Table of Contents
Lilith
Lilith is a character in Abrahamic folklore who is interesting for having been poofed into existence due to a misunderstanding.
Since that misunderstanding, though, Lilith has become quite popularA) and has had a habit of popping up all over the place.
It really isnât hard to see why Lilith is so popular. Even ignoring the very loose adaptationsâŚwell, thereâs a lot of mystique surrounding her in the Biblical narrative: Whatâs the deal with her and Adam? What about her and Eve? Why did she leave? Did she leave of her own will? Is there some drama? Etc.
It should be noted that Lilith isnât really âcanonâ to any major/mainstream Christian beliefsâŚwhich is completely reasonable.B) Among the other Abrahamic faithsâŚwell, Jews donât really do âcanonâ in a Christian sense, so sheâs either taken seriously or notâŚI canât really comment on how much each position is believed however. Islam and the others appear to not know what a Lilith is.
Description & Notes
Origin
The origin here is concerned with Lilith the character rather than the original original âLilithâ which was a monster. That Lilith is basically âjust a succubusââŚso if you want to read that, then that link will take you to the section that very very briefly explains that.
The character, Lilith, was created due to a misunderstanding, which I mentioned in the opening text. That misunderstanding is related to how the Bible is written.
The Bible was originally composed of multiple texts that were smushed together for some reason - not relevant to what weâre talking about. However, people eventually justâŚforgot this.
The part of the Bible where the smushing is most evident is in Genesis and, by some miracle, there are two separate depictions of the first woman (Eve) being created. One of those is the âfrom ribâ creation and the other is an ex nihilo creation, similar to Adamâs creation. The âfrom ribâ one is the second one.
Since people forgot that the Bible was compiled from multiple texts, they looked at this and started askingâŚwhy were there two women? This eventually transformed into âfirst woman left, so God made another oneâ and then that âfirst womanâ was identified as LilithâŚa name used later in the Bible to refer to a monster.
Honestly IâŚdonât understand the logic behind identifying the first woman with Lilith, but thatâs what ended up happening.
So thatâs the origin of Lilith.
Wicca
Oh boy.
Besides writing âoh boyâ, I donât remember what else I intended to put here, so Iâm just going to leave that there and not elaborate. Wicca shouldnât be taken seriously.
I might write about Lilith in Wicca later when I decide to actually write something about Wicca.
Relations
Syncretism
This is a very small note in the grand scheme of things, since Iâve chosen to ignore her âbasically a Succubusâ originator.
That and this have been identified with a few other creatures, which Iâm gonna list here:
- Onocentaur
- An owl
I got most of these from the video listed below. Of those three, the most sensible one is the Lamia, which is âbasically a Succubusâ as well.
Succubus
Since the original monster that Lilith is derived from is âjust a Succubusâ, you should not be surprised to find that that monster is a succubus.
However, what I find more interesting is how Lilith is connected to succubi nowadays.
This varies a lot, of course, but thereâs a general thread of Lilith being the progenitor or Queen of the succubiâŚwhich isnât that surprising, as sheâs sometimes just identified as the progenitor of demons in general.
I think that this is interesting because itâs a connection to her origin point, in a way. Her status as the mother of demons is something that, to my knowledge, came after she became a distinct character, which then got connected to succubi in general.
Obviously, though, Lilith is also sometimes just a name for a succubus.
Media Depictions
Evangelion
I originally had waaaaay more written here, but I realized it really derailed the article, so I moved it over to the Evangelion article where it fits far better.
A summary would be that Lilith is the progenitor of mankind and, perhaps surprisingly, her Abrahamic folklore is way more thematically relevant to Evangelion than may initially be apparent.
In Nomine
This is referring to the In Nomine role-playing game by Steve Jackson Games (GURPS). Itâs reportedly a sandbox-y type game inspired by Abrahamic Mythology where you either join the forces of Hell or the forces of Heaven. Lilith is included as a âsuperiorâ of Hell.
Probably one of the more interesting depictions of Lilith, which emphasizes her independence. To be clear, Iâve only read the Superiors splatbook on Lilith which I think I read fully. I got my hands on it due to mysterious circumstances. Besides that, Iâm working off of the 1d6chan article on In Nomine.
Basically, Lilith appears to have been part of the Garden of Eden experiment, but she didnât want to be subservient to Adam, so she left. She is technically part of Hell as one of their Princesses, but is more like a neutral party. The reason being that she really doesnât seem to care about what everyone else is doing: sheâs just focused on that capital F Freedomâ˘. Her whole shtick is that she offers favors in exchange for other favors.C) So, if you ask her for something, sheâll do it for you as long as you promise to do something for her in the future.
So you could ask her to help you lose your virginity. Sheâll help out with that and then later sheâll ask you to burn the holy land. So you should probably think these things through first.
Her Lilim do much the same: offering favors in exchange for favors.
This depiction means she is one of the most chillâŚanythings in the world of In Nomine, at least relatively speaking.D) She doesnât care about the war and is seemingly content.
I think that this depiction is probably the best source of inspiration for a morally neutral or good Lilith, considering her relatively chill attitude towards everythingâŚincluding morality.
Lucifer
Here Iâm referring to the Lucifer TV show, which found its way to Netflix at some point. Lucifer is a crime show about the devil himself helping a police detective solve crimes. Seriously, thatâs what the show is about. In addition to all that, there are often supernatural shenanigans happening. I donât care much for Lucifer since I forgot to keep up with it, though I did enjoy it until thenâŚthough Lucifer was insane anyhow. Apparently Eve marries Mazikeen? What?
In Lucifer, Lilith makes a very brief appearance, but is mentioned a coupleâa times. She is stated to be the mother of demons, who serve Lucifer in Hell, which includes Mazikeen.E)
She and Lucifer were friends and Wikipedia states they were ex-lovers. My memory doesnât say this is wrong, but I donât remember that being explicitly stated. Ah, well, doesnât matter.
She had apparently given birth to the Lilim (demons) on her own. There is a question of how she managed to do this, but it doesnât really matter. Her demonic children were made into super-orphans who lack soulsF) to make them strong and independent like how she is strong and independent. Yes, Lilith is a feminist. And, just like every feminist, sheâs a deadbeat mom.
Adam also remains infatuated with her, apparently. Although we only have Eveâs word on this (and she is in the process of cheating on AdamG;H) and previously cheated on him) so we canât be sure thatâs true. If it is, that infatuation lasted a very long time.
This portrayal makes her look bad, which is kinda important if big G is supposed to be good, or at least neutral, but the show probably doesnât fully realize that she is bad? I mean, her position of âI must be strong and independentâ is a clear feminist ideal, but her children are all aforementioned super-orphans who lack souls. Plus she hasnât been in their life at all and then she fucked off to live alone for the rest of her life, never meeting any of them. If she is intended to be a pure bad girl, then this is fineâŚall Iâm saying is, that itâs thematically hilarious that the feminist is treated so poorly when the show generally leans progressive.
Lilithâs portrayal in Lucifer is probably the closest to the folklore in that sheâs a bad girl who befriended/banged Lucifer at some point, gave birth to all the demons and was the first woman made. Good on you Lucifer. ThoughâŚI am suspecting this is accidental. This feels like an attempt at a morally neutral or good Lilith that fumbled the execution big time. Refer to this if you want a hypocritical Lilith, but otherwise refer to In Nomine for a neutral portrayal.
World of Darkness
For a summary, read the main article on World of Darkness.
Most of my information comes from 1d6chan, the White Wolf wiki andâŚyeah, thatâs about it. Despite thatâŚThere really isnât much about Lilith in the grand scheme of things. There is something here, but not much of it.I)
Here is whatâs known for sure about Lilith: she was part of the Garden of Eden, which she left, though we canât be sure why.J) At some point during her travels she met Lucifer who taught her magic.K) She and Lucifer separated and wandered around some more until she met Caine. She took pity on him and decided to be with him. Via her magic, she helped teach Caine stuff about his own supernatural abilities. Unfortunately, Caine was still an asshole, so he eventually left her. Lilith may or may not have ever forgiven him for this. Alone again, Lilith decided to create her own Garden of Eden with a seed she probably received from Lucifer.
The most consistent first-hand characterization we get of her is from her end-time scenario for Vampire, where she wants to kill Caine.L) The players are tasked by her to help her with this task.
Whether she succeeds or fails is, of course, up to the players but if she succeeds and the players kill CaineâŚwell, the players will not be able to enter Heaven but sheâll be nice and let them stay in her garden. She can also fail catastrophically, though you should read that on 1d6chan instead.
This is where the clear stuff ends and where the crazy stuff begins. The stuff that I have relayed to you, dear reader, is stuff that I would consider âunambiguously canonâ while the stuff I will relate to you now is stuff Iâd consider âabsolutely non-canonâ due to the fact this information comes from Revelations of the Dark Mother, which I plan to read at some point to assess the damage. That book was written by Phil Brucato. If you want to know about him well, first, read that 1d6chan page and then consider the fact he is called âGoatFuckerâ.
But, basically, that book is centered around what the worshippers of Lilith believe about Lilith. And those worshippers of Lilith are completely insane. They are BDSM-obsessed misandrists who lean on the S part of BDSM. For example, they believe that Adam attempted to or succeeded in raping Lilith, which is why she left Eden. I find that unlikely, but I digress. They also believe that she had banged Eve (as the snake no less), Lucifer and God himself. If you can figure that outâŚyeah.
There are some other weird things that come from thatâŚlike the fact Lilith is the first woman and Eve is the third.
From a worldbuilding standpoint thatâs just really weird no matter how you look at it. Lilithâs whole thing is that sheâs the mysterious first woman and Eve is the second woman that everyone else is descended from. Adding a third woman on top of that justâŚwell, at that point why even stop at three? Just make 12 women.
Now, excluding that insanityâŚwe canât really be sure why Lilith left the Garden of Eden (or got kicked out). We canât really be sure of anything about her, honestly, sheâs a mystery in WoD just like in the folkloreâŚjust slightly less of a mystery.
This Lilith is also quite sympathetic, since she gets abandoned (allegedly) by every person she loves. She can even fail her end-time scenario which, granted, is a murder plotâŚbut still.
I donât have much to say conclusively. This version of Lilith is still mysterious, but does have a more sympathetic edge, so I guess sheâs a good source of inspiration in that regard.
AlsoâŚI donât know for sure, but I donât think Lilith makes an appearance in the Chronicles of Darkness which is unsurprising.
Worldbuilding Notes
Biblical Mentions
I think that people who include Lilith as an actual character according need to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why Lilith is not explicitly named or referred to in the Bible outside of the single place where she is supposedly created first.M)
Remember that the Bible remains exactly the same in this scenarioN), so Genesis is still made up of two books smushed together into one narrative. There has to be a reason for why âwoman created twiceâ is unique among all the other incidents of the same thing happening twice.
Hereâs a simple solution that I came up with: The Dead Sea Scrolls. It doesnât necessarily have to be those, but can be if you want them to be. Ă la Evangelion, letâs suggest that among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are some of the oldest versions of the Biblical texts, is included a text, or multiple, which explain the whole Lilith situation. This text explicitly explains the creation of woman twice as actually being about two women being created. Then some later evidence suggests (or that text explicitly claims) that disagreements started over why woman was created twice and whether this was a mistake or not. Possibly because itâs not understood why woman #1 left the Garden of Eden or disagreements over how woman was created. Over time, itâs possible that they may start to argue that only one woman was ever created, but disagreed on how.
So, in this version of events, the two versions of the creation story that are smashed together are tellings of the same version of eventsâŚjust that they disagreed on a number of details. The two each chose a different way for how Lilith was created.
This isnât an iron-tight view of things, but I think it fits well-enough together.
Self-Awareness
One issue that arises with the whole âLilith leaving Edenâ is that this shouldnât technically be possible. Iâm kinda surprised that the people who first speculated about Lilith didnât notice this.
Humans didnât really have self-awareness before Adam & Eve ate the Apple of Knowledge. So Lilith leaving of her own free will possibly suggests that something went wrong.
My solution to this is quite simple: Lilith also ate the Apple, but was the first one to do so. She offered it to Adam, who rejected it. Dejected, she leaves the Garden.
Later, when Eve eats the Apple as wellO) she offers it to Adam, just like Lilith. Adam remembers when he rejected Lilith and doesnât want to repeat his previous mistake, so he eats it as well this time.
Of course, this is assuming Lilith left of her own free will and wasnât kicked out.
Independence/Submission and Sexiness
One suggestion for why Lilith was kicked out of Eden was because she was too independent and didnât want to sleep with Adam. This is the version used by Lucifer and the World of Darkness (probably). So when Eve was made, she was created from Adam to make her naturally more submissive to him. That second part is usually left out for some unknown reason in modern versions, unless youâre a feminist, in which case you emphasize it.P)
Anyway, this version of it actually adds an interesting angle to things. If this is the order of events why, exactly, would Lilith be a sexy promiscuous demoness and/or the mother of succubi?
Considering this version of events, it would make more sense for Eve to be like that and Lilith to be the opposite.
As far as I know, though, there isnât a single version of Lilith that takes this approach. Not even WoDâŚthough that goes in the opposite direction if we consider the forbidden book by the goat demon.
As Punishment
One possible explanation for her sexiness (assuming that version of events) is that this is a punishment for her leaving the Garden of Eden or rejecting Adam.
The only issue here is that it clashes with the concept of Chastity as a virtueâŚthis is implying Chastity is a sin.
Good, Bad, Neutral, Gray
How moral or immoral Lilith is can vary, but letâs work from a set of assumptions:
- Lilith was created first, separately from Adam.
- Eve was created second, from Adam.
- Lilith left the Garden of Eden.
Based on these, letâs consider a few things.
Weâll start with the easiest: bad girl Lilith.
If Lilith is bad, this immorality should be emphasized. Consider the fact she is sometimes credited as the mother of succubi or mother of all demonsâŚwhich, yâknow, not the best of things.
So a good motivation for her leaving Eden could be the classic feminist âI donât need no manâ with some hubris on the side as well. As a reason to reject Adam, this kinda works. Though I guess you can add some demonic corruption in there as well, just to spice things up.
If Lilith is morally gray or goodâŚthen we really should keep a few things in mind as the situation is delicate.
I off-handedly mentioned it in a footnote in the Lucifer section, but if Lilith is not evil, that sorta necessitates something to be bad on the part of Adam. The issue with depicting Adam negatively is that he is the ancestor of every single man.
Thus, depicting him as an abuser or rapist falls into the ânot a good ideaâ box, because youâre implying that all of his descendants may have inherited these traits. This is similar to depicting Eve as a cheater or lesbian orâŚwhatever else. Though I guess depicting Eve as naturally submissive to Adam is also a bad idea, that at least has Biblical precedent.
Thus, my proposal for this situation is mostly to make Adamâs actions a result of a lack of understanding or misunderstanding on his part, rather than malicious intent. He might do something that seems innocuous to him but which Lilith takes as a big deal. Alternatively, he does something by accident to her which she takes as intentional. As long as itâs not malicious or intentional on Adamâs part, you can come up with almost anything. Actually, my Apple example from above can count as a good reason.
You could also go the independence or Freedom⢠approach for a neutral Lilith, which is what In Nomine doesâŚin which case Adamâs only sin is an unrequited crush.
Crazy Mode
Something you could do as well, if you wanted to go the Evangelion route or full-on crazy, is to make it so that humans are the descendants of Lilith and not Adam/Eve. If you do that, you avoid any moral issues in depicting Adam/Eve, though youâd have to come up with a reason why theyâre viewed as the progenitors instead of Lilith.
Thereâs also the question of âwhat about their actual descendants?â and how Lilith achieved the incredible feat of having children.
Trivilinks
- Who is Lilith? Adamâs first wife? - A video by Trey the Explainer about Lilith. A pretty good video about her.