{"id":641,"date":"2017-11-30T01:59:18","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T01:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress_bw2\/?page_id=641"},"modified":"2017-12-25T21:46:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-25T21:46:57","slug":"intro-to-lilith","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bitterwaters.com\/bw_12_21_2018\/the-case-for-lilith\/intro-to-lilith\/","title":{"rendered":"1) Introduction to Lilith"},"content":{"rendered":"

The legend of Lilith is undoubtedly the most fantastic of all ancient rabbinic myths.\u00a0 According to Jewish lore, Lilith was the first wife of Adam.\u00a0 She was created at the same time as the man, but whereas God created Adam from the dust of the earth, Lilith was created from filth and sediment.\u00a0 Lilith was a failed mate.\u00a0 She argued constantly with Adam and refused to submit sexually to him from an inferior position below.\u00a0 Eventually, she utterly rebelled against her husband.\u00a0 She unleashed her long hair and shouted the holy ineffable name of God.\u00a0 She thereby supernaturally sprouted wings and fled from the garden.\u00a0 According to popular versions of her legend, Jehovah then sent three angels to return Adam\u2019s errant woman.\u00a0 They found her in the midst of the Red Sea.\u00a0 However, she refused to return with them.\u00a0 She chose instead to mate with angels and become the mother of demons.\u00a0 Because of her refusal, the angels cursed Lilith that every day 100 of her seed would die.\u00a0 God then created Eve as a replacement for the wayward Lilith.\u00a0 Lilith grew angry at Eve for usurping her position. In revenge Lilith resolved that she would visit Eve\u2019s children in childbirth and kill those not protected.\u00a0 According to most versions of her legend, including that espoused by Kabbalah, Lilith returned to the garden under the title of the infamous Serpent.\u00a0 As the Serpent, Lilith extracted her ultimate revenge by causing Adam and Eve to fall.<\/p>\n

Most people acquainted with the Bible would consider Lilith\u2019s legend as nothing more than a colorful and fanciful myth with no Biblical basis.\u00a0 This is certainly an understandable position, as the legend\u2019s version of early events in the garden appears completely incongruous with the plain written record of Genesis.\u00a0 Yet, if there is such scant evidence for Lilith, why have certain sage scholars throughout the ages pondered and even championed her existence?\u00a0 Michelangelo painted Lilith as the tempting Serpent in his famous frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.\u00a0 Lilith is likewise depicted as the Serpent in a sculpture on the Notre Dame cathedral in France.\u00a0 Most notably, the rabbis of the Zohar and the Talmud taught her existence.\u00a0 These writers were the most learned and sophisticated Jewish scholars over the last two thousand years. \u00a0On what basis did these most sage experts adopt ideas that appear in conflict with the plain Biblical record?\u00a0 As we shall see, perhaps the plain Biblical record is not so plain after all.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1\u20111: Lilith Tempting Adam and Eve, Michelangelo – Sistine Chapel Vatican<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Figure 1\u20112: Lilith Tempting Adam and Eve, Notre Dame Cathedral<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As the book The Case for Lilith<\/strong>\u00a0reveals, there are numerous Biblical evidences supporting the existence of Lilith as the Serpent.\u00a0 More importantly, this book shows that her legend is not incompatible with traditional Judeo-Christian views on fundamental Biblical tenets.\u00a0 Quite the opposite, her legend illuminates and explains various Biblical mysteries that would otherwise be left unresolved.\u00a0 For example, Lilith nicely explains God\u2019s foretold rivalry between the Serpent and Eve and between their seed.\u00a0 She also explains various inconsistencies in the creation accounts of a man and woman in Genesis.\u00a0 Her story also explains the critical and fascinating role of a female demon named Lilith in Isaiah.\u00a0 This is Lilith\u2019s only direct mention by name in the Bible.\u00a0 In Isaiah Lilith stands at the crux of God\u2019s final judgment of mankind on Yom Kippur.\u00a0 There she is emblematic of the wicked who shall be damned.\u00a0 In Isaiah Lilith has a counterpart named Ishshah.\u00a0 Ishshah is the first name Adam gave Eve, and it is the name she bore during God\u2019s judgment of her and the Serpent in the garden.\u00a0 It is clear that Isaiah is referring to the rivalry between the Serpent and Eve when he discusses the end time judgment of Lilith and Ishshah.\u00a0 Isaiah declares that Ishshah (Eve) shall not be damned like Lilith on Yom Kippur.\u00a0 Instead God shall redeem her into his promised kingdom. \u00a0By Isaiah linking Lilith to the great Yom Kippur judgment of mankind, she also becomes linked to the demon Azazel, who plays a strange, yet critical, role in the Yom Kippur ceremony of Leviticus.\u00a0 In that ceremony Azazel acts as a rival to Messiah in the scapegoat ritual.\u00a0 This role identifies Azazel as none other than the infamous seed of the Serpent, whom God foretold would be locked in eternal enmity with Eve\u2019s seed, Messiah.\u00a0 Lilith\u2019s legend explains Azazel\u2019s origins.<\/p>\n

Many of the clues for Lilith in the Bible are subtle, but once pointed out they become obvious and convincing.\u00a0 The strongest evidences are revealed only by a careful reading of the literal Hebrew and by a critical examination of the implied facts.\u00a0 The book The Case for Lilith<\/strong>\u00a0analyzes 23 evidences in the Bible that supports the existence of Lilith.\u00a0 Incredibility, these evidences support all the essential facets of her legend, such as why she is said to be created from mud and muck, and not dust like Adam.\u00a0 These evidences also identify Lilith as the Serpent of the garden.\u00a0 In fact, the detailed findings from this book\u2019s analysis are so remarkably in harmony with most elements of Lilith\u2019s rabbinic legends, I can only conclude that the analytical process used in this book must be much the same means by which the ancient rabbis originally derived details of her legend from the Bible.<\/p>\n

Some critics may be quite skeptical about accepting Lilith.\u00a0 For them, Genesis plainly speaks of no such woman.\u00a0 However, if Lilith can be identified as the Serpent of Eden, even they must admit she plays a very overt and prominent role in the early Bible.\u00a0 The Serpent is second in prominence only to Adam in the early chapters of Genesis.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 The book The Case for Lilith<\/strong> presents a strong case from Biblical evidence that the Serpent can be safely identified as Lilith.<\/p>\n

Other critics might argue that if Lilith\u2019s legend was true and she was the Serpent, then why does Genesis so tenuously record her creation and her pre-Serpent actions? \u00a0Why does just simply overlooking or misinterpreting a few verses make her seemingly disappear from the account?\u00a0 As the book demonstrates, Genesis plainly records Lilith\u2019s creation from the dust alongside Adam in the original Hebrew.\u00a0 It cleverly interweaves her creation narrative with Adam\u2019s in a poetic doublet.\u00a0 Her creation is even apparent in the imprecise English translation of the King James Version (KJV).\u00a0 It is true that Genesis does not directly record Lilith\u2019s early personal actions.\u00a0 This period of semi-silence covers the time just after her creation to her return as the Serpent.\u00a0 During this period Genesis does record the ramifications of her actions upon Adam and the garden, but it omits direct references to her.\u00a0 This lack of direct mention is apparently done for mystical reasons.\u00a0 Perhaps Genesis does not wish to stress the acts of this rebellious woman, until her actions as the Serpent have dire consequences on Adam and his linage.\u00a0 Another possibility is that the Serpent Lilith\u2019s legend was so prominent in the ancient world, her actions hardly needed elaboration in Genesis.<\/p>\n

This book has two main goals.\u00a0 The first is to put forth a complete case for Lilith based solely on Biblical evidence.\u00a0 This is sorely needed, as I have yet to find in the public domain a coherent collection of the numerous Biblical arguments for her.\u00a0 The only argument proponents usually put forward is outrageously flawed.\u00a0 The faulty argument notes that there are two creation accounts of a woman in Genesis — one in chapter 1 and another in chapter 2.\u00a0 The argument asserts that none of the creation events described in Genesis 2 is a recap or retelling of creation events that happened in Genesis 1.\u00a0 Thus, when Genesis 1 speaks of the creation of a man and woman and Genesis 2 then speaks of the creation of Eve, the two passages must refer to different events.\u00a0 This simplistic argument is based on shamefully faulty logic.\u00a0 If all of Genesis 2 was read as documenting new events not specified in Genesis 1, then Ge 2:7 would imply there are also two Adams!\u00a0 Furthermore, there would be two whole planets, each with its own ocean and biosphere!\u00a0 We must recognize that parts of Genesis 2 do recap Genesis 1, and that the Lilith argument must be put forth with more care and much more rigor.<\/p>\n

The second goal of this book is to fathom the implications of Lilith on the message of the Bible.\u00a0 If she really did exist according Genesis, then what does her story mean to the overall message of the Bible?\u00a0 As we shall see, her tale solves long standing Biblical mysteries and greatly enriches the Bible\u2019s redemptive message without compromising any key traditional Judeo-Christian teachings or understandings.<\/p>\n