The Book Of Lilith

Two of my favorate books: The Book of Lilith by Barbara Black Koltuv, Ph.D. ISBN 0-89254-014-1 Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1986, BL1605.L55K65 291.2'16 86-8398. The scholarship is rather poor, and the translations are often suspect (i.e. also poor). Doctor Raphael Patai's The Hebrew Goddess, 1967, Hoboken: Ktav Publishing House is an excellent sourse of Lilith myth. Lilith was given birth during the third millenium BCE in Sumer, with the name Lil, which is a destructive storm or wind spirit. Layil, the Hebrew word for night, became Lilith when She passed through Syria.
JJH> I'm particulary interested in fixing a date on the claim JJH> that Adam rejected her because she acted as an equal. THAT JJH> part smacks of modern revisionism.

The equality of Lilith is found in the Zohar, which is 13th century. An English translation may be purchased from Rebecca Bennet Publications, New York. Authors are Harry Sperkling and Maurice Simon---- it is often called the "S.S. translation." Zohar I 20a likens Her to the moon and Adam to the sun. God thereupon said to Her, "Go and diminish thyself." She felt humiliated and said "Why should I be as one that veileth Herself?" Then god said "Go thy way forth in the footsteps of the flock." Thereupon She diminished Herself so as to be head of the lower ranks. [Capitals mine] From the mirash Alpha Bet Ben Sira, which you will probably be able to aquire from a Jewish publishing house: God formed Lilith the first Woman just as he had formed Adam except that he used filth and impure sediment instead of dust or earth. Adam and Lilith never found peace together. She disagreed with him in many matters, and refused to lie beneath him in sexual intercourse, basing Her claim for equality on the fact that each had been created from earth. When Lilith saw that Adam would overpower Her, She uttered the ineffable word of god and flew up into the air of the world. Eventually, She dwelt in a cave in the desert on the shores of the Red Sea. There She engaged in unbridled promiscuity, consorted with lascivious demons, and gave birth to hundreds of Lilim or demonic babies, daily. --- Shy David Go Back to Shy David's Goddess Lilith Page.