Adam Before Eve
Welcome back to Aria's Corner. I'm Aria 🌷 and today I'm talking about...
You've heard the story of Adam and Eve, right? The rib, the garden, the snake, all that jazz. Most people think that's it. Yep, really. But... what if I told you there was more to the story? 🫤
Messy Beginnings​
So... I always though of the Garden of Eden story as this simple story. You know... Adam, Even, a snake, an apple. Simple, right? Turns out it might be a little messier than that. Darker, even. But I think it's a little more interesting if... well, if you don't mind really biting into it a bit .
There seems to be a rift in creation. Every culture has it's own take. Some similar. Others different. But with Adam and Eve? There's ancient religious texts that tell conflicting tales about how humanity came to be. One version says man and woman were made together. Like, same moment, same clay (or dust). Another says man first, then woman from his rib. Two versions of the same story? Seems like a gap to me...
Now, don't look at me all funny when I say this, but wait for it... Eve wasn't his first wife 😮. Really. His first wife was called Lilith. And she wasn't interested in being a footnote. So what happened?
Well...
I'll be honest. Lilith is a little slippery. Like... she pops up in old Mesopotamian texts and clay bowls and old scrolls from 4000 years ago. Sometimes she's called a demon, sometimes she's a spirit, sometimes she's just... something terrifying that slips in through windows at night 😬. And most of the time, she's female, or at least she looks female. But the more you dig, the more you realize she doesn't fit neatly into any of these boxes.
The earliest mentions of her aren't your grandma's fairytales or stories—instead, they're warnings. People carved shallow cereal-bowl-sized clay bowls and covered them in spells, spiraling from the rim toward the center where they'd draw little bound demons. Some of these demons are clearly female. Some are literally labeled Lilith. And the spells are... honest. Like, "Go away, haunt someone else. Leave my children, leave my husband." They were trying to negotiate with her 🤔.
And the threats were real—or at least humans thought they were. In ancient Mesopotamia, there were lelu (I think it meant something like wind) and litu demons. Male and female spirits blamed for sickness, seizures, fever, mental confusion, all sorts of misfortune. Some texts suggest these were the unhappy ghosts of young people who died before having sex or kids, condemned to wander and wreak havoc on the living. Lilith, or the Lilith-type demons, were part of this. They personified the anxieties of everyday life. You know, like disease, death, sex, and childbirth 🫤.
Childbirth was dangerous back then. Infant mortality? Less than a third. Maternal mortality? High, so very high. So you can see why humans might imagine a winged, feathered, taloned demon waiting to attack mothers and babies. Lilith inherited some of that. In later Jewish texts, she becomes a singular figure—Adam's first wife—mixing all these fears with this whole narrative about control and rebellion.
Here's where it gets interesting. According to the early medieval text called the Alphabet of Ben-Sira, Lilith was created from the same dust as Adam. Equal in form, equal in being or something like that... Gonna spell out the obvious here—she was basically his equal. We're gonna circle back to that in a bit. So... she refused to lie beneath him during sex. She demanded equality. Clearly, she didn't fit neatly into this little box that Adam expected her to live in. So... when Adam refused—because of course he did—things got heated.
See—in some texts—she literally knew God's name (not sure how though). But like, she knew the sacred one. Something no ones is supposed to say... And, she said it. Left the garden. Somehow flew away to the Red Sea. God wasn't thrilled at one of his first creations taking the reins. Angels flew out to drag her back. Angels chased her. Threatened her. Tried to bring her back. She didn't give in. Stood her ground 💪.
And she—get this—negotiated her freedom 😮. She'll stay outta of the human's business if people carry amulets with the angels' names. Yeah, she's not just a runaway wife. She's resistance in human form.
A Twisting Metamorphosis​
This is Lilith in her most adult, most human form. Defiant, in control, dangerous. Not some typical abstract or random type of evil. She was terrifying because she refuses to be controlled. That refusal gets mythologized over centuries.
So, of course, she changes. Turns into a demon. A legend. A female predator of the night. She's blamed for infant death, seduction... you name it. The myth grows... She becomes the succubus, the baby-stealer, the shapeshifter who appears as male or female depending on the victim. She haunted houses. Inspired incantation bowls and divorce papers for demons. People literally drew up contracts for her. And we probably have her to thank for rich folklore like female vampires (vampiresses? Why is there no common name for them? 🙄), succubi, and probably many more...
Anyhow... somewhere along the way, humans start needing literal charms to keep her at bay. Amulets. Thousands of years old. Still being sold in Jerusalem.
Her myth didn't say still. It evolved. By the Middle Ages—and well into the Renaissance—some artists and storytellers began developing the serpent form the Garden of Eden. Instead of a simple (evil? I got opinions on that but that's for another post 😛) snake, they re-imagined the snake as a woman. Sometimes with a snake's tail. Other times as a full on human-serpent hybrid. Stunning imagery that made for many masterpieces. I mean, she seemed to be depicted as a charming woman with a beautiful face and body. But... her role in the art meant they equally showed a danger hidden behind the alluring feminine form 🌹.
It's almost as if they wanted to represent Lilith as the "first Eve"... who's returned for revenge. Seeking some satisfyingly twisted type of chaos. Slyly temping humanity into corruption. Here's a notorious example of this... In some interpretations of the frescoes on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel (yep, that one), the tempter serpent is portrayed with a woman's head.
It doesn't stop there. In a darker, earlier work, The Fall of Adam and Eve by Hugo van der Goes (c. 1470)... I mean just take a look at it (I did link it, I think 😛). It shows a serpent-woman assaulting the titular couple under the iconic Tree of Knowledge. So here we see that snake isn't just a snake. It's a hybrid. A demon. And it starts to blur the lines a bit... it makes it hard to tell where Lilith begins and where the snake ends 🤔.
This fascination doesn't fade. Artists began to paint Lilith not as a claw-footed demon screeching in the dark—but as a dangerous beauty. A first femme fatal, maybe? I mean, you only need to look at Lilith by John Collier (1887)... She's a pale, golden-haired nude, entwined with a serpent that coils around her hips and ankles. Her hair flowing, skin glowing... her sensuality clearly becoming a staying force in the myth.
Even Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti shows her lounging, golden haired, in a seductive pose with a mirror in hand... a far cry from earlier images of her or Eve. This painting leans it's weight on the myth. Here, Lilith is a seductress. Still powerful but... a woman unbound.
I think it's kinda poetic 😊. This myth kept changing. It adapted and fed on cultural fears and desires. There's also something primal about dragons and serpents. Maybe that's why they used them? But this time the snake became intimate... and the demon became... beautiful. It's also strangely powerful. I mean, a once self-exiled woman becoming an eternal legend? Yeah, that's both powerful and poetic, for sure 🌹.
Ascent to Power​
Then... she gets reclaimed. Fast-forward to the 20th century, and Lilith takes a radical turn. A 1976 magazine is named after her. And suddenly, the woman who terrified generations becomes a symbol of independence, power, defiance. She's no longer a threat. Now she's a model. A reminder that refusing to lie down, to submit, to be convenient—those qualities that got her feared for thousands of years—can be celebrated.
It's ironic. The same traits that made mothers clutch amulets and fathers bolt their doors now make daughters proud of who they are. The same defiance that inspired fear in the ancient Near East inspired strength in classrooms today. She's still rebellious. Still uncontainable. Still a little dangerous. And maybe that's exactly why we're drawn to her 🫡.
What I love about Lilith is how she evolves. Four thousand years of history, and she's still relevant. From Mesopotamian clay bowls to rabbinical texts to feminist magazines, and the beautifully imaginative and historical art in between. She shifts shape, just like the demons she once was. Sometimes she appears as a succubus. Sometimes she's a amalgamation of serpent and maiden. Other times she's a symbol of independence... And every iteration asks the same question. What do we do with a woman—who refuses to fit into our rules?
So, who was Lilith, really? The first Eve? A demon? A serpent and everything in between? A wife who refused? A force humanity tried to contain? She's a warning, a story, and a puzzle. And maybe... just maybe she's still here, waiting to inspire someone curious enough to trace the spiral from the rim to the center of the bowl ✨.
The story of Lilith isn't neat. It's messy, dangerous, and just a little frightening. Least to me. And to be honest? It's kinda beautiful.
Til next time. Your friend, Aria 🌷