Liliths Origin

So, to look at Lilith we have to go way way back. Unfortunately we dont know her origin, its been long lost to destroyed writings and changed or extinguished oral traditions. We can speculate that she played a role in (or perhaps originated in) ancient sumerian mythology.

Just to preface this with a disclaimer: there has probably been more research done about Lilith and her origins since I last looked into it. The origins of lilith are ultimately of lesser importance to me than what she represents directly today, and what she represents to me personally. I’m putting this here because its fascinating.

Even the origin of her name is in question. While the Rabbis saw לילה (the word night in hebrew) and immediately drew a connection with לילית (Lilith), this is most likely not the case. Rather, the word לילית is likely a loan from the sumerian root LIL, which would have it related to the words lalu (verb: to be abundant, noun: luxurious) and lulu (noun: lascivious). Sumerian LIL roughly means wind and spirit; the stuff between earth and heaven, that seperates the two (please see the meaning and etymology of sumerian ENLIL, as well as the words that descend from it, as well as sumerian An-Ki). Theres a whole host of stuff to be said about ENLIL and the creation myth and mythos in general of sumeria, but what we care about is the LIL root.

This LIL root also forms the word Lilitu. Now, this word Lilitu may be related to Lilith, but it may not; we dont have enough information (to my knowledge) to say so definitively.

But theres a few bigger pieces of evidence that people sometimes state as evidence of the etymological origin of Lilith.

One of these reside in the babylonian demon classes of ghost and demon, and more specifically lilu/lilitu and idlu-lili/ardat-lili. These are the masculine/feminine versions of the same demon. Idlu- and ardat- mean a man/woman of full strength, or otherwise fully mature (i.e. not children or the elderly). If Lilith has a root in ardat-lili, then IMO its likely where her “seductress” streak comes from; ardat-lili is a demon with no husband who wanders searching for sexual satisfaction. (iirc the same is true for idlu-lili, just reverse the genders). In the case of ardat-lili, she was said to come to men in their dreams and steal their seed.

Gilgamesh is another potential root, for two reasons. Firstly, the Huluppu tree. It was uprooted and replanted by Inanna, who wanted to make stuff out of it for herself (been a long time since I’ve looked at this, could be wrong, but point being she wanted to chop it down and use its wood). But she couldnt cause a snake, a bird, and lilith had established their residence in the tree. Lilith is translated from lil-la-ke, but this translation is not explicitly justified and is again circumstantial. Theres more to this but its not incredibly relevant here.

Theres also the issue of gilgamesh’s father. again, in short, the candidates are: lugal-banda (a king), the high priest of Kullab, or a LIL-LA demon (note the same root LIL). This is all super super speculative, but if a LIL-LA demon was the father, and gilgamesh’s mother was herself divine, this would make gilgamesh’s 2/3 divinity make sense, because demons are partially divine (also see the counting system used then and the “1 part = ½, 2 parts = ⅔” thing).

Theres also the Lilith relief. Its a relief carving of an unknown goddess/deity, which people have associated with Lilith without really any grounds (to my knowledge) beyond “the horned crown means she belongs to the divine order, the wings mean she is of the wind, and the owl indicates she is a night demon”, so its pretty vibes based. Other potentials include lamashtu and pazuzu, who dont fit for other reasons, so she became associated with sumerian lilitu which were identified with Lilith. Others thing she is Ishtar, or Nergal, or some think it is an unknown godess who was worshipped.

So, all of that to say, we dont know where the fuck Lilith comes from, and the best we have are guesses and theories and conflicting interpretations of art.

The next chronological step

We have a huge gap in our potential string of Lilith we draw back through the ages. From like 2000BCE to maybe 600 or 700 BCE we have no idea what is happening to these myths that (may) inform our modern myth of Lilith.

But what we find in these more recent times (well, as recent as 600BCE can be considered) is that Lilith is mentioned in magical incantations. Namely a set of bowls as well as hebrew amulets. This is the earliest we can almost definitively say “this is Lilith”, but we have no way to directly tie her back to the earlier ghosts and the sumerian LIL word root.

There is also the Arslan Tash, but to my knowledge this was a fake that someone made in the 30s, so I tend to disregard whatever I read about it.

The bowls tell the story of Elija meeting Lilith with her posse on her way to kill a mother who is in childbirth and eat her unborn baby. The story isnt really relevant, just its conclusion, that Lilith shall not interfere when she sees her name written or hears it said. It also provides a list of all of her names. Imo, this may be a kind of syncretism or mixing of myths where many cultures have a similar enough figure that she has many names and is conflated into a single being in this list of names.

Then theres the amulets. Amulets are in a weird place in Judaism, cause theyre forbidden by the rabbis, but we have a bunch of practices that originate as amulets (tassles and fringes on garments, Mezuzah, etc.). But what we look to are the pregnancy/childbirth amulets, which carry either the name of Lilith, or the name of one or more of three angels (we will get to them later).

Some amulets also talk about Lilith coming and stealing the seed of men in the night, and using it to reproduce and make more demons. This is one place that we see better evidence for the connection to the ardat-lili, but again it could be a total coincidence.

moving into the years 900-1100 CE

So jumping forward again, we find the alphabet of ben sirah. This is perhaps the most common citation I see when looking at stuff about Lilith.

The big takeaway here is that Lilith began as Adams first wife, which explains why there are two genesises in the Torah. God made Lilith alongside Adam, and she and Adam were going to have sex, and she refused to be beneath him, instead wishing to top him. (side note, a couple rabbis have pointed out that theres some major mistranslations in the bible, and its perhaps better translated that god created an androgynous being which he then split in two, creating man and woman. But thats tangential and not relevant to this story) Because she refused to bottom for Adam, and Adam tried to force her to, she invoked the tetragrammaton and flew away from the garden of eden. The three angels mentioned before came out to see her, and tried to make her come back, but she refused (important note: God himself could not make her return to the garden…). She becomes a demon, births hundreds of baby demons a day, and the angels say that they will kill many many of her children every day unless she comes back. To which she responds that she will then go to the houses of women in labor or who are pregnant, kill them, and take or kill their babies (she has dominion for 8 days for boys and 20-odd days for girls iirc). So the angels negotiate that she wont if she sees their names or her own name inscribed there. (its been a minute since I read this myth, I may have gotten some details wrong but this should be mostly correct).

This is all made a bit more confusing because the alphabet of ben sirah is kiiiiinnnddd of a satirical text. We dont know for certain, but it begins certainly in a manner that would be the equivalent of a ranbinical south park, mocking the prophets birth stories (ben sirah is born speaking, and his whole birth story is fucked: his father is forced by a mob of men to masturbate into the waters of the bathhouse, and a few days later its the womens day at the bathhouse and his daughter is impregnated by his somehow still living sperm, and gives birth to ben sirah), mocking teachers, etc. etc. But it is probably a compiled work, or a work written over multiple years and potentially by multiple authors. So it may have started as a satirical work and become serious. But the portion about Lilith, its unclear to me if it is satirical or not.