In the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian texts (around 4,000 years ago), we find references to female air spirits (lilu or lilītu) and male ones (ardat-lilî). These words derive from the term lil (“air”), as in Enlil, the lord of the air. They were not unique characters but rather a type of entity.
It is in the 10th century, in a Hebrew satirical text called The Alphabet of Ben Sira, that the myth of Lilith appears as Adam’s rebellious wife (let us remember the context that it was a satire). It is here that the figure of Lilith as we know her today first arises.
It is only by the end of the 19th and 20th centuries that Lilith becomes a rebellious symbol of feminine power and an archetypal deity.
Up to this point, that is the chronology of the facts. Now then, I would like to leave a small question open for debate:
Given that humanity already has such a rich pantheon of both female and male deities throughout the world, is it really necessary to artificially create new deities within the Jewish framework?
Opinion: It seems that some people are aroused or fascinated by the Hebrew tradition — with all its Kabbalah and Jewish symbolism — and everything must somehow revolve around it.
A couple of bases to cover here. Lilitu here seems to be a singular figure
and a class of spirits. This pattern is actually no different from the Jewish retellings. One of the biggest theological issues is that Lilitu and adjacent figures probably served a god. Likely Enlil or Inanna. I go with Inanna as Lilitu is similar to her Kilili aspect (Nin-nanna in Sumerian.) or Lady Owl aspect, which is why the Burney relief was mistaken for her for so long until Jacobsen [Assyriologist] expounded on how it is probably Inanna. (The current theories are Ereshkigal or Inanna, which the latter is the most chosen one.)
Lil2 is connected to the night and wind. (Found in Lilitu's name.) They may have been storm demons who became sexualized over time. This would put them under Inanna's domain, who is a storm goddess and a sex goddess. The child killing aspect is probably something she absorbed later due to Lamashtu's influence. Hurwitz goes into detail in this in a book her wrote called
"Lilith: The First Eve". He also cites a source from Langdon about a text mentioning the goddess Ishtar (Inanna) sending the prostitute Lilith out at night to "
lead men astray". Furthering the idea that Ishtar/Inanna is her master.
There's good evidence of how she evolved in the middle east and Lilith still retains lore in Islamic and Yezidi cultures, without any Jewish influences really, to my knowledge. There is evidence she appears later as a singular figure in Phoenician amulet that has Baal and his 7 wives to drive her out as a sphinx character that is eating a child. It's likely the Israelites (Who were originally the Canaanites, the remaining of which became Phoenician.) inherited the myth during Babylonian captivity that is mentioned in Isaiah. This is also the book where she may appear in; Isaiah 34:14. Some academics think that the translation is botched, however the Vulgate [Latin] translations of the bible are earlier and use "Lamia" [a Greek monster that is compared to Lilith], which makes me think that it is legit. I am under the impression "Lilitu" can sometimes mean "owl" in older languages, but I am still researching that.
She appears in Jewish lore later on and far before Ben Sira. She is in the Babylonian Talmud, but mentioned sparsely, for example. Alphabet of Ben Sira is so much later than much of these sources and here we can see her character evolve. Almost all of her character is pretty much the same as Mesopotamia, but Ishtar is missing. She still is a succubus and child killing witch, though. Many academics think Ben Sira is actually a work of satire and that is why it's so weird in areas about biblical figures, and why Lilith rebels against Adam.
There's two Jewish versions of Lilith: Folkloric and Mystic [Kabbalah]. In the folklore, she has a personality and is a character out of a horror movie. (Pretty good read actually.) Most of this is oral, though there's a book published with some of them; Lilith's Cave: And other Jewish tales of the Supernatural. This version of Lilith marries Ashmodai, another demon. She also follows the trope of a typical European witch; The young, beautiful witch that seduces men but who is a femme fatale.
The other, mostly found in things such as the Zohar is there is multiple Liliths to explain the discrepancy in stories. Matron Lilith married Adam and had many children with many different demons. She married the archangel Samael and one of his four wives. The younger Lilith is married to Ashmodai and doesn't get along with her mother, yet is the one from the folklore and their stories get confused. (It's more likely that there were multiple versions of folklore that got merged during things such as the creation of the Zohar. Being aware of the contradictions, they likely explained it this way because there has always been multiple Liliths.) While both have "Liliths" in plural, Kabbalah particularly emphasizes this plurality to explain many Jewish traditions, whom probably evolved independently of each other.
Later, during the 19th century many Romantic artists (Not to be confused with the Romantic
occult movement) picked up her story. This may be due to earlier influences such as Faust. Dante Gabriel Rossetti is the artist who forsaked her child killing aspect in favor for her femme fatale aspect. He made a painting and a poem to
accompanying it. He is the reason that later feminists, especially in the 1970s, picked her up as feminist figure where she enjoys status today.
However, I did some digging and it looks like various early occult groups included her in their veneration. This included Crowley and according to Valiente, Gardner's coven when she was in it. I could not find an exact source for why or how they were doing this but it was entirely possible many of these early pagan and occult groups were worshiping her independently of the feminist movements. Later, the two merged in the 1970s or 60's. Since people don't always write things down, especially in the earlier sources, I can only find them sparsely. (Tbh, I don't think they thought of writing it down.)
Anyway, I find this topic interesting and wrote extensively about it for awhile. I got a lot of articles on my blog about it. I am super passionate about Lilith.
