Lilith is a Hebrew name for a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, who is generally thought to be in part derived from a historically far earlier class of female demons in Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia.
Evidence in later Jewish materials is plentiful, but little information has been found relating to the original Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian view of these demons. The relevance of two sources previously used to connect the Jewish lilith to an Akkadian lilitu—the Gilgamesh appendix and the Arslan Tash amulets—are now both disputed by recent scholarship. The two problematic sources are discussed below.
The Hebrew term lilith or lilit…show more content… This contrasts with Eve, who was created from one of Adam's ribs. The legend was greatly developed during the Middle Ages, in the tradition of Aggadic midrashim, the Zohar, and Jewish mysticism. For example, in the 13th century writings of Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she coupled with the archangel Samael. The resulting Lilith legend is still commonly used as source material in modern Western culture, literature, occultism, fantasy, and…show more content… "Tablet XII" is not part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but is a later Assyrian Akkadian translation of the latter part of the Sumerian poem of Gilgamesh and the Netherworld. The ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is associated with a serpent and a zu bird. In Gilgamesh and the Netherworld, a huluppu tree grows in Inanna's garden in Uruk, whose wood she plans to use to build a new throne. After ten years of growth, she comes to harvest it and finds a serpent living at its base, a Zu bird raising young in its crown, and that a ki-sikil-lil-la-ke made a house in its trunk. Gilgamesh is said to have smitten the snake, and then the zu bird flew away to the mountains with its young, while the ki-sikil-lil-la-ke fearfully destroys its house and runs for the forest. Identification of ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith is stated in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible . According to a new source from Late Antiquity, Lilith appears in a Mandaic magic story where she is considered to represent the branches of a tree with other demonic figures that form other parts of the tree, though this may also include multiple