emanation" in Joseph Dan, ed. The Early Kabbalah, New York: Pauilist Press, pp. 172-182. ISBN 0809127695
  75. ^ Patai, p. 233.
  76. ^ a b Patai, p. 232 "But Lilith, whose name is Pizna, – or according to the Zohar, two female spirits, Lilith and Naamah – found him, desired his beauty which was like that of the sun disk, and lay with him. The issue of these unions were demons and spirits"
  77. ^ Scholem, Gershom (1941) Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. p. 174.
  78. ^ "Printed sheet, late 17th century or early 18th century, 185x130 mm.
  79. ^ . Archived from the original on 2010-02-12.
  80. ^ Humm, Alan. Kabbalah: Lilith's origins
  81. ^ a b Richardson, Charles (1845). "Lexicon: Lull, Lullaby". In Smedley, Edward; Rose, Hugh James; Rose, Edward John (eds.). Encyclopædia Metropolitana. Vol. XXI. London: B. Fellowes; etc., etc. pp. 597–598. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  82. ^ "lullaby". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 18 June 2020.; "lullaby". American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Retrieved 18 June 2020.; Simpson, John A., ed. (1989). "lullaby". The Oxford English dictionary. Vol. IX (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-19-861221-6. Retrieved 18 June 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  83. ^ a b Lubrich, Naomi, ed. (2022). Birth Culture. Jewish Testimonies from Rural Switzerland and Environs (in German and English). Basel. pp. 9–35. ISBN 978-3796546075.
  84. ^ Calmet, Augustine (1751). Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants: of Hungary, Moravia, et al. The Complete Volumes I & II. 2016. p. 353. ISBN 978-1-5331-4568-0.
  85. ^ a b c Hurwitz, p. 43.
  86. ^ Hurwitz, p. 78.
  87. ^ Gelbert, Carlos (2011). Ginza Rba. Sydney: Living Water Books. ISBN 9780958034630.
  88. ^ Hurwitz, p. 160
  89. ^ Lebling, Robert (2010). Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar. New York City, New York and London, England: I. B. Tauris. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-85773-063-3.
  90. ^ a b c d e Amy Scerba. . Archived from the original on 2011-12-21. Retrieved 2011-12-09.
  91. ^ Schwartz
  92. ^ Seidel, Kathryn Lee. The Lilith Figure in Toni Morrison's Sula and Alice Walker's The Color Purple 2019-08-06 at the Wayback Machine
  93. ^ The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe, Collier Books (paperback, Macmillan subsidiary), 1970, pg. 77.
  94. ^ Vladimir Nabokov "Collected Poems" edited and introduced by Thomas Karshan, Penguin Books, c2012.
  95. ^ Grimassi, Raven.Stregheria: La Vecchia Religione 2018-10-20 at the Wayback Machine
  96. ^ Leland, Charles.Aradia, Gospel of the Witches-Appendix
  97. ^ "Lilith-The First Eve". Imbolc. 2002.
  98. ^ Grenn, Deborah J.History of Lilith Institute 2007-01-21 at the Wayback Machine
  99. ^ Hurwitz, Siegmund. "Excerpts from Lilith-The first Eve".
  100. ^ . Goddess. Archived from the original on 2018-05-04. Retrieved 2018-11-30.
  101. ^ Raymond Buckland, The Witch Book, Visible Ink Press, November 1, 2001.
  102. ^ Bailobiginki, Margi. "Lilith and the modern Western world". Theistic Satanism. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  103. ^ Moffat, Charles. "The Sumerian legend of Lilith". Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  104. ^ Aun Weor, Samael (June 2005). Pistis Sophia Unveiled. p. 339. ISBN 9780974591681.[permanent dead link]
  105. ^ a b Fortune, Dion (1963). Psychic Self-Defence. pp. 126–128. ISBN 9781609254643.

Cited sources

  • Blair, Judit M. (2009). De-demonising the Old Testament : an investigation of Azazel, Lilith, Deber, Qeteb and Reshef in the Hebrew Bible. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-150131-9.
  • Hurwitz, Siegmund (1980). Lilith, die erste Eva: eine Studie über dunkle Aspekte des Weiblichen [Lilith, the First Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine]. Zürich: Daimon Verlag. ISBN 3-85630-545-9.

Bibliography

External links

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Lilith.
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lilith.
  • Jewish Encyclopedia: Lilith
  • Collection of Lilith information and links by Alan Humm
  • International standard Bible Encyclopedia: Night-Monster

May 04, 2023
lilith, this, article, about, jewish, religious, figure, other, uses, disambiguation, lith, hebrew, יל, ית, romanized, līlīṯ, also, spelt, lilit, lilitu, lilis, female, figure, mesopotamian, judaic, mythology, theorized, first, wife, adam, supposedly, primordi. This article is about the Jewish religious figure Lilith For other uses see Lilith disambiguation Lilith ˈ l ɪ l ɪ 8 LIH lith Hebrew ל יל ית romanized Liliṯ also spelt Lilit Lilitu or Lilis is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology theorized to be the first wife of Adam 1 and supposedly the primordial she demon Lilith is cited as having been banished 2 from the Garden of Eden for not complying with and obeying Adam 2 She is thought to be mentioned in Biblical Hebrew in the Book of Isaiah 3 and in Late Antiquity in Mandaean mythology and Jewish mythology sources from 500 CE onward Lilith appears in historiolas incantations incorporating a short mythic story in various concepts and localities 4 that give partial descriptions of her She is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud Eruvin 100b Niddah 24b Shabbat 151b Baba Bathra 73a in the Book of Adam and Eve as Adam s first wife and in the Zohar Leviticus 19a as a hot fiery female who first cohabited with man 5 Many traditional rabbinic authorities including Maimonides and Menachem Meiri reject the existence of Lilith 6 LilithLilith 1887 by John CollierThe name Lilith stems from lilu lilitu and w ardat lili The Akkadian word lilu is related to the Hebrew word lilith in Isaiah 34 14 which is thought to be a night bird by some modern scholars such as Judit M Blair 7 In the Ancient Mesopotamian religion found in cuneiform texts of Sumer Assyria and Babylonia Lilith signifies a spirit or demon 1 8 9 Lilith continues to serve as source material in today s popular culture Western culture literature occultism fantasy and horror Contents 1 History 2 Etymology 3 Mesopotamian mythology 3 1 The spirit in the tree in the Gilgamesh cycle 3 2 The bird footed woman in the Burney Relief 3 3 The Arslan Tash amulets 4 In the Hebrew Bible 4 1 Hebrew text 4 2 Greek version 4 3 Latin Bible 4 4 English versions 5 Jewish tradition 5 1 Dead Sea Scrolls 5 2 Early Rabbinic literature 5 3 Incantation bowls 5 4 Alphabet of Ben Sira 5 4 1 The influence of the rabbinic traditions 5 5 Kabbalah 5 5 1 Midrash ABKIR 5 5 2 Treatise on the Left Emanation 5 5 3 Zohar 5 6 17th century Hebrew magical amulets 5 7 Alsatian Krasmesser 16th to 20th century 6 Greco Roman mythology 7 In Mandaeism 8 Arabic culture 9 In Western literature 9 1 In German literature 9 2 In English literature 10 In Western esotericism and modern occultism 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 Cited sources 15 Bibliography 16 External linksHistory EditIn some Jewish folklore such as the satirical Alphabet of Sirach c 700 1000 AD Lilith appears as Adam s first wife who was created at the same time and from the same clay as Adam a The legend of Lilith developed extensively during the Middle Ages in the tradition of Aggadah the Zohar and Jewish mysticism 12 For example in the 13th century writings of Isaac ben Jacob ha Cohen Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she had coupled with the archangel Samael 13 Interpretations of Lilith found in later Jewish materials are plentiful but little information has survived relating to the Sumerian Akkadian Assyrian and Babylonian view of this class of demons While researchers almost universally agree that a connection exists recent scholarship has disputed the relevance of two sources previously used to connect the Jewish lilith to an Akkadian lilitu the Gilgamesh appendix and the Arslan Tash amulets 14 see below for discussion of these two problematic sources In contrast some scholars such as Lowell K Handy hold the view that though Lilith derives from Mesopotamian demonology evidence of the Hebrew Lilith being present in the sources frequently cited the Sumerian Gilgamesh fragment and the Sumerian incantation from Arshlan Tash being two is scant if present at all 13 174 In Hebrew language texts the term lilith or lilit translated as night creatures night monster night hag or screech owl first occurs in a list of animals in Isaiah 34 15 The Isaiah 34 14 Lilith reference does not appear in most common Bible translations such as KJV and NIV Commentators and interpreters often envision the figure of Lilith as a dangerous demon of the night who is sexually wanton and who steals babies in the darkness In the Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q510 511 the term first occurs in a list of monsters Jewish magical inscriptions on bowls and amulets from the 6th century AD onward identify Lilith as a female demon and provide the first visual depictions of her Etymology EditIn the Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia the terms lili and lilitu mean spirits Some uses of lilitu are listed in the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago CAD 1956 L 190 in Wolfram von Soden s Akkadisches Handworterbuch AHw p 553 and Reallexikon der Assyriologie RLA p 47 16 The Sumerian female demons lili have no etymological relation to Akkadian lilu evening 17 Archibald Sayce 1882 18 page needed considered that Hebrew lilit or lilith לילית and the earlier Akkadian lilitu are derived from Proto Semitic Charles Fossey 1902 has this literally translating to female night being demon although cuneiform inscriptions from Mesopotamia exist where Lilit and Lilitu refers to disease bearing wind spirits 19 20 Mesopotamian mythology EditMain article Lilu mythology The spirit in the tree in the Gilgamesh cycle Edit Samuel Noah Kramer 1932 published 1938 21 translated ki sikil lil la ke as Lilith in Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh dated c 600 BC Tablet XII is not part of the Epic of Gilgamesh but is a later Assyrian Akkadian translation of the latter part of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh 22 The ki sikil lil la ke is associated with a serpent and a zu bird b In Gilgamesh Enkidu and the Netherworld a huluppu tree grows in Inanna s garden in Uruk whose wood she plans to use to build a new throne After ten years of growth she comes to harvest it and finds a serpent living at its base a Zu bird raising young in its crown and that a ki sikil lil la ke made a house in its trunk Gilgamesh is said to have killed the snake and then the zu bird flew away to the mountains with its young while the ki sikil lil la ke fearfully destroys its house and runs for the forest 23 24 Identification of the ki sikil lil la ke as Lilith is stated in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible 1999 25 According to a new source from late antiquity Lilith appears in a Mandaean magic story where she is considered to represent the branches of a tree with other demonic figures that form other parts of the tree though this may also include multiple Liliths 26 Suggested translations for the Tablet XII spirit in the tree include ki sikil as sacred place lil as spirit and lil la ke as water spirit 27 but also simply owl given that the lil is building a home in the trunk of the tree 28 A connection between the Gilgamesh ki sikil lil la ke and the Jewish Lilith was rejected on textual grounds by Sergio Ribichini 1978 29 The bird footed woman in the Burney Relief Edit Main article Burney Relief Burney Relief Babylon 1800 1750 BC Kramer s translation of the Gilgamesh fragment was used by Henri Frankfort 1937 30 and Emil Kraeling 1937 to support identification of a woman with wings and bird feet in the disputed Burney Relief as related to Lilith Frankfort and Kraeling identified the figure in the relief with Lilith 31 Modern research has identified the figure as one of the main goddesses of the Mesopotamian pantheons most probably Ereshkigal 32 The Arslan Tash amulets Edit Main article Arslan Tash amulets The Arslan Tash amulets are limestone plaques discovered in 1933 at Arslan Tash the authenticity of which is disputed William F Albright Theodor H Gaster 33 and others accepted the amulets as a pre Jewish source which shows that the name Lilith already existed in the 7th century BC but Torczyner 1947 identified the amulets as a later Jewish source 34 In the Hebrew Bible EditThe word lilit or lilith only appears once in the Hebrew Bible in a prophecy regarding the fate of Edom 3 while the other seven terms in the list appear more than once and thus are better documented The reading of scholars and translators is often guided by a decision about the complete list of eight creatures as a whole 35 c Quoting from Isaiah 34 NAB 12 Her nobles shall be no more nor shall kings be proclaimed there all her princes are gone 13 Her castles shall be overgrown with thorns her fortresses with thistles and briers She shall become an abode for jackals and a haunt for ostriches 14 Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts satyrs shall call to one another There shall the Lilith repose and find for herself a place to rest 15 There the hoot owl shall nest and lay eggs hatch them out and gather them in her shadow There shall the kites assemble none shall be missing its mate 16 Look in the book of the LORD and read No one of these shall be lacking For the mouth of the LORD has ordered it and His spirit shall gather them there 17 It is He who casts the lot for them and with His hands He marks off their shares of her They shall possess her forever and dwell there from generation to generation Hebrew text Edit In the Masoretic Text Hebrew ו פ ג ש ו צ י ים א ת א י ים ו ש ע יר ע ל ר ע הו י ק ר א א ך ש ם ה ר ג יע ה ל יל ית ו מ צ א ה ל ה מ נו ח u pagsu ṣiyyim et ʾiyyim w saʿir ʿal reʿehu yiqra ʾak sam hirgiʿalilit u maṣʾa lah manoaḥ 34 14 And shall meet wildcats 36 with jackals the goat he calls his fellowlilit lilith she rests and she finds rest d 34 15 there she shall nest the great owl and she lays eggs and she hatches and she gathers under her shadow hawks kites gledes also they gather every one with its mate In the Dead Sea Scrolls among the 19 fragments of Isaiah found at Qumran the Great Isaiah Scroll 1Q1Isa in 34 14 renders the creature as plural liliyyot or liliyyoth 37 38 Eberhard Schrader 1875 39 and Moritz Abraham Levy 1855 40 suggest that Lilith was a demon of the night known also by the Jewish exiles in Babylon Schrader s and Levy s view is therefore partly dependent on a later dating of Deutero Isaiah to the 6th century BC and the presence of Jews in Babylon which would coincide with the possible references to the Lilitu in Babylonian demonology However this view is challenged by some modern research such as by Judit M Blair 2009 who considers that the context indicates unclean animals 7 Greek version Edit The Septuagint translates both the reference to Lilith and the word for jackals or wild beasts of the island within the same verse into Greek as onokentauros apparently assuming them as referring to the same creatures and omitting wildcats wild beasts of the desert so instead of the wildcats or desert beasts meeting with the jackals or island beasts the goat or satyr crying to his fellow and lilith or screech owl resting there it is the goat or satyr translated as daimonia demons and the jackals or island beasts onocentaurs meeting with each other and crying one to the other and the latter resting there in the translation e Latin Bible Edit The early 5th century Vulgate translated the same word as lamia 41 42 et occurrent daemonia onocentauris et pilosus clamabit alter ad alterum ibi cubavit lamia et invenit sibi requiem Isaiah Isaias Propheta 34 14 Vulgate The translation is And demons shall meet with monsters and one hairy one shall cry out to another there the lamia has lain down and found rest for herself English versions Edit Wycliffe s Bible 1395 preserves the Latin rendering lamia Isa 34 15 Lamya schal ligge there and foond rest there to hir silf The Bishops Bible of Matthew Parker 1568 from the Latin Isa 34 14 there shall the Lamia lye and haue her lodgyng Douay Rheims Bible 1582 1610 also preserves the Latin rendering lamia Isa 34 14 And demons and monsters shall meet and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another there hath the lamia lain down and found rest for herself The Geneva Bible of William Whittingham 1587 from the Hebrew Isa 34 14 and the screech owl shall rest there and shall finde for her selfe a quiet dwelling Then the King James Version 1611 Isa 34 14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island and the satyr shall cry to his fellow the screech owl also shall rest there and find for herself a place of rest The screech owl translation of the King James Version is together with the owl yansup probably a water bird in 34 11 and the great owl qippoz properly a snake of 34 15 an attempt to render the passage by choosing suitable animals for difficult to translate Hebrew words Later translations include night owl Young 1898 night spectre Rotherham Emphasized Bible 1902 night monster ASV 1901 JPS 1917 Good News Translation 1992 NASB 1995 vampires Moffatt Translation 1922 Knox Bible 1950 night hag Revised Standard Version 1947 Lilith Jerusalem Bible 1966 the lilith New American Bible 1970 Lilith New Revised Standard Version 1989 the night demon Lilith evil and rapacious The Message Bible Peterson 1993 night creature New International Version 1978 New King James Version 1982 New Living Translation 1996 Today s New International Version nightjar New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures 1984 night bird English Standard Version 2001 night bird NASB 2020 nocturnal animals New English Translation NET Bible Jewish tradition EditMajor sources in Jewish tradition regarding Lilith in chronological order include c 40 10 BC Dead Sea Scrolls Songs for a Sage 4Q510 511 c 200 Mishnah not mentioned c 500 Gemara of the Talmud c 700 1000 The Alphabet of Ben Sira c 900 Midrash Abkir c 1260 Treatise on the Left Emanation Spain c 1280 Zohar Spain Dead Sea Scrolls Edit The Dead Sea Scrolls contain one indisputable reference to Lilith in Songs of the Sage 4Q510 511 43 fragment 1 And I the Instructor proclaim His glorious splendour so as to frighten and to te rrify all the spirits of the destroying angels spirits of the bastards demons Lilith howlers and desert dwellers and those which fall upon men without warning to lead them astray from a spirit of understanding and to make their heart and their desolate during the present dominion of wickedness and predetermined time of humiliations for the sons of lig ht by the guilt of the ages of those smitten by iniquity not for eternal destruction bu t for an era of humiliation for transgression 44 Photographic reproduction of the Great Isaiah Scroll which contains a reference to plural liliyyot As with the Massoretic text of Isaiah 34 14 and therefore unlike the plural liliyyot or liliyyoth in the Isaiah scroll 34 14 lilit in 4Q510 is singular this liturgical text both cautions against the presence of supernatural malevolence and assumes familiarity with Lilith distinct from the biblical text however this passage does not function under any socio political agenda but instead serves in the same capacity as An Exorcism 4Q560 and Songs to Disperse Demons 11Q11 45 The text is thus to a community deeply involved in the realm of demonology 46 an exorcism hymn Joseph M Baumgarten 1991 identified the unnamed woman of The Seductress 4Q184 as related to the female demon 46 47 However John J Collins 48 regards this identification as intriguing but that it is safe to say that 4Q184 is based on the strange woman of Proverbs 2 5 7 9 Her house sinks down to death And her course leads to the shades All who go to her cannot return And find again the paths of life Proverbs 2 18 19 Her gates are gates of death and from the entrance of the house She sets out towards Sheol None of those who enter there will ever return And all who possess her will descend to the Pit 4Q184 Early Rabbinic literature Edit Lilith does not occur in the Mishnah There are five references to Lilith in the Babylonian Talmud in Gemara on three separate Tractates of the Mishnah Rav Judah citing Samuel ruled If an abortion had the likeness of Lilith its mother is unclean by reason of the birth for it is a child even if it has wings Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Nidda 24b 49 Expounding upon the curses of womanhood In a Baraitha it was taught Women grow long hair like Lilith sit when urinating like a beast and serve as a bolster for her husband Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Eruvin 100b For gira he should take an arrow of Lilith and place it point upwards and pour water on it and drink it Alternatively he can take water of which a dog has drunk at night but he must take care that it has not been exposed Babylonian Talmud tractate Gittin 69b In this particular case the arrow of Lilith is most probably a scrap of meteorite or a fulgurite colloquially known as petrified lightning and treated as antipyretic medicine 50 Rabbah said I saw how Hormin the son of Lilith was running on the parapet of the wall of Mahuza and a rider galloping below on horseback could not overtake him Once they saddled for him two mules which stood on two bridges of the Rognag and he jumped from one to the other backward and forward holding in his hands two cups of wine pouring alternately from one to the other and not a drop fell to the ground Babylonian Talmud tractate Bava Bathra 73a b Hormin who is mentioned here as the son of Lilith is most probably a result of a scribal error of the word Hormiz attested in some of the Talmudic manuscripts The word itself in turn seems to be a distortion of Ormuzd the Zendavestan deity of light and goodness If so it is somewhat ironic that Ormuzd becomes here the son of a nocturnal demon 50 R Hanina said One may not sleep in a house alone in a lonely house and whoever sleeps in a house alone is seized by Lilith Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Shabbath 151b The above statement by Hanina may be related to the belief that nocturnal emissions engendered the birth of demons R Jeremiah b Eleazar further stated In all those years 130 years after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden during which Adam was under the ban he begot ghosts and male demons and female demons or night demons for it is said in Scripture And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot a son in own likeness after his own image from which it follows that until that time he did not beget after his own image When he saw that through him death was ordained as punishment he spent a hundred and thirty years in fasting severed connection with his wife for a hundred and thirty years and wore clothes of fig on his body for a hundred and thirty years That statement of R Jeremiah was made in reference to the semen which he emitted accidentally Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Eruvin 18b The Midrash Rabbah collection contains two references to Lilith The first one is present in Genesis Rabbah 22 7 and 18 4 according to Rabbi Hiyya God proceeded to create a second Eve for Adam after Lilith had to return to dust 51 However to be exact the said passages do not employ the Hebrew word lilith itself and instead speak of the first Eve Heb Chavvah ha Rishonah analogically to the phrase Adam ha Rishon i e the first Adam Although in the medieval Hebrew literature and folklore especially that reflected on the protective amulets of various kinds Chavvah ha Rishonah was identified with Lilith one should remain careful in transposing this equation to the Late Antiquity 50 The second mention of Lilith this time explicit is present in Numbers Rabbah 16 25 The midrash develops the story of Moses s plea after God expresses anger at the bad report of the spies Moses responds to a threat by God that He will destroy the Israelite people Moses pleads before God that God should not be like Lilith who kills her own children 50 Moses said God do not do it i e destroy the Israelite people that the nations of the world may not regard you as a cruel Being and say The Generation of the Flood came and He destroyed them the Generation of the Separation came and He destroyed them the Sodomites and the Egyptians came and He destroyed them and these also whom he called My son My firstborn Ex IV 22 He is now destroying As that Lilith who when she finds nothing else turns upon her own children so Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land He hath slain them Num XIV 16 52 Incantation bowls Edit Incantation bowl with an Aramaic inscription around a demon from Nippur Mesopotamia 6 7th century An individual Lilith along with Bagdana king of the lilits is one of the demons to feature prominently in protective spells in the eighty surviving Jewish occult incantation bowls from Sassanid Empire Babylon 4th 6th century AD with influence from Iranian culture 47 53 These bowls were buried upside down below the structure of the house or on the land of the house in order to trap the demon or demoness 54 Almost every house was found to have such protective bowls against demons and demonesses 54 55 The centre of the inside of the bowl depicts Lilith or the male form Lilit Surrounding the image is writing in spiral form the writing often begins at the centre and works its way to the edge 56 The writing is most commonly scripture or references to the Talmud The incantation bowls which have been analysed are inscribed in the following languages Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Syriac Mandaic Middle Persian and Arabic Some bowls are written in a false script which has no meaning 53 The correctly worded incantation bowl was capable of warding off Lilith or Lilit from the household Lilith had the power to transform into a woman s physical features seduce her husband and conceive a child However Lilith would become hateful toward the children born of the husband and wife and would seek to kill them Similarly Lilit would transform into the physical features of the husband seduce the wife she would give birth to a child It would become evident that the child was not fathered by the husband and the child would be looked down on Lilit would seek revenge on the family by killing the children born to the husband and wife 57 Key features of the depiction of Lilith or Lilit include the following The figure is often depicted with arms and legs chained indicating the control of the family over the demon ess The demon ess is depicted in a frontal position with the whole face showing The eyes are very large as well as the hands if depicted The demon ess is entirely static 53 One bowl contains the following inscription commissioned from a Jewish occultist to protect a woman called Rashnoi and her husband from Lilith Thou liliths male lili and female lilith hag and ghool I adjure you by the Strong One of Abraham by the Rock of Isaac by the Shaddai of Jacob by Yah Ha Shem by Yah his memorial to turn away from this Rashnoi b M and from Geyonai b M her husband Here is your divorce and writ and letter of separation sent through holy angels Amen Amen Selah Halleluyah image Excerpt from translation in Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur 58 Alphabet of Ben Sira Edit Main article Alphabet of Ben Sira Lilith illustration by Carl Poellath from 1886 or earlier The pseudepigraphical 59 8th 10th centuries Alphabet of Ben Sira is considered to be the oldest form of the story of Lilith as Adam s first wife Whether this particular tradition is older is not known Scholars tend to date the Alphabet between the 8th and 10th centuries AD The work has been characterized by some scholars as satirical but Ginzberg concluded it was meant seriously 60 In the text an amulet is inscribed with the names of three angels Senoy Sansenoy and Semangelof and placed around the neck of newborn boys in order to protect them from the lilin until their circumcision 61 The amulets used against Lilith that were thought to derive from this tradition are in fact dated as being much older 62 The concept of Eve having a predecessor is not exclusive to the Alphabet and is not a new concept as it can be found in Genesis Rabbah citation needed However the idea that Lilith was the predecessor may be exclusive to the Alphabet The idea in the text that Adam had a wife prior to Eve may have developed from an interpretation of the Book of Genesis and its dual creation accounts while Genesis 2 22 describes God s creation of Eve from Adam s rib an earlier passage 1 27 already indicates that a woman had been made So God created man in his own image in the image of God created he him male and female created he them The Alphabet text places Lilith s creation after God s words in Genesis 2 18 that it is not good for man to be alone in this text God forms Lilith out of the clay from which he made Adam but she and Adam bicker Lilith claims that since she and Adam were created in the same way they were equal and she refuses to submit to him After God created Adam who was alone He said It is not good for man to be alone He then created a woman for Adam from the earth as He had created Adam himself and called her Lilith Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight 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 responded We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth But they would not listen to one another When Lilith saw this she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air Adam stood in prayer before his Creator Sovereign of the universe he said the woman you gave me has run away At once the Holy One blessed be He sent these three angels Senoy Sansenoy and Semangelof to bring her back Said the Holy One to Adam If she agrees to come back what is made is good If not she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day The angels left God and pursued Lilith whom they overtook in the midst of the sea in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown They told her God s word but she did not wish to return The angels said We shall drown you in the sea Leave me she said I was created only to cause sickness to infants If the infant is male I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth and if female for twenty days When the angels heard Lilith s words they insisted she go back But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet I will have no power over that infant She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day Accordingly every day one hundred demons perish and for the same reason we write the angels names on the amulets of young children When Lilith sees their names she remembers her oath and the child recovers 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 63 although in any case the text was accepted by the Jewish mystics of medieval Germany 50 Adam clutches a child in the presence of the child snatcher Lilith Fresco by Filippino Lippi basilica of Santa Maria Novella Florence 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 German scholar Johannes Buxtorf In this folk tradition that arose in the early Middle Ages Lilith a dominant female demon became identified with Asmodeus King of Demons as his queen 64 Asmodeus was already well known by this time because of the legends about him in the Talmud Thus the merging of Lilith and Asmodeus was inevitable 65 The second myth of Lilith grew to include legends about another world and by some accounts this other world existed side by side with this one Yenne Velt is Yiddish for this described Other World In this case Asmodeus and Lilith were believed to procreate demonic offspring endlessly and spread chaos at every turn 65 Two primary characteristics are seen in these legends about Lilith Lilith as the incarnation of lust causing men to be led astray and Lilith as a child killing witch who strangles helpless neonates These two aspects of the Lilith legend seemed to have evolved separately there is hardly a tale where she encompasses both roles 65 But the aspect of the witch like role that Lilith plays broadens her archetype of the destructive side of witchcraft Such stories are commonly found among Jewish folklore 65 The influence of the rabbinic traditions Edit Although the image of Lilith of the Alphabet of Ben Sira is unprecedented some elements in her portrayal can be traced back to the talmudic and midrashic traditions that arose around Eve First and foremost the very introduction of Lilith to the creation story rests on the rabbinic myth prompted by the two separate creation accounts in Genesis 1 1 2 25 that there were two original women A way of resolving the apparent discrepancy between these two accounts was to assume that there must have been some other first woman apart from the one later identified with Eve The Rabbis noting Adam s exclamation this time zot hapa am this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh Genesis 2 23 took it as an intimation that there must already have been a first time According to Genesis rabbah 18 4 Adam was disgusted upon seeing the first woman full of discharge and blood and God had to provide him with another one The subsequent creation is performed with adequate precautions Adam is made to sleep so as not to witness the process itself Sanhedrin 39a and Eve is adorned with fine jewellery Genesis rabbah 18 1 and brought to Adam by the angels Gabriel and Michael ibid 18 3 However nowhere do the rabbis specify what happened to the first woman leaving the matter open for further speculation This is the gap into which the later tradition of Lilith could fit Second this new woman is still met with harsh rabbinic allegations Again playing on the Hebrew phrase zot hapa am Adam according to the same midrash declares it is she zot who is destined to strike the bell zog and to speak in strife against me as you read a golden bell pa amon and a pomegranate Exodus 28 34 it is she who will trouble me mefa amtani all night Genesis Rabbah 18 4 The first woman also becomes the object of accusations ascribed to Rabbi Joshua of Siknin according to whom Eve despite the divine efforts turned out to be swelled headed coquette eavesdropper gossip prone to jealousy light fingered and gadabout Genesis Rabbah 18 2 A similar set of charges appears in Genesis Rabbah 17 8 according to which Eve s creation from Adam s rib rather than from the earth makes her inferior to Adam and never satisfied with anything Third and despite the terseness of the biblical text in this regard the erotic iniquities attributed to Eve constitute a separate category of her shortcomings Told in Genesis 3 16 that your desire shall be for your husband she is accused by the Rabbis of having an overdeveloped sexual drive Genesis Rabbah 20 7 and constantly enticing Adam Genesis Rabbah 23 5 However in terms of textual popularity and dissemination the motif of Eve copulating with the primeval serpent takes priority over her other sexual transgressions Despite the rather unsettling picturesqueness of this account it is conveyed in numerous places Genesis Rabbah 18 6 and BT Sotah 9b Shabbat 145b 146a and 156a Yevamot 103b and Avodah Zarah 22b 50 Kabbalah Edit Main article Lilith Lurianic Kabbalah Kabbalistic mysticism attempted to establish a more exact relationship between Lilith and God With her major characteristics having been well developed by the end of the Talmudic period after six centuries had elapsed between the Aramaic incantation texts that mention Lilith and the early Spanish Kabbalistic writings in the 13th century she reappears and her life history becomes known in greater mythological detail 66 Her creation is described in many alternative versions One mentions her creation as being before Adam s on the fifth day because the living creatures with whose swarms God filled the waters included Lilith A similar version related to the earlier Talmudic passages recounts how Lilith was fashioned with the same substance as Adam was shortly before A third alternative version states that God originally created Adam and Lilith in a manner that the female creature was contained in the male Lilith s soul was lodged in the depths of the Great Abyss When God called her she joined Adam After Adam s body was created a thousand souls from the Left evil side attempted to attach themselves to him However God drove them off Adam was left lying as a body without a soul Then a cloud descended and God commanded the earth to produce a living soul This God breathed into Adam who began to spring to life and his female was attached to his side God separated the female from Adam s side The female side was Lilith whereupon she flew to the Cities of the Sea and attacked humankind Yet another version claims that Lilith emerged as a divine entity that was born spontaneously either out of the Great Supernal Abyss or out of the power of an aspect of God the Gevurah of Din This aspect of God was negative and punitive as well as one of his ten attributes Sefirot at its lowest manifestation has an affinity with the realm of evil and it is out of this that Lilith merged with Samael 67 An alternative story links Lilith with the creation of luminaries The first light which is the light of Mercy one of the Sefirot appeared on the first day of creation when God said Let there be light This light became hidden and the Holiness became surrounded by a husk of evil A husk klippa was created around the brain and this husk spread and brought out another husk which was Lilith 68 Midrash ABKIR Edit The first medieval source to depict Adam and Lilith in full was the Midrash A B K I R c 10th century which was followed by the Zohar and other Kabbalistic writings Adam is said to be perfect until he recognises either his sin or Cain s fratricide that is the cause of bringing death into the world He then separates from holy Eve sleeps alone and fasts for 130 years During this time Pizna either an alternate name for Lilith or a daughter of hers desires his beauty and seduces him against his will She gives birth to multitudes of djinns and demons the first of them being named Agrimas However they are defeated by Methuselah who slays thousands of them with a holy sword and forces Agrimas to give him the names of the rest after which he casts them away to the sea and the mountains 69 Treatise on the Left Emanation Edit Main article Treatise on the Left Emanation The mystical writing of two brothers Jacob and Isaac Hacohen Treatise on the Left Emanation which predates the Zohar by a few decades states that Samael and Lilith are in the shape of an androgynous being double faced born out of the emanation of the Throne of Glory and corresponding in the spiritual realm to Adam and Eve who were likewise born as a hermaphrodite The two twin androgynous couples resembled each other and both were like the image of Above that is that they are reproduced in a visible form of an androgynous deity 19 In answer to your question concerning Lilith I shall explain to you the essence of the matter Concerning this point there is a received tradition from the ancient Sages who made use of the Secret Knowledge of the Lesser Palaces which is the manipulation of demons and a ladder by which one ascends to the prophetic levels In this tradition it is made clear that Samael and Lilith were born as one similar to the form of Adam and Eve who were also born as one reflecting what is above This is the account of Lilith which was received by the Sages in the Secret Knowledge of the Palaces 68 Another version 70 that was also current among Kabbalistic circles in the Middle Ages establishes Lilith as the first of Samael s four wives Lilith Naamah Eisheth and Agrat bat Mahlat Each of them are mothers of demons and have their own hosts and unclean spirits in no number 71 The marriage of archangel Samael and Lilith was arranged by Tanin iver Blind Dragon who is the counterpart of the dragon that is in the sea Blind Dragon acts as an intermediary between Lilith and Samael Blind Dragon rides Lilith the Sinful may she be extirpated quickly in our days Amen And this Blind Dragon brings about the union between Samael and Lilith And just as the Dragon that is in the sea Isa 27 1 has no eyes likewise Blind Dragon that is above in the likeness of a spiritual form is without eyes that is to say without colors Patai 81 458 Samael is called the Slant Serpent and Lilith is called the Tortuous Serpent 72 The marriage of Samael and Lilith is known as the Angel Satan or the Other God but it was not allowed to last To prevent Lilith and Samael s demonic children Lilin from filling the world God castrated Samael In many 17th century Kabbalistic books this seems to be a reinterpretation of an old Talmudic myth where God castrated the male Leviathan and slew the female Leviathan in order to prevent them from mating and thereby destroying the Earth with their offspring 73 With Lilith being unable to fornicate with Samael anymore she sought to couple with men who experience nocturnal emissions A 15th or 16th century Kabbalah text states that God has cooled the female Leviathan meaning that he has made Lilith infertile and she is a mere fornication citation needed The Fall of Man by Cornelis van Haarlem 1592 showing the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a woman The Treatise on the Left Emanation also says that there are two Liliths the lesser being married to the great demon Asmodeus The Matron Lilith is the mate of Samael Both of them were born at the same hour in the image of Adam and Eve intertwined in each other Asmodeus the great king of the demons has as a mate the Lesser younger Lilith daughter of the king whose name is Qafsefoni The name of his mate is Mehetabel daughter of Matred and their daughter is Lilith 74 Another passage charges Lilith as being a tempting serpent of Eve 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 And 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 Patai81 455f Zohar Edit References to Lilith in the Zohar include the following She roams at night and goes all about the world and makes sport with men and causes them to emit seed In every place where a man sleeps alone in a house she visits him and grabs him and attaches herself to him and has her desire from him and bears from him And she also afflicts him with sickness and he knows it not and all this takes place when the moon is on the wane 75 This passage may be related to the mention of Lilith in Talmud Shabbath 151b see above and also to Talmud Eruvin 18b where nocturnal emissions are connected with the begettal of demons According to Rapahel Patai older sources state clearly that after Lilith s Red Sea sojourn mentioned also in Louis Ginzberg s Legends of the Jews she returned to Adam and begat children from him by forcing herself upon him Before doing so she attaches herself to Cain and bears him numerous spirits and demons In the Zohar however Lilith is said to have succeeded in begetting offspring from Adam even during their short lived sexual experience Lilith leaves Adam in Eden as she is not a suitable helpmate for him 76 Gershom Scholem proposes that the author of the Zohar Rabbi Moses de Leon was aware of both the folk tradition of Lilith and another conflicting version possibly older 77 The Zohar adds further that two female spirits instead of one Lilith and Naamah desired Adam and seduced him The issue of these unions were demons and spirits called the plagues of humankind and the usual added explanation was that it was through Adam s own sin that Lilith overcame him against his will 76 17th century Hebrew magical amulets Edit Medieval Hebrew amulet intended to protect a mother and her child from Lilith A copy of Jean de Pauly s translation of the Zohar in the Ritman Library contains an inserted late 17th century printed Hebrew sheet for use in magical amulets where the prophet Elijah confronts Lilith 78 The sheet contains two texts within borders which are amulets one for a male lazakhar the other one for a female lanekevah The invocations mention Adam Eve and Lilith Chavah Rishonah the first Eve who is identical with Lilith also devils or angels Sanoy Sansinoy Smangeluf Shmari el the guardian and Hasdi el the merciful A few lines in Yiddish are followed by the dialogue between the prophet Elijah and Lilith when he met her with her host of demons to kill the mother and take her new born child to drink her blood suck her bones and eat her flesh She tells Elijah that she will lose her power if someone uses her secret names which she reveals at the end lilith abitu abizu hakash avers hikpodu ayalu matrota 79 In other amulets probably informed by The Alphabet of Ben Sira she is Adam s first wife Yalqut Reubeni Zohar 1 34b 3 19 80 Charles Richardson s dictionary portion of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana appends to his etymological discussion of lullaby a manuscript note written in a copy of Skinner i e Stephen Skinner s 1671 Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae which asserts that the word lullaby originates from Lillu abi abi a Hebrew incantation meaning Lilith begone recited by Jewish mothers over an infant s cradle 81 Richardson did not endorse the theory and modern lexicographers consider it a false etymology 81 82 Alsatian Krasmesser 16th to 20th century Edit Not so much an amulet as a ritual object for protection the Krasmesser or Kreismesser circle knife played a role in Jewish birth rituals in the area of Alsace Switzerland and Southern Germany between the 16th and 20th century The Krasmesser would be used by a midwife or by the husband to draw a magic circle around the pregnant or birthing woman to protect her from Lilith and the evil eye which were considered to represent the greatest danger for children and pregnant women 83 Rabbi Naphtali Hirsch ben Elieser Treves described this custom as early as 1560 and later references to a knife or sword by the birthing bed by both Paul Christian Kirchner and Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz indicate its continuance A publication about birth customs by the Jewish Museum of Switzerland also includes oral accounts from 20th century Baden Wurttemberg which likewise mention circling movements with a knife in order to protect a woman in childbirth 83 Greco Roman mythology EditMain article Lamia mythology Lamia first version by John William Waterhouse 1905 In the Latin Vulgate Book of Isaiah 34 14 Lilith is translated lamia According to Augustine Calmet Lilith has connections with early views on vampires and sorcery Some learned men have thought they discovered some vestiges of vampirism in the remotest antiquity but all that they say of it does not come near what is related of the vampires The lamiae the strigae the sorcerers whom they accused of sucking the blood of living people and of thus causing their death the magicians who were said to cause the death of new born children by charms and malignant spells are nothing less than what we understand by the name of vampires even were it to be owned that these lamiae and strigae have really existed which we do not believe can ever be well proved I own that these terms lamiae and strigae are found in the versions of Holy Scripture For instance Isaiah describing the condition to which Babylon was to be reduced after her ruin says that she shall become the abode of satyrs lamiae and strigae in Hebrew lilith This last term according to the Hebrews signifies the same thing as the Greeks express by strix and lamiae which are sorceresses or magicians who seek to put to death new born children Whence it comes that the Jews are accustomed to write in the four corners of the chamber of a woman just delivered Adam Eve be gone from hence lilith The ancient Greeks knew these dangerous sorceresses by the name of lamiae and they believed that they devoured children or sucked away all their blood till they died 84 According to Siegmund Hurwitz the Talmudic Lilith is connected with the Greek Lamia who according to Hurwitz likewise governed a class of child stealing lamia demons Lamia bore the title child killer and was feared for her malevolence like Lilith She has different conflicting origins and is described as having a human upper body from the waist up and a serpentine body from the waist down 85 One source states simply that she is a daughter of the goddess Hecate another that Lamia was subsequently cursed by the goddess Hera to have stillborn children because of her association with Zeus alternatively Hera slew all of Lamia s children except Scylla in anger that Lamia slept with her husband Zeus The grief caused Lamia to turn into a monster that took revenge on mothers by stealing their children and devouring them 85 Lamia had a vicious sexual appetite that matched her cannibalistic appetite for children She was notorious for being a vampiric spirit and loved sucking men s blood 86 Her gift was the mark of a Sibyl a gift of second sight Zeus was said to have given her the gift of sight However she was cursed to never be able to shut her eyes so that she would forever obsess over her dead children Taking pity on Lamia Zeus gave her the ability to remove and replace her eyes from their sockets 85 In Mandaeism EditIn Mandaean scriptures such as the Ginza Rabba and Qolasta liliths Classical Mandaic ࡋࡉࡋࡉࡕ are mentioned as inhabitants of the World of Darkness 87 Arabic culture EditThe occult writer Ahmad al Buni d 1225 in his Sun of the Great Knowledge Arabic شمس المعارف الكبرى mentions a demon called the mother of children ام الصبيان a term also used in one place 88 Folkloric traditions recorded around 1953 tell about a jinn called Qarinah who was rejected by Adam and mated with Iblis instead She gave birth to a host of demons and became known as their mother To take revenge on Adam she pursues human children As such she would kill a pregnant mother s baby in the womb causes impotence to men or attacks little children with illnesses According to occult practises she would be subject to the demon king Murrah al Abyad which appears to be another name for Iblis used in magical writings Stories about Qarinah and Lilith merged in early Islam 89 In Western literature EditSee also Lilith in popular culture In German literature Edit Faust and Lilith by Richard Westall 1831 Lilith s earliest appearance in the literature of the Romantic period 1789 1832 was in Goethe s 1808 work Faust The First Part of the Tragedy Faust Who s that there Mephistopheles Take a good look Lilith Faust Lilith Who is that Mephistopheles Adam s wife his first Beware of her Her beauty s one boast is her dangerous hair When Lilith winds it tight around young men She doesn t soon let go of them again 1992 Greenberg translation lines 4206 4211 After Mephistopheles offers this warning to Faust he then quite ironically encourages Faust to dance with the Pretty Witch Lilith and Faust engage in a short dialogue where Lilith recounts the days spent in Eden Faust dancing with the young witch A lovely dream I dreamt one day I saw a green leaved apple tree Two apples swayed upon a stem So tempting I climbed up for them The Pretty Witch Ever since the days of Eden Apples have been man s desire How overjoyed I am to think sir Apples grow too in my garden 1992 Greenberg translation lines 4216 4223 In English literature Edit Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1866 1868 1872 1873 The Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood which developed around 1848 90 were greatly influenced by Goethe s work on the theme of Lilith In 1863 Dante Gabriel Rossetti of the Brotherhood began painting what would later be his first rendition of Lady Lilith a painting he expected to be his best picture hitherto 90 Symbols appearing in the painting allude to the femme fatale reputation of the Romantic Lilith poppies death and cold and white roses sterile passion Accompanying his Lady Lilith painting from 1866 Rossetti wrote a sonnet entitled Lilith which was first published in Swinburne s pamphlet review 1868 Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition Of Adam s first wife Lilith it is told The witch he loved before the gift of Eve That ere the snake s her sweet tongue could deceive And her enchanted hair was the first gold And still she sits young while the earth is old And subtly of herself contemplative Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave Till heart and body and life are in its hold The rose and poppy are her flower for where Is he not found O Lilith whom shed scent And soft shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare Lo As that youth s eyes burned at thine so went Thy spell through him and left his straight neck bent And round his heart one strangling golden hair Collected Works 216 The poem and the picture appeared together alongside Rossetti s painting Sibylla Palmifera and the sonnet Soul s Beauty In 1881 the Lilith sonnet was renamed Body s Beauty in order to contrast it and Soul s Beauty The two were placed sequentially in The House of Life collection sonnets number 77 and 78 90 Rossetti wrote in 1870 Lady Lilith represents a Modern Lilith combing out her abundant golden hair and gazing on herself in the glass with that self absorption by whose strange fascination such natures draw others within their own circle Rossetti W M ii 850 D G Rossetti s emphasis 90 This is in accordance with Jewish folk tradition which associates Lilith both with long hair a symbol of dangerous feminine seductive power in Jewish culture and with possessing women by entering them through mirrors 91 The Victorian poet Robert Browning re envisioned Lilith in his poem Adam Lilith and Eve First published in 1883 the poem uses the traditional myths surrounding the triad of Adam Eve and Lilith Browning depicts Lilith and Eve as being friendly and complicitous with each other as they sit together on either side of Adam Under the threat of death Eve admits that she never loved Adam while Lilith confesses that she always loved him As the worst of the venom left my lips I thought If despite this lie he strips The mask from my soul with a kiss I crawl His slave soul body and all Browning 1098 Browning focused on Lilith s emotional attributes rather than that of her ancient demon predecessors 92 Scottish author George MacDonald also wrote a fantasy novel entitled Lilith first published in 1895 MacDonald employed the character of Lilith in service to a spiritual drama about sin and redemption in which Lilith finds a hard won salvation Many of the traditional characteristics of Lilith mythology are present in the author s depiction Long dark hair pale skin a hatred and fear of children and babies and an obsession with gazing at herself in a mirror MacDonald s Lilith also has vampiric qualities she bites people and sucks their blood for sustenance Australian poet and scholar Christopher John Brennan 1870 1932 included a section titled Lilith in his major work Poems 1913 Sydney G B Philip and Son 1914 The Lilith section contains thirteen poems exploring the Lilith myth and is central to the meaning of the collection as a whole C L Moore s 1940 story Fruit of Knowledge is written from Lilith s point of view It is a re telling of the Fall of Man as a love triangle between Lilith Adam and Eve with Eve s eating the forbidden fruit being in this version the result of misguided manipulations by the jealous Lilith who had hoped to get her rival discredited and destroyed by God and thus regain Adam s love British poet John Siddique s 2011 collection Full Blood has a suite of 11 poems called The Tree of Life which features Lilith as the divine feminine aspect of God A number of the poems feature Lilith directly including the piece Unwritten which deals with the spiritual problem of the feminine being removed by the scribes from The Bible Lilith is also mentioned in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis The character Mr Beaver ascribes the ancestry of the main antagonist Jadis the White Witch to Lilith 93 Lilith is a poem by Vladimir Nabokov written in 1928 Many have connected it to Lolita but Nabokov adamantly denies this Intelligent readers will abstain from examining this impersonal fantasy for any links with my later fiction 94 In Western esotericism and modern occultism EditThe depiction of Lilith in Romanticism continues to be popular among Wiccans and in other modern Occultism 90 A few magical orders dedicated to the undercurrent of Lilith featuring initiations specifically related to the arcana of the first mother exist Two organisations that use initiations and magic associated with Lilith are the Ordo Antichristianus Illuminati and the Order of Phosphorus Lilith appears as a succubus in Aleister Crowley s De Arte Magica Lilith was also one of the middle names of Crowley s first child Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith Crowley 1904 1906 and Lilith is sometimes identified with Babalon in Thelemic writings Many early occult writers that contributed to modern day Wicca expressed special reverence for Lilith Charles Leland associated Aradia with Lilith Aradia says Leland is Herodias who was regarded in stregheria folklore as being associated with Diana as chief of the witches Leland further notes that Herodias is a name that comes from west Asia where it denoted an early form of Lilith 95 96 Gerald Gardner asserted that there was continuous historical worship of Lilith to present day and that her name is sometimes given to the goddess being personified in the coven by the priestess This idea was further attested by Doreen Valiente who cited her as a presiding goddess of the Craft the personification of erotic dreams the suppressed desire for delights 97 In some contemporary concepts Lilith is viewed as the embodiment of the Goddess a designation that is thought to be shared with what these faiths believe to be her counterparts Inanna Ishtar Asherah Anath Anahita and Isis 98 According to one view Lilith was originally a Sumerian Babylonian or Hebrew mother goddess of childbirth children women and sexuality 99 100 Raymond Buckland holds that Lilith is a dark moon goddess on par with the Hindu Kali 101 page needed Many theistic Satanists consider Lilith as a goddess She is considered a goddess of independence by those Satanists and is often worshipped by women but women are not the only people who worship her Lilith is popular among theistic Satanists because of her association with Satan Some Satanists believe that she is the wife of Satan and thus think of her as a mother figure Others base their reverence for her on her history as a succubus and praise her as a sex goddess 102 A different approach to a Satanic Lilith holds that she was once a fertility and agricultural goddess 103 The western mystery tradition associates Lilith with the Qliphoth of kabbalah Samael Aun Weor in The Pistis Sophia Unveiled writes that homosexuals are the henchmen of Lilith Likewise women who undergo wilful abortion and those who support this practice are seen in the sphere of Lilith 104 Dion Fortune writes The Virgin Mary is reflected in Lilith 105 and that Lilith is the source of lustful dreams 105 See also EditAbyzou a Near Eastern demon blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality Ancient Mesopotamian religion Black Moon Lilith an astrological and mathematical point Lailah a Jewish angel whose name means night believed to protect in pregnancy Lilith Fair a travelling music festival Daimon a term for Greek lesser deities the etymology of the English word demon Norea a Gnostic figure Serpent seed a very rare and fringe belief Siren dangerous female creatures in Ancient Greek religion Spirit spouse an element of shamanismNotes Edit Compare Genesis 1 27 10 this contrasts with Eve who was created from one of Adam s ribs 11 Kramer translates the zu as owl but most often it is translated as eagle vulture or bird of prey See The animals mentioned in the Bible Henry Chichester Hart 1888 and more modern sources also entries Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew Lexicon for tsiyyim iyyim sayir liylith qippowz and dayah מנוח manoaḥ used for birds as Noah s dove Gen 8 9 and also humans as Israel Deut 28 65 Naomi Ruth 3 1 34 14 kaὶ synanthsoysin daimonia ὀnokentayrois kaὶ bohsoysin ἕteros prὸs tὸn ἕteron ἐkeῖ ἀnapaysontai ὀnokentayroi eὗron gὰr aὑtoῖs ἀnapaysin Translation And daemons shall meet with onocentaurs and they shall cry one to the other there shall the onocentaurs rest having found for themselves a place of rest References Edit a b McDonald Beth E 2009 In Possession of the Night Lilith as Goddess Demon Vampire In Sabbath Roberta Sternman ed Sacred Tropes Tanakh New Testament and Qur an As Literature and Culture Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers pp 175 178 doi 10 1163 ej 9789004177529 i 536 42 ISBN 978 90 04 17752 9 a b Blood Gender and Power in Christianity and Judaism www2 kenyon edu Retrieved 2022 01 08 a b Isaiah 34 14 Muller Kessler Christa 2001 Lilit s in der aramaisch magischen Literatur der Spatantike Altorientalische Forschungen Walter de Gruyter GmbH 28 2 338 352 doi 10 1524 aofo 2001 28 2 338 S2CID 163723903 Davidson Gustav 1971 Dictionary of Angels pdf A Dictionary of Angels including the Fallen Angels New York The Free Press p 174 ISBN 002907052X B Shapiro Marc 2008 Studies in Maimonides and his interpreters University of Scranton Press p 134 ISBN 978 1 58966 165 3 OCLC 912624714 a b Blair Farber Walter 1990 Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archaologie RLA 7 Berlin de Gruyter pp 23 24 ISBN 3 11 010437 7 Hutter Manfred 1999 Lilith in K van der Toorn et al eds Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible Leiden Brill pp 520 521 ISBN 90 04 11119 0 Genesis 1 27 Genesis 2 22 Schwartz Howard 2006 Tree of Souls The Mythology of Judaism Oxford University Press p 218 ISBN 978 0 19 532713 7 a b Kvam Kristen E Schearing Linda S Ziegler Valarie H 1999 Eve and Adam Jewish Christian and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender Indiana University Press pp 220 221 ISBN 978 0 253 21271 9 Freedman David Noel ed 1997 1992 Anchor Bible Dictionary New York Doubleday Very little information has been found relating to the Akkadian and Babylonian view of these figures Two sources of information previously used to define Lilith are both suspect Isaiah 34 14 Ebeling Erich Meissner Bruno Edzard Dietz Otto Reallexikon der Assyriologie Vol 9 pp 47 50 De Gruyter Astour Michael C 1965 Hellenosemitica an ethnic and cultural study in west Semitic impact on Mycenaean Greece Brill p 138 Archibald Sayce Hibbert Lectures on Babylonian Religion 1887 Charles Fossey La Magie Assyrienne Paris 1902 Fossey Charles 1902 La magie assyrienne etude suivie de textes magiques transcrits traduits et commentes in French Paris E Leroux p 37 Le lilu la lilit et l ardat lili un male et deux femelles formant une trinite de demons que les textes ne separent guere Ils personnifient les forces perturbatrices de l atmosphere Kramer S N 1938 Gilgamesh and the Huluppu Tree A Reconstructed Sumerian Text Assyriological Studies 10 Chicago George A 2003 The epic of Gilgamesh the Babylonian epic poem and other texts in Akkadian p 100 Tablet XII Appendix The last Tablet in the Series of Gilgamesh ISBN 9780713991963 Chicago Assyrian Dictionary Chicago University of Chicago 1956 Hurwitz p 49 Manfred Hutter article in Karel van der Toorn Bob Becking Pieter Willem van der Horst 1999 pp 520 521 article cites Hutter s own 1988 work Behexung Entsuhnung und Heilung Eisenbrauns 1988 pp 224 228 Muller Kessler C 2002 A Charm against Demons of Time in C Wunsch ed Mining the Archives Festschrift Christopher Walker on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday Dresden p 185 ISBN 9783980846608 Sterman Sabbath Roberta 2009 Sacred tropes Tanakh New Testament and Qur an as literature and culture Sex and gender in the ancient Near East proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Helsinki July 2 6 2001 Part 2 p 481 Ribichini S 1976 Lilith nell albero Huluppu pp 25 in Atti del 1 Convegno Italiano sul Vicino Oriente Antico Rome Frankfort H 1937 The Burney Relief Archiv fur Orientforschung 12 128 135 JSTOR 41680314 Kraeling Emil 1937 A Unique Babylonian Relief Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 67 67 16 18 doi 10 2307 3218905 JSTOR 3218905 S2CID 164141131 Albenda Pauline 2005 The Queen of the Night Plaque A Revisit Journal of the American Oriental Society 125 2 171 190 JSTOR 20064325 Gaster T H 1942 A Canaanite Magical Text Or 11 Torczyner H 1947 A Hebrew Incantation against Night Demons from Biblical Times Journal of Near Eastern Studies University of Chicago Press 6 1 18 29 doi 10 1086 370809 S2CID 161927885 de Waard Jan 1997 A handbook on Isaiah Winona Lake IN ISBN 1 57506 023 X Isaiah 34 14 JPS 1917 Mechon Mamre Retrieved 28 May 2020 Blair p 27 Morray Jones Christopher R A 2002 A transparent illusion the dangerous vision of water in Hekhalot Brill ISBN 9004113371 Vol 59 p 258 Early evidence of the belief in a plurality of liliths is provided by the Isaiah scroll from Qumran which gives the name as liliyyot and by the targum to Isaiah which in both cases reads Targum reads when Lilith the Queen of Sheba and of Margod fell upon them Jahrbuch fur Protestantische Theologie 1 1875 p 128 Levy Moritz A braham 1817 1872 Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft Vol ZDMG 9 1885 pp 470 484 a href Template Cite encyclopedia html title Template Cite encyclopedia cite encyclopedia a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link The Old Testament Vulgate Isaias propheta Wikisource Latin Retrieved 2007 09 24 Parallel Latin Vulgate Bible and Douay Rheims Bible and King James Bible The Complete Sayings of Jesus Christ Latin Vulgate Retrieved 28 May 2020 Davis Michael T Strawn Brent A 2007 Qumran studies new approaches new questions Wm B Eerdmans Publishing ISBN 9780802860804 p 47 two manuscripts that date to the Herodian period with 4Q510 slightly earlier Chilton Bruce Bock Darrell and Gurtner Daniel M 2010 A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of Mark Brill p 84 ISBN 9789004179738 Lilith Biblical Archaeology Society 2019 10 31 Retrieved 2020 05 30 a b Baumgarten J M 1991 On the Nature of the Seductress in 4Q184 Revue de Qumran 15 1 2 57 58 133 143 JSTOR 24608925 Baumgarten J M 2001 The seductress of Qumran Bible Review 17 5 21 23 42 Collins J J 1997 Jewish wisdom in the Hellenistic age Westminster John Knox Press ISBN 9780664221096 Tractate Niddah in the Mishnah is the only tractate from the Order of Tohorot which has Talmud on it The Jerusalem Talmud is incomplete here but the Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Niddah 2a 76b is complete a b c d e f Kosior Wojciech 2018 A Tale of Two Sisters The Image of Eve in Early Rabbinic Literature and Its Influence on the Portrayal of Lilith in the Alphabet of Ben Sira Nashim A Journal of Jewish Women s Studies amp Gender Issues 32 112 130 doi 10 2979 nashim 32 1 10 S2CID 166142604 Aish 18 August 2011 Lillith Retrieved 29 May 2020 Numbers Rabbah in Judaic Classics Library Davka Corporation 1999 CD ROM a b c Shaked Shaul 2013 Aramaic bowl spells Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls Volume one Ford James Nathan Bhayro Siam Morgenstern Matthew Vilozny Naama Leiden ISBN 9789004229372 OCLC 854568886 a b Lesses Rebecca 2001 Exe o rcising Power Women as Sorceresses Exorcists and Demonesses in Babylonian Jewish Society of Late Antiquity Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69 2 343 375 doi 10 1093 jaarel 69 2 343 JSTOR 1465786 PMID 20681106 Descenders to the chariot the people behind the Hekhalot literature p 277 James R Davila 2001 that they be used by anyone and everyone The whole community could become the equals of the sages Perhaps this is why nearly every house excavated in the Jewish settlement in Nippur had one or more incantation bowl buried in it Yamauchi Edwin M October December 1965 Aramaic Magic Bowls Journal of the American Oriental Society 85 4 511 523 doi 10 2307 596720 JSTOR 596720 Isbell Charles D March 1978 The Story of the Aramaic Magical Incantation Bowls The Biblical Archaeologist 41 1 5 16 doi 10 2307 3209471 JSTOR 3209471 S2CID 194977929 Montgomery James Alan 2011 Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur Cambridge Cambridge University Press p 156 ISBN 978 0 511 79285 4 The attribution to the sage Ben Sira is considered false with the true author unknown BEN SIRA ALPHABET OF JewishEncyclopedia com www jewishencyclopedia com Retrieved 2022 06 23 Alphabet of Ben Sirah Question 5 23a b Humm Alan Lilith in the Alphabet of Ben Sira Segal Eliezer Looking for Lilith Schwartz p 7 a b c d Schwartz p 8 Patai pp 229 230 Patai p 230 a b Patai p 231 Geoffrey W Dennis The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth Magic and Mysticism Second Edition Jewish Encyclopedia demonology Patai p 244 Humm Alan Lilith Samael amp Blind Dragon Patai p 246 R Isaac b Jacob Ha Kohen 1986 Lilith in Jewish Mysticism Treatise on the Left Emanation in Joseph Dan ed The Early Kabbalah New York Pauilist Press pp 172 182 ISBN 0809127695 Patai p 233 a b Patai p 232 But Lilith whose name is Pizna or according to the Zohar two female spirits Lilith and Naamah found him desired his beauty which was like that of the sun disk and lay with him The issue of these unions were demons and spirits Scholem Gershom 1941 Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism p 174 Printed sheet late 17th century or early 18th century 185x130 mm Lilith Amulet J R Ritman Library Archived from the original on 2010 02 12 Humm Alan Kabbalah Lilith s origins a b Richardson Charles 1845 Lexicon Lull Lullaby In Smedley Edward Rose Hugh James Rose Edward John eds Encyclopaedia Metropolitana Vol XXI London B Fellowes etc etc pp 597 598 Retrieved 18 June 2020 lullaby Merriam Webster com Dictionary Merriam Webster Retrieved 18 June 2020 lullaby American Heritage Dictionary 5th ed Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Retrieved 18 June 2020 Simpson John A ed 1989 lullaby The Oxford English dictionary Vol IX 2nd ed Oxford Clarendon Press p 93 ISBN 978 0 19 861221 6 Retrieved 18 June 2020 via Internet Archive a b Lubrich Naomi ed 2022 Birth Culture Jewish Testimonies from Rural Switzerland and Environs in German and English Basel pp 9 35 ISBN 978 3796546075 Calmet Augustine 1751 Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary Moravia et al The Complete Volumes I amp II 2016 p 353 ISBN 978 1 5331 4568 0 a b c Hurwitz p 43 Hurwitz p 78 Gelbert Carlos 2011 Ginza Rba Sydney Living Water Books ISBN 9780958034630 Hurwitz p 160 Lebling Robert 2010 Legends of the Fire Spirits Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar New York City New York and London England I B Tauris p 37 ISBN 978 0 85773 063 3 a b c d e Amy Scerba Changing Literary Representations of Lilith and the Evolution of a Mythical Heroine Archived from the original on 2011 12 21 Retrieved 2011 12 09 Schwartz Seidel Kathryn Lee The Lilith Figure in Toni Morrison s Sula and Alice Walker s The Color Purple Archived 2019 08 06 at the Wayback Machine The Lion the Witch and Wardrobe Collier Books paperback Macmillan subsidiary 1970 pg 77 Vladimir Nabokov Collected Poems edited and introduced by Thomas Karshan Penguin Books c2012 Grimassi Raven Stregheria La Vecchia Religione Archived 2018 10 20 at the Wayback Machine Leland Charles Aradia Gospel of the Witches Appendix Lilith The First Eve Imbolc 2002 Grenn Deborah J History of Lilith Institute Archived 2007 01 21 at the Wayback Machine Hurwitz Siegmund Excerpts from Lilith The first Eve Lilith Goddess Archived from the original on 2018 05 04 Retrieved 2018 11 30 Raymond Buckland The Witch Book Visible Ink Press November 1 2001 Bailobiginki Margi Lilith and the modern Western world Theistic Satanism Retrieved 29 May 2020 Moffat Charles The Sumerian legend of Lilith Retrieved 29 May 2020 Aun Weor Samael June 2005 Pistis Sophia Unveiled p 339 ISBN 9780974591681 permanent dead link a b Fortune Dion 1963 Psychic Self Defence pp 126 128 ISBN 9781609254643 Cited sources EditBlair Judit M 2009 De demonising the Old Testament an investigation of Azazel Lilith Deber Qeteb and Reshef in the Hebrew Bible Mohr Siebeck ISBN 978 3 16 150131 9 Hurwitz Siegmund 1980 Lilith die erste Eva eine Studie uber dunkle Aspekte des Weiblichen Lilith the First Eve Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine Zurich Daimon Verlag ISBN 3 85630 545 9 Patai Raphael 1990 1967 Lilith The Hebrew Goddess Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology 3rd Enlarged ed Detroit Wayne State University Press pp 221 251 ISBN 9780814322710 Schwartz Howard 1988 Lilith s Cave Jewish tales of the supernatural San Francisco Harper amp Row ISBN 0062507796 Bibliography EditTalmudic 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 Lilith The Real Story Rabbi Menachem Levine Aish com Lilith Bibliography Jewish and Christian Literature Alan Humm ed 2 May 2023 Siegmund Hurwitz Lilith Switzerland Daminon Press 1992 Jerusalem Bible New York Doubleday 1966 Raphael Patai Adam ve Adama tr as Man and Earth Jerusalem The Hebrew Press Association 1941 1942 R Campbell Thompson Semitic Magic its Origin and Development London 1908 Isaiah chapter 34 Archived 2011 07 07 at the Wayback Machine New American Bible Augustin Calmet 1751 Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary Moravia et al The Complete Volumes I amp II 2016 ISBN 978 1 5331 4568 0 Jeffers Jen 2017 Finding Lilith The Most Powerful Hag In History The Raven Report permanent dead link External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to Lilith Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lilith Jewish Encyclopedia Lilith Collection of Lilith information and links by Alan Humm International standard Bible Encyclopedia Night Monster Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Lilith amp oldid 1152323653, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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