Lilith

Abstract

The earliest written account of Lilith, the First Woman, is found in The Alphabet of Ben Sira,2 an anonymous Babylonian text written between 650-1050 CE. A commentary on Hebrew mythology, the text includes a parallel book of Genesis, the Biblical story of creation. In Genesis I, Lilith was created by God from the same earth as Adam as his equal, his wife. Lilith was discontented, she defied her creator by demanding independence, leaving Adam in favour of living alone at the Red Sea. In the more commonly-known creation mythology of Genesis II, Eve was created as a wife for Adam from one of his own ribs. She was lured by a serpent to eat forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, resulting in her and Adam's banishment from the Garden of Eden. As Lilith's story evolved in parallel with Eve's, she became prevalent in superstition as a harmful demoness that returned to mortally threaten mothers and newborns and seduce sleeping men. Seen as a shapeshifter that could take on the serpentine form, she was conflated as the snake that led to Eve's moral demise. Lilith remained present as a demon in Babylonian and medieval European mythology. She was feared in both Christian and Jewish superstition when suspicion of witchcraft and female sexuality was prevalent. Largely absent as a figure in present-day Jewish practice, Lilith has endured in art and literature as an archetypal seductress. She is the subject of paintings by artists John Collier and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in the writing of Goethe and as a recurring figure in the literature of Primo Levi. In recent years Lilith's negative reputation has wavered. As the First Woman who showed independence and courage by leaving Adam to live alone, she is now championed as a feminist icon. Her name is borrowed by independent Jewish feminist magazine Lilith and the 1990s female festival Lilith Fair. Despite her evil reputation being subverted, the quality of her powers of enchantment still holds fascination. Lilith has become a duality, both feared and revered. It is for this reason that Lilith fascinates, she confounds the traditional biblical binary roles of women as good-evil, mother-lover, demon heroine. This is especially relevant to consider today as these binary codes begin to shift and dissolve in contemporary culture. A study of Lilith is an opportunity to explore these dualities. This essay will discuss a selection of texts and artworks that present diverse representations of Lilith which focus on her as a subject in art practice and as a character in cult cinema. It examines Lilith's emergence in Jewish folklore and the ways her presence was acknowledged, feared and deflected. It considers her association with nature and the elements, as a force that was created from the earth. It pinpoints her inclusion in psychoanalytical theory of the development of a female archetype and as a framework in Jewish feminist theory. Lilith is also an entry point for contemporary Jewish women to consider alternative narratives and sexual ethics in religion.