The Myth of Lilith
After a conversation I had recently with a certain Atheist friend of mine, it was brought to my attention that a strange misconception has developed amongst some New Atheists and Feminists in particular, pertaining to the figure of Lilith in Semitic folklore. A number of individuals as of late have suggested that this figure of Lilith was the original wife of Adam in the Bible, prior to the creation of Eve. According to the narrative, on the sixth day of creation God created both the male and female simultaneously, in the form of Adam and Lilith, fashioning them both from the dust of the earth. As a result of this both of them were afforded equal status with one another, causing Lilith to refuse a request by Adam to lie under him during intercourse, and after being ordered to do so by three angels she fled from the Garden of Eden, leading to her being cursed by God to become the mother of demons. Adam, now having no wife, was then given the more submissive Eve who would listen to and obey him. As mentioned, Feminists cite this story to the Biblically illiterate in order to suggest that religion aims to repress women, and also as a way of pointing out the supposed imperfections in God's creation. But after research it is discovered that neither of these propositions are true, foremost because, as will be shown in this article, the narrative of Lilith has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible or Christianity and developed centuries afterwards, stemming primarily from the works of Jewish Mystics and Rabbis in the Medieval period.
The first mention of Lilith in the Semitic tradition is hard to exactly pin down, some scholars have attempted to identify various demons mentioned in Mesopotamian folklore as being similar to Lilith, however the evidence for these comparisons is sparce. In 1938, Samuel Kramer (An Assyriologist of Jewish descent), published a work in which he identified a spirit by the name of "ki-sikil-lil-la-ke", in Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Composed c. 600 BC), as being an Assyrian depiction of Lilith. Kramer cited both the word "lil" in the spirits name and the spirits association with birds, as evidence of it being a reference to Lilith, however this idea was later disproved by Sergio Ribichini in a 1978 work.
Following this, an attempt was made in 1936 by Henri Frankfort (Another Jewish archaeologist), to identify a winged, bird-footed woman, portrayed in the Burney Relief, as Lilith. However modern research has shown that it is in fact a portrayal of the Mesopotamian goddess Ereshkigal, one of the main goddesses in the Mesopotamian pantheon. A number of other connections between Lilith and Mesopotamian mythology have attempted to been drawn, but to little success, and the prior two examples stand as the most plausible.
It seems then that the earliest textual occurrence of Lilith comes from the Bible. The one and only mention of Lilith in the Bible comes from a prophecy in Isaiah chapter 34, where the word is mentioned amongst a list of demons who will dwell amongst the ruins of Edom. The word is of course Hebrew, and roughly translates to night-owl or night-bird. Despite this brief mention, no reference is made to Lilith being a female or even a human, nor does the passage mention or relate to the Garden of Eden. Beyond this no other mention of the word Lilith is to be found in the Bible, however the term does continue to appear in the Jewish tradition, with the next mention of it being in The Song of Sages, a fragment of the dead sea scrolls, written around 10 BC. The song is an exorcism prayer, intended to disperse demons, and it lists a number of demons amongst which Lilith's name is found, but once again nothing else is revealed. It seems then that some of the early Jews believed Lilith to be the name of a demon, potentially based on Mesopotamian mythology, but we see no resemblance between these descriptions and the earlier-mentioned narrative.
The first time Lilith is mentioned in detail comes from the Jewish Talmud, one of the central texts of Rabbinic Judaism, written approximately around 500 AD. It is in the Talmud that the groundwork for the story of Lilith is first laid, as we will soon see. It is prudent to point out however that the Talmud is in no way authoritative to Christians whatsoever, with the book being written almost 500 years after Christ's birth, not to mention that the Talmud is explicitly anti-Christian, encouraging violence against non-Jews (including Christians) as well as celebrating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In the Talmud, Lilith is referenced multiple times, as a demon, created from Adams semen, when he "accidentally emitted", shortly after his exile from the Garden of Eden. It is stated in Eruvin 18b: "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", implying that Adam was responsible for the birth of a number of demons. Additionally it is also in the Talmud that Lilith is first referred to as being a woman. Yet, there is still no reference made to Lilith being Adam's original wife.
The modern rendition of this story, as propagated by the aforementioned Feminists, comes to be found in a medieval Jewish satirical work named The Alphabet of Ben Sira written in the 8th century AD, which tells the story of a young boy named Ben Sira attempting to learn the alphabet. It is in this text that the full narrative of Lilith being the original woman in the garden of Eden, and Adams first wife, originates. Despite being a satirical work, the impact of the Alphabet of Ben Sira on Jewish tradition has been somewhat significant, particularly relating to its story about Lilith, which in the following centuries came to be accepted as canonical in Kabbalah, a prominent school of Jewish mysticism and esotericism. Ideas about Lilith's supposed relationship with Adam found prominence within medieval Jewish Kabbalah, being found in important Kabbalistic texts such as the Zohar and the Treatise on the Left Emanation, both published in the 13th century.
It becomes immediately clear from all of this, that the narrative of Lilith is completely detached from both Christianity and the Bible, being a product of medieval post-Christian Judaism, but the question naturally remains, as to how exactly did the narrative of Lilith go from being an obscure part of medieval Judaic mysticism to a prominent narrative amongst Western Feminists?
Lilith was first introduced to Western audiences in Goethe's famous play, Faust, written in the early 19th century, where she is portrayed as a demon and seductress residing in hell, Faust also makes reference to the notion of Lilith being the original wife of Adam. From here Lilith became a known aspect of Western intellectual culture, but was still conceived of in a negative light, primarily as a demonic figure, being depicted as such in any literature which she was found in. It was not until the 1970s, and the rise of the second-wave feminist movement, that the Jewish narrative of Lilith was transformed into an icon in the feminist conflict against traditional Christian and European values. In 1972, an article was published in the feminist magazine "Ms." By Jewish-Feminist activist Lily Rivlin, which attempted to present Lilith as an uncontrollable woman rebelling against the patriarchy, Rivlin intended for Lilith to be made an "inspirational" icon to contemporary women - It is worth noting, that the Ms. magazine was founded and ran by Gloria Steinem, also of Jewish descent - Lily Rivlin's article cemented Lilith as an icon of the second-wave feminist movement, making her name well known amongst feminists of the 70s and 80s; the Feminist magazine Lilith, founded in 1976, used Lilith's name as the title of their magazine, stating that they were inspired to do so by "Lilith's fight for equality with Adam". The magazine was founded by Susan Weidman Schneider, another Jewish feminist. In 1998, "Which Lilith?", a book collecting articles and poems on Lilith, was published by the Jewish-Feminist Enid Dame, with help from the aforementioned Lily Rivlin. It is from the work of these Feminist writers and activists, many of whom come from a Jewish background (something which undoubtedly familiarised them with the concept of Lilith), that the medieval Jewish narrative of Lilith's marriage to Adam was injected into secular Western culture, and subsequently adopted by uninformed Feminists and Atheists as though it were a part of the Bible, even though it is entirely separate from it.