Recently, I read some wacky (IMHO) commentary that Adam has a first wife, Lilith, with whom he could not get along. (I’m sure Frazier Crane of “Cheers” can relate.) Supposedly, Adam complained to God so bitterly, God sent Lilith away and then created Eve from Adam’s rib. Has anyone else heard of this?
From the Mailbag: What’s the story on Lilith, Adam’s “first wife”?
I’d heard about Lilith, too. The Mailbag answer satisfies most of my questions about her, but it doesn’t address one particular point: I read somewhere (I belive it was in Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon) that the real reason Adam rejected Lilith was because she refused to do the missionary position, and always insisted on being on top.
I wonder if the Assyrian legends or the rabbinic texts account for that particular story?
The story about Lilith wanting to be on top, being banished for having usurped her “proper” station, and mutating into a demon is one of several rabbinical legends. There was an opera based on this legend a few years ago. I understand it mostly concentrated on how Lilith, now a seductive spirit, was the enemy of Mankind.
The name Lilith appears once in the Old Testament. It is in reference to a demon.
My favorite Lilith story says that there were two wives created for Adam before Eve. The first one, named Lilith, was a disembodied spirit, but Adam was dissatisfied, because he wanted a woman made of flesh and blood. So God fashioned a second Lilith as he had created Adam, molding her out of clay and breathing life out of her. Adam was again dissatisfied, as it saddened him to have seen his mate created out of dirt. So then God put Adam to sleep and took his rib to make Eve. And God and Adam were both satisfied, and saw that it was right that woman should be of the same flesh and blood as her mate.
There’s been at least one thread on this board about Lilith before. An interesting one, too, as I recall.
BTW, I always assumed that the writers on Cheers had some of this in mind when they named the character who eventually married Frazier.
That should, of course, be “breathing life into her”.:smack:
Actually, “Lilith” is the Hebrew for “Steve”!
