LILITH: THE FIRST WOMAN Traditionally, in the Abrahamic religions, the term "first woman" refers to Adam's wife Eve. However, there is another figure that could claim that title: Adam's first wife, Lilith. Her precise origins are unknown, as is the precise nature of her story, and of course whether or not she is even human. The earliest known intentional appearance of Lilith in her most common myth is in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a probable Jewish satire dating sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries CE. Lilith's story is told by the 'main character', Ben Sira, after making an amulet to heal King Nebuchadnezzar's son. Nebuchadnezzar demands an explanation of the amulet, and, as translated by Norman Bronznick, Ben Sira tells him: "After God created Adam ... He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith began to fight. ... he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while am to be in the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.' ... When Lilith saw [that they would not agree], she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. ... "'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.' "... [Lilith] 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." (Bronznick, trans.) Though the validity of the Alphabet as a source is debated, in part due to belief that this story was manufactured after the amulet tradition had begun rather than being the reason for the use of amulets, this story is still the most commonly cited version of the Lilith myth. Alternate versions claim that "Lilith bore Adam every day 100 children" (page 174, A Dictionary of Angels), or specify only a single child: Cain. Still others claim that Lilith is associated with the evil spirit Naamah, who was also Adam's mate, producing such demons as Asmodeus. This version of the myth actually has no less than two each of Lilith and Eve. Lilith the Matron was Adam's first wife, who strangled children (unless they were protected by the amulet) with Naamah, and was mated to Samael in some stories, as she and Samael had been "born at the same hour in the image of Adam and Eve, intertwined in each other" (Kiener, trans). Lilith the Maiden (or the Lesser Lilith) was mate to Asmodeus, king of demons, and was the daughter of Mehetabel, of whom it is said: [Mehetabel] is in the form of a beautiful woman from her head to her waist. But from the waist down she is burning fire--like mother like daughter. She is called Mehetabel daughter of Matred, and the meaning is something immersed… The meaning here is that her intentions are never for the good. She only seeks to incite wars and various demons of war and the war between Daughter Lilith and Matron Lilith. (Kiener, trans.) As for the Eves, the First Eve has very little said of her: God "let [Adam] watch while he built up a woman's anatomy," internal organs to outer skin and hair, and "[t]his sight caused Adam such disgust that even when [Eve] stood there in her full beauty, he felt an invincible repugnance. ... Where [the first Eve] went, nobody knows for certain" (Graves and Patai, as quoted by The Gnosis Source). The Lesser Eve is the Eve of Genesis, who was formed from Adam's own body while Adam was sleeping, though "[s]ome say that God created Eve ... from a tail ending in a sting which had been part of [Adam's] body" instead of from his rib" (Graves and Patai, as quoted by The Gnosis Source). This story also notes that Lilith was made from "filth and sediment instead of pure dust [which Adam was made from]," and calls her a demoness, unlike the Alphabet, in which Ben Sira says that Lilith claimed equality with and identical origins to Adam. (Graves and Patai, as quoted by The Gnosis Source; also Bronznick, trans.) Lilith's true origins actually go far beyond the Judaic folklore, however. According to some Lilith's fecundity and sexual preferences showed that she was a Great Mother of settled agricultural tribes, who resisted the invasions of the nomadic herdsmen, represented by Adam. ... Speculation is that perhaps there was a connection between Lilith and the Etruscan divinity Lenith, who possessed no face and waited at the gate of the underworld along with Eita [Hecate] and Persipnei [Persephone] ... to receive the souls of the dead. (Hefner) She has been associated with "the Babylonian-Assyrian word lilitu, a female demon or wind spirit", and appears even earlier in a translation of a Sumerian tablet, cast as "a demoness dwelling in the trunk of a willow-tree tended by [Inanna] on the banks of the Euphrates" in a segment of the Gilgamesh tale. (Graves and Patai, as quoted by The Gnosis Source.) As Judy Weinberg puts it: Lilith's character, then, is a maze of contradictions, interweaving a variety of legends and traditions. If we isolate all the strands of demonology, separating the various interpolations of Lilitu, the wind spirit; Labartu, the child-slayer [a Babylonian figure]; Lamashtu, the Greek Lamia [a queen whom Zeus fell in love with and who was punished by Hera by having her children killed; in response, Lamia became a child-slayer herself. Similarly, in some versions of the story, Lilith was punished for not returning to Adam by having the children she bore to Satan killed at a rate of one hundred per day.]; Lilith, the night-demon [from the common Hebrew etymology, 'layil', which is 'night']; we are left with the story of the first Eve, who may or may not have claim to the name Lilith in the first place. (Weinberg.) The legend has many sources, and many interpretations. Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe says of the Lilith legend that: [It] serves to demonstrate how, when unchecked, female sexuality is disruptive and dangerous. Lilith highlights how women, beginning with Eve, use their sexuality to seduce men. She provides thereby a necessary sexual dimension, which is otherwise lacking, to the Genesis story which, when read in literal terms, portrays Eve not as some wicked femme fatale but as a naïve and largely sexless fool. ... ... Inasmuch as female sexuality, as a result of [the fear men have of women and their sexuality], has been repressed and subjected to the severest controls in Western patriarchal society, so too has the figure of Lilith been kept hidden. However, she lurks as a powerful unidentified presence ... in the minds of biblical commentators for whom Eve and Lilith become inextricably intertwined and blended into one person. (Witcombe.) The contrast and division between Eve and Lilith seems to be among the more popular themes in modern use of the Lilith myth. Constance Merritt's "Self-Portrait: Lilith, Eve" emphasizes this in a manner that contrasts unusually with Witcombe's claim of "Only as a Lilith-like character could Eve be seen as a calculating, evil seductress" (Witcombe.) Merritt's poem describes Lilith and Eve: [b]ending above [Adam's] body, Tending its delicate milkweed flower, We trembled with pleasure to hold such power Over him. For me there was no pleasure, And I was still and very much afraid. Little by little you began to leave The garden? Yes, as more and more you stayed. (Merritt) Given that the poem is being narrated by Lilith and Eve jointly, and given that Lilith is the one who left the Garden of Eden and that Eve is the one who stayed with Adam in the Garden until their banishment, it seems that Merritt's Lilith was "very much afraid" of the sexuality of their relationship, enough to justify her leaving, despite the traditional story that it was Adam's refusal to let her "hold such power / Over him" that caused her to leave. Indeed, this interpretation is a popular one among those who perceive Lilith as a more sympathetic character: [Harukami], in a short story describing why Lilith chose to leave the Garden, set in the In Nomine universe (a roleplaying game based on the three Abrahamic religions, where Lilith's official background is nearly identical to the Alphabet of Ben Sira's version of the myth up until the intervention of the three angels), describes her relationship with Adam: [Lilith] remembers screaming as [Adam's] arms pinned her down, leaving rings of bruises up by her shoulders, her legs shoved apart as far as they would go as he pumped in her, a filthy smelly thing, rubbing her hair in the muck, and she remembers crying and asking him to let her go, just let her go. ... In the garden which was supposed to be innocence, she had had every need cared for except her heart... ([Harukami].) Still, Lilith's fear of her own sexuality is not always included in a sympathetic portrayal of her. In the same setting, but a different story, written by the In Nomine Line Editor, Elizabeth McCoy, Lilith narrates her time in Eden: "It's true, though, that legend that he would not be the one with his back to the grass. He had -- we had -- no clue how to ensure my pleasure as well as his, that way. It wasn't just that, though. He rarely wanted to explore, to know what was beyond the Garden, or why there were only two of us, or what made the sky blue, or any other thing I wondered about. He was not curious. Maybe he was supposed to be stability when I was randomness, the anchor to my kite, but when I returned after a day or two exploring, he never asked, 'Where did you go?' Always, it was 'Why weren't you here?' And he never listened to my reply, just as he never listened when I suggested some new position that might amuse us both. But he was beautiful, and leaving him was the hardest part of walking away." (McCoy). The sexuality of the relationship does get involved even when the writing is not specifically about it. Herbert S. Gorman hints at the sexuality of the relationship in "Lilith, Lilith Wept for the Moon" with a simple "White as Adam's body of yore / And like that flesh she never could thrill" in his sympathetic portrayal of Lilith, closing with "In a glimmering, scented, sleepless bower, / Lilith, Lilith wept for the moon." (Gorman.) This quiet pathos is an uncommon note to end on, yet a very appropriate one, in context of the poem. Not all poets or authors interpret Lilith sympathetically, however. Elizabeth McCoy wrote a companion piece to her Eden narration, fitting Lilith the child-slayer into the In Nomine setting. Dante Gabriel Rossetti used Lilith in poetry several times, including the lengthy "Eden Bower", in which Lilith speaks to the serpent of Eden, demanding its assistance: "Help, sweet Snake, sweet lover of Lilith! (And O the bower and the hour!) And let God learn how I loved and hated Man in the image of God created. "Help me once against Eve and Adam! (Eden bower's in flower.) Help me once for this one endeavour, And then my love shall be thine for ever! "Strong is God, the fell foe of Lilith: (And O the bower and the hour!) Nought in heaven or earth may affright him; But join thou with me and we will smite him." (Rossetti.) Rossetti's Lilith was a former snake herself, who was given woman's form to mate with Adam, and who then plotted to reclaim her serpent form temporarily to tempt Eve into eating th apple. Sylvia Chong does not go that far, but in her "lilith", Lilith says: witch that I am, I seduce your husbands I kill your newborns I drive your daughters into the night (Chong.) as she claims witchcraft if not a truly nonhuman nature. The Lilith myth has a myriad of variations and interpretations, and even more source legends and 'spawned' legends. Despite her 'official' status as little more than a footnote in Abrahamic-religious apocrypha, in modern times, she has been used as everything from her ancient role as child-killing she-demon seductress to a symbol of liberation and feminism for various groups. She is also a surprisingly popular figure in writing, perhaps because, unlike her companion archetypal female figure Eve, her story is fluid enough to allow for interpretation (and misinterpretation) as the writer chooses, depending on the details the writer includes or excludes. Perhaps that is the source of the surge in general awareness of the Lilith myth: she can provide something for nearly anyone who chooses to 'ask.' WORKS CITED Bronznick, Norman, trans. "The Story of Lilith: The Alphabet of Ben Sira." Lilith. 1997 <> (4 April 2003). Chong, Sylvia. "lilith." Another Woman's Love Story. 1993. <> (4 April 2003). Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels. New York: The Free Press, 1967. Gorman, Herbert S. "Lilith, Lilith Wept for the Moon." World's Best Poetry Site. <> (4 April 2003). Graves, Robert and Raphael Patai. "The Lilith Myth: Hebrew Myths: Adam's Helpmeets." 1964. <> (4 April 2003). [Harukami]. "Lilith: Under the Weight of Man." Harukami's In Nomine. <> (4 April 2003). Hefner, Alan G. "Lilith." Encyclopedia Mythica. <> (4 April 2003). Kiener, Ronald C., trans. "Lilith in Jewish Mysticism: Treatise on the Left Emanation." Lilith. 1997. <> (4 April 2003). McCoy, Elizabeth. "Untitled." Elizabeth McCoy's LiveJournal. <> (4 April 2003). Merritt, Constance. "Self-Portrait: Lilith, Eve." The World's Best Poetry Online. 1999. <> (4 April 2003). Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. "Eden's Bower." Lilith. 1997. <> (4 April 2003). Weinberg, Judy. "All You Ever Wanted To Know About Lilith!" Lilith Magazine. Fall 1976. <> (4 April 2003). Witcombe, Christopher L. C. E. "Eve and Lilith." Eve and the Identity of Women. 2000. <> (4 April 2003).