Lilith (; ; also spelled Lilit or Lilis) is a feminine figure in late-antique Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology. Lilith does not appear in the Hebrew Bible or any other biblical source, although the Hebrew word appears in the Book of Isaiah, specifically in Isaiah 34:14. The meaning of this word is debated by scholars with interpretations ranging from a primordial she-demon to a night bird. The King James translation renders the term in this verse as "screech-owl". Based on medieval Jewish folklore, Lilith is said to have fled from the Garden of Eden because she did not want to submit to Adam.
The earliest known mention of Lilith is in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q510-11), and afterwards in Mandaean and Jewish sources from late antiquity (300 AD onward), in historiolas – incantations that incorporate a short mythic story – that give partial descriptions of her. She is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (at Eruvin 100b, Niddah 24b, Shabbat 151b, Bava Batra 73a), and in the Zohar § Leviticus 19a as "a hot fiery female who first cohabited with man".Davidson, Gustav (1971) Dictionary of Angels.pdf A Dictionary of Angels including the Fallen Angels, New York, The Free Press, p. 174. Some rabbinic authorities, including Maimonides and Menachem Meiri, reject the existence of Lilith.
History In some Jewish folklore, such as the Alphabet of Sirach (), Lilith appears as Adam's first wife, who was created at the same time and from the same clay as Adam. The legend of Lilith developed extensively during the Middle Ages, in the tradition of Aggadah, the Zohar, and Jewish mysticism.
Interpretations of Lilith found in later Jewish materials are plentiful, but little information has survived relating to the Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian views of the lilu class of demons. 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, the Babylonian Burney Relief and the Syrian amulet from Arslan-Tash – is scant, if present at all.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."
In Hebrew-language texts, the term or (translated as "night creatures", "night monster", "night hag", or "screech owl") first occurs in a list of animals in Isaiah 34. 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. Currently there is no scholarly consensus, with some adhering to the animalistic interpretation, whereas others claim 34:14 is referencing a literal demon or a category of demons falling under the specification of "lilith". Historically, certain prominent Jewish rabbis in Talmudic texts feared the likes of liliths, some to such an extent that they recommended men not sleep in a home alone, as any who do would be "seized by Lilith." Jewish incantation bowls and amulets from Mesopotamia from the first to the eighth centuries identify Lilith as a female demon and provide the first visual depictions of her. The said amulets were often symbolic divorce papers, warding off a given lilith that was thought to be haunting one's house or family.
Etymology and origins In the Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, the terms and refer to spirits, and are etymologically connected to Sumerian líl. Some uses of 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).Ebeling, Erich; Meissner, Bruno; Edzard, Dietz Otto Reallexikon der Assyriologie Vol. 9, pp. 47, 50. De Gruyter.
The Sumerian líl root has no etymological relation to Akkadian līlu, "evening",Astour, Michael C. (1965) Hellenosemitica: an ethnic and cultural study in west Semitic impact on Mycenaean. Greece. Brill. p. 138. and an unlikely connection with the biblical lilith appearing in Isaiah 34:14, which might derive from laylah, "night", and is thought to be a night bird by modern scholars such as Judit M. Blair.
The name Lilith seems related to the masculine Akkadian word lilû and its female variants and . In Mesopotamian religion according to the cuneiform texts of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia, lilû are a class of demonic spirits, consisting of adults (and ardat-lilî of adolescents) who died before they could bear children or get married.Farber, Walter (1990) Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie (RLA), 7, Berlin, de Gruyter, pp. 23–24, .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. . Lilith in Aramaic sources is believed to be a conflation of lilītu/ardat-lilî and Lamaštu, as she is both a succubus, and also a threat to children, the traditional role of Lamaštu in Babylonia. Without any distinctions between demons and ghosts in Jewish magic, the difference between the Mesopotamian ghosts and Lamaštu was blurred.
Lamaštu has herself been equated with the lilû class in Babylonian sources; with the lilītu in the An = Anum ša amēli, the lilû and ardat-lilî in incantations, embodying thus all of the same aspects shared with Lilith, and as such is a demonic forerunner to her.
Disproven theories
The spirit in the tree in the Gilgamesh cycle
Samuel Noah Kramer (1932, published 1938)Kramer, S. N. (1938) Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree: A Reconstructed Sumerian Text. Assyriological Studies 10. Chicago. and C. J. Gadd (1933) translated as "Lilith" in Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh dated . 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.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' . The is associated with a serpent and a zu bird. 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 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 fearfully destroys its house and runs for the forest.
Identification of the as Lilith is stated in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (1999).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. Suggested translations for the Tablet XII spirit in the tree include as "sacred place", as "spirit", and as "water spirit",Sterman Sabbath, Roberta (2009) Sacred tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an as literature and culture. but also simply "owl", given that the is building a home in the trunk of the tree.Sex and gender in the ancient Near East: proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Helsinki, 2–6 July 2001, Part 2 p. 481. In modern scholarship, ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is understood as the Sumerian equivalent of the Akkadian , and accepted translations include phantom maid, demon-maiden and demon-girl. A connection between the Gilgamesh and the Jewish Lilith was rejected on textual grounds by Sergio Ribichini (1978).Ribichini, S. (1976) "Lilith nell-albero Huluppu", pp. 25 in Atti del 1° Convegno Italiano sul Vicino Oriente Antico, Rome.
The bird-footed woman in the Burney Relief
Gadd's translation of the Gilgamesh fragment was used by Henri Frankfort (1937) 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. Today, the identification of the Burney Relief with Lilith is questioned.Lowell K. Handy article Lilith Anchor Bible Dictionary Modern research has identified the figure as one of the main goddesses of the Mesopotamian pantheons, most probably Ereshkigal. But the figure is more generally identified as the goddess of love and war:Bible Review Vol 17 Biblical Archaeology Society – 2001 Thorkild Jacobsen identified the figure as Inanna in an analysis based on the existence of symbols and attributes commonly recognized to the goddess and on textual evidence.Jacobsen, Thorkild (1987). "Pictures and pictorial language (the Burney Relief)". In Mindlin, M.; Geller, M.J.; Wansbrough, J.E. (eds.). Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. pp. 1–11. ISBN 0-7286-0141-9.
The 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,Gaster, T. H. (1942). A Canaanite Magical Text. Or 11: 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.
Hand/prostitute of Inanna-Ištar Hurwitz, while quoting Langdon, refers to the Lilītu as a prostitute of Ištar. According to him, Ištar sends her unmarried and seductive prostitute Lilitu out into the streets and fields in order to lead men astray, and this is why Lilith is also called "the hand of Inanna". This rumour persisted in other writings of the modern period.
Hurwitz cites Tammuz and Ishtar, which itself cites Babyloniaca and Babylonian Liturgies.
In Babyloniaca, Langdon presents a fragmentary tablet, in which ardat-lilî appears as the hand of Inanna. The "hand of Inanna/Ištar" is contemporarily understood as a disease, and does not have the meaning of "handmaiden" that got assigned to it later. This tablet, Sm. 49+752, is paralleled by SBTU II No. 6 and 7 where it's translated as "The maiden (is one) whom the <hand of Ishtar>-disease treated harshly in the nest".
In the introduction of "Incantation in the "House of Light", Against the Harlot of Innini" of Babylonian Liturgies, Langdon analyses the behaviour of the ardat-lilî and lilītu demons, and refers to them as prostitutes, but the text itself has no mention of them. A modern translation of the text refers to an ardat, a young prostitute of Inanna, not an ardat-lilî, a demon maiden.
Lilith then appears in none of the above ancient fragments, and even ardat-lilî/lilītu isn't a prostitute or handmaiden of Inanna. The prostitute is a young woman (ardat), and the "hand of Inanna" is a disease that affected an ardat-lilî. Cuneiform and Mesopotamian scholarship was not well understood, so the terms ardat, ardat-lilî, lilītu and Lilith were sometimes used interchangeably.
In the Hebrew Bible The word (or ) appears only once in the Hebrew Bible, in a prophecy regarding the fate of Edom. It appears in the middle of a list of eight nouns, most of which appear elsewhere in the biblical texts (so are better documented) and are known to refer to creatures. However lilit and qippoz appear only in this list, making them with unclear meaning. The interpretation of lilit by scholars and translators is often guided by a decision about the complete list of eight creatures as a whole.
The New American Bible translation of this passage in Isaiah 34 reads:
Hebrew text In the Masoretic Text: