Lilith, the Original Woman Created

The Patriarchal Subdugation of this Goddess of Wisdom

Nov 20, 2008

If you were to reread the Bible you would find fascinating information about goddesses. But it also records their subdugation. Lilith is one example of this.

Lilith is only mentioned once in the bible, in Isaiah 34 8-14: "The land shall become burning pitch Thorns shall grow over its strongholds It shall be the haunt of jackals yea there shall the night hag alight and find herself a resting place".

The verse describes a state of desolation, due in context to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. Part of the verse was written by scribes in exile at the time and put together at a later date.

The Hebrew word for (night) hag is Lilith. She became a monster, strangling newborn babies and sucking their blood, a demoness howling in the desert and in the night, making men impotent, causing cattle to die and generally being the personification of evil. In medieval times, the Christian church called her the Mother of the Witches and projected on to women all these feared so-called attributes of Lilith.

Christians united with Jews and Muslims in their fear of her. But Lilith is only mentioned once in the bible, so why is there all this fear of her?

The answer could lie in her name.The name Lilith is connected to two root words- Layil, Hebrew for night and Lil, Sumerian for wind and breath. Until the information from Sumer came to light, Lilith was always derived from night, but today scholars insist Lil is more likely the correct derivation. This Sumerian word meant breath and spirit and was borrowed by the Babylonians for the same use, becoming Llillitu. One of their chief deities, En-lil is the Lord of the Lilim; host of ghostly spirits flying around.

In the bible (Gen 2:7), God breathes the breath of life into the human being formed of dust, and this being "became a living soul". Was Lilith the first and original "breath of life"?

The Legends of Lilith

The Sumerian Gilgamesh Epic includes the story of the hero Gilgamesh and the Huluppu tree. The goddess Inanna insists on a throne being made for her from this special tree and the hero is eager to cut it down for her. But in the tree are three beings- a bird at the crown, a "snake who knows no charm" at the base and in the centre Lilith had built herself a house. She is called a "desolate maid". When Gilgamesh chops down the tree, all three beings leave it and Lilith flies off into the desert.

The Jewish legends have been the subject of intense inspiration to feminists. In the beginning, (though not in the bible), Lilith and Adam are made from the same and equal dust. They engage in sexual intercourse but Lilith objects to the missionary position saying "I am made of the same earth, why should I be treated as inferior?"

She escapes Adam by uttering the magic name of god and flies back to the desert. God sends three angels to bring her back but she refuses. So in her place Eve is made from Adam's rib to be subordinate to him forever.

In both legends, Lilith flies off into the desert where she is free, an important point to note is Lilith knows the magic name of god (a fact hidden from Adam), and God cannot compel her- she can refuse and she does.

Goddess of Wisdom

Arabic legends show Alilat (a form of Lilith) as the daughter of Allah and the Goddess of the Night. Her symbol is an owl. She is also recorded as the mother of the Queen of Sheba who is so wise she can even test the Master of Wisdom-Solomon- with riddles and win. A relief inscribed with her name has been found in Northern Syria, and dates to about 2000 BCE. The symbols that come with Lilith as well as the translations in the bible, tell a story that connects her with wisdom. The owl universally is a symbol of wisdom and Alilat has been identified with Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom.

The snake in the huluppu tree reminds us of the snake in the garden of Eden; there the serpent was coiled around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; scholars remind us this was not moral knowledge- it was knowledge of magic in its different forms.

From the Jewish legend, how did Lilith and not Adam know the magic name of god? Is she the original Wisdom Goddess who was with god from the beginning? (Prov. 8.22) "When he established the heavens I was there". She is the serpent of wisdom who offers to her sister Eve her own knowledge.

There is some possibility that the emphasis on her negative role in childbirth may be a reversal of an earlier time, when like Artemis and Astarte, she was the Goddess of Childbirth and assisted women in labour.

Many feminists have been interested to concentrate on her autonomy, her freeing herself sexually from Adam on the grounds of equality.

She is the spirit that gives life, the wind or breath of life; she is the Wisdom Goddess who creates, renews, protects and makes knowledge available. She is the Goddess who knows the"magic name of god" because it is her own. She is the powerful creatrix. Lady of Wisdom and Knowledge, Lady of the Air and of Breath.

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