Lilith

Lilith
Alan Humm
Lilith is the most important of a small collection of named female demons in Jewish legend. Historically, she is actually older than Judaism (at least Judaism as defined as a post-restoration phenomenon). Her earliest appearance is probably in ancient Sumer. Although it is far from certain, she may be a minor character in a prologue to the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the ancient world she also sometimes appears in magical texts, amulets, etc., intended to thwart her activities. She appears once in the Bible (Isaiah), in a context that associates her with demons of the desert, and again in some Dead Sea Scroll passages clearly based on the Isaiah reference.
Somewhere between the eighth and tenth centuries, CE, she makes an appearance in a satirical work entitled the Alphabet of Ben Sira. It is here that she is first given what has become her most famous persona: the first wife of Adam (before Eve). In this story, she is created at more or less the same time as Adam, and, as was Adam, out of the ground. Because of this she tries to assert her equality -- an assertion which Adam rejects. Refusing to conform to Adam's desires, she escapes from Eden, and is subsequently replaced by the more subservient Eve (who has less claim to equality, since she was made out of Adam's side). Having escaped Eden, Lilith takes on her renowned role as baby-stealer and mother of demons.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/Lilith/

Lilith and Eve
Derrick Everett
According to the Rabbinic Talmud, Adam had a wife before Eve, whose name was Lilith. Her story seems to have been invented to reconcile the different creation myths of Genesis chapters 1 and 2. In chapter 1, man and woman are created out of the earth; but in chapter 2, Adam is alone, and so God makes Eve from his rib. The rabbis began with the Biblical reference to man's first creation as a bisexual being: male and female He [God] created them [the first human]. Some of the rabbis found in this image something similar to what Aristophanes proposed in the Symposium: a dual bodied being later divided into two who must thereafter seek each other out. But others tried to take into account the later creation of Eve detailed further on in the text. If woman was created from Adam, after his initial creation, than what happened to the female created at first? The answer, according to the Midrash, was that she was Lilith; created with Adam, she refused to comply with Adam's demand that she submit herself to him, and in the end fled from him by using the Ineffable Name. Adam then complained to God about his loneliness, and the creation of Eve followed, together with the Fall and the Expulsion from Eden. Adam, blaming this on Eve, separated from her, and for a time reunited with Lilith, before finally returning to Eve.
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/lilith.htm

Lilith Magazine: All You Ever Wanted to Know about Lilith!
Judy Weinberg
If we were able to trust all the rabbinic and kabbalistic sources available to us concerning Eve's alleged predecessor, Lilith, we would be forced to believe that she is a "fiery female spirit" who, although frigid, passionately seduces men in their sleep, and who, although sterile and childless, kills one hundred of her demon children daily. Dozens of conflicting Lilith traditions exist. Stripped of the overlay of medieval mysticism and demonology this Lilith emerges as an independent spirit. Had she succeeded in her battle with Adam for equal rights, Lilith might today represent that spark of original creativity in whose image women could retrace and recreate their history. Instead history plunged her into the depths of demonhood. Only in the twentieth century, which has no use for sheydim, may the Lilith, who has been obscured by the mists of demonology these thousands of years, be revealed today as the first woman on earth, equal to man and a free spirit. 
http://www.lilithmag.com/resources/lilithsources.shtml

the lilith shrine
lilith is most well-known as the demoness/goddess who was the first woman, created by god at the same time as adam, unlike eve who was created from adam's rib. lilith refused to submit to adam's will and left the garden of eden and was subsequently cursed by god. according to popular opinion, this tale is "evidence" that she was originally a goddess or at the very least an aspect of the great goddess and was demonized for being an independant female. unfortunately, what many people forget is that the "first eve" story of lilith first appeared in medieval times, in the controversial work known as the alphabet of ben sirah.
http://www.lilitu.com/lilith/index.html

The Lillith Myth
Christeos Pir
Some say the God created man and woman in His own image on the Sixth Day, giving them charge over the world, but that Eve did not yet exist. Now, God had set Adam to name every beast, bird and other living thing. When they passed before him in pairs, male and female, Adam --being already like a twenty-year-old man-- felt jealous of their loves, and though he tried coupling with each female creature in turn, found no satisfaction in the act. He therefore cried: "Every creature but I has a proper mate!" and prayed God would remedy this injustice.
God then formed Lilith, the first woman, just as He had formed Adam, except that he used filth and sediment instead of pure dust. From Adam's union with this demoness, and with another like her named Naamah, Tubal Cain's sister, sprang Asmodeus and innumerable demons that still plague mankind. Many generations later, Lilith and Naamah came to Solomon's judgement seat, disguised as harlots of Jerusalem.
http://www.webcom.com/~gnosis/lillith.html

The Myth of Lilith
Sylvia Chong - schong@hooked.net
According to Jewish folklore, Lilith was the first wife of Adam. She was banished from the Garden of Eden when she refused to make herself subservient to Adam (specifically, she refused to get into the missionary position with him during sex). When she was cast out, she was made into a demon figure, and Adam was given a second wife, Eve, who was fashioned from his rib to ensure her obedience to her man.
http://art.net/Studios/Poets/Schlong/lilithmyth.html

The Mystery of Lilith
Vampires have been around since the beginning of time. Back in the Garden of Eden, before Eve, there was Lilith. Lilith is believed to be the first vampire.
The Queen of the Night, portrayed in Hebrew legend as the first woman, created to be the wife of Adam, but with such an evil spirit that she departed Adam's side to dwell with the forces of darkness. Also know as Lili, she probably originated as Lilitu, one of the seven Babylonian evil spirits incorporated into Hebrew lore. Variations on her story relate that she was Eve, having sinned and been ejected from Eden and fleeing into the air to prey on children. Another version portrays her as the queen of succubi, leader of the night demons who prey on men, drawing out their seed and often their blood in the hope of causing misery and death. Lilith has a special hatred for children, as her own were twisted, misshapen, and wicked. In corporeal form, she appears as a beautiful woman with an abundance of sharp black hair on her legs. Characters similar to Lilith are found in tales all over the world. (See also Succubus.)
http://cadre.sjsu.edu/art101b/s97/Sandy/Vampire.html

Lilith: The Demon Queen
Shantell Powell - shanmonster@bigfoot.com
Appealing to both magicians and feminists past and present, Lilith, or Lilitu ("wind-spirit" in Assyrian-Babylonian mythology) was a ravenous sexual entrepreneur. In legend, Lilith was the first wife of Adam. She was either created as Adam's Siamese twin (joined together at the back), or was made from filth. Either way, Lilith demanded equality with Adam. When he tried to force himself upon her, she uttered the magical name of God, rose into the air, and flew away to find more amenable sexual partners.
Because Lilith left before the Fall, she wasn't plagued by the curse of death as were Eve and Adam. Lilith went on to become a demon in her own right, or perhaps an avenging angel. She had riotous erotic adventures with fallen angels, and together they spawned a huge family of demons called the lilim, creatures virtually identical to the succubi of Christian demonology.
Three angels, Semangelaf, Sanvi, and Sansanvi, were sent to retrieve the wayward Lilith. The three angels discovered her by the Red Sea where she was giving birth to more than one hundred lilim a day. The angels entreated her to return to Eden with them.She refused, saying, 'Leave me! I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.'
http://www.goth.net/~shanmonster/witch/deities/lilith.html

Pre-Raphaelite Sorceresses - Lilith
Lilith appears in Jewish folklore as a demoness who throttles new-born babies and seduces men in their sleep, sucking their blood. Lilith was probably the lilitu originally, an Assyrian demoness who had wings and long, dishevelled hair. Legend also has it that she was the first wife of Adam, created by God out of filth and mud. From Adam's union with her sprang the demon Asmodeus and hosts of other demons. Eve was not created until later.
http://www.webmagick.co.uk/prcoll/sorcery/sorcery9.html