Does it speak of Adam's first wife before he ever met Eve in the Garden of Eden?

There was another wife Adam had before Eve. Her name was Lilith she never wanted to be with Adam she was taken into Heaven and God wanted her to go back but she said she was not going to.
Then it is like God banished her from the Garden of Eden and thrown into the bottomless pit. And she arises some other times in the Bible. But I have not read anything relating to her.

Hmm, I haven’t heard of her :/

Does “it” speakm meanign the Bible? There’s actually a debate going on whether or not she was mentioned. Some claim she was actually written out of the Bible, while some believe she was mentioned in Isaiah 34:13-15. As of right now, whether or not she was mentioned seems to be up in the air. There’s a site that gives a lot of explanation to the different legends of Lilith: http://funadvice.com/r/14toijv7a46

What bible did you read that in? Adam only had ONE wife and she was EVE. The bible does’nt say anything about some Lilith being in the garden of Eden. Who told you that in the first place?

speak meaning Man I can’t spell today.

I have never heard of her either until about 5 months ago. But it might just be those scientific goons who think there still things that were left undiscovered.

You are talking about Lilith. From what I understand she did not want to be subserviant to Adam so got the boot. She was cast out and became a Demon or Pagan Goddess. I do not think she is mentioned in the bible, but if I recall correctly is mentioned Dead Sea Scrolls.

Are the Dead Sea Scrolls books only found in the Catholic Bible. Because in the regular Holy Bible it does not contain the different books contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls like Sirach, Baruch, Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, And Ecclesiasticus( which is either Sirach or Baruch).

I’m not sure, I don’t think they are in any bible, but I could easily be mistaken. My knowledge on the topic is sadly lacking.I have tried to research Lilith a few yaers ago and found very little information on her.

if you look in the jewish bible you will find her story- she would not lay beneath adam and be submissive- she felt she was equal to him and sought to have intercourse with him in the woman on top position. she is credited with being the first feminist.

after her fall from grace she began having intercourse with demons and begat a special kind of demon- she is the basis of the succubus legends, and she is also the one that harms infants in their cribs.

she was more of a jewish story than for the christians.

So that is why they do not speak of her in our Bible. I do remember them saying that she was a succubus demon.

Oh Thank you! Thats it! I hate when I can’t remember things. : )

Annie’s webpage is a good find, though a bit sensationalistic, lol. But for your question, Nicole, the whole demoness thing doesn’t really matter. The relevant part is what the “Straight Dope” authors call “Legend three.”

See, there are many, many stories that the Hebrew Bible tells two or even three different times, in somewhat different ways. One of these is the creation story, told one way in the very first chapter, and a very different way in the next chapter.

The first chapter does not speak of Chava (Eve) at all, nor of one being created before the other. Rather it says, “And G!d created the human (“adam” here is not a name) in His own image, in the image of G!d He created it; male and female He created them.” So here it sounds like male and female were created simultaneously by a single act - unlike the next telling of the story, in which Chava is created from part of Adam’s body (and “Adam” becomes a name).

So one midrash explains the difference by saying there was a woman created at the same time as the man, but she disappeared from the story and was replaced soon after by Chava. Later, that “missing” woman gets associated with the name and legend of Lilith.

But there is also another way to reconcile the two stories: The Hebrew word “tzela,” often translated in this story as “rib,” literally means “side.” So another midrash says that the first human was originally created as male on one side and female on the other! Later, when G!d made Chava from Adam’s “side,” it simply means that G!d separated the two sides of the one male-female human into two separate humans, one male and one female. For what purpose? Because “It is not good that the human should be alone” - in other words, so the two could find their wholeness restored only by coming into relationship with one another.

As you can see, the stories told by midrash to explain the Bible’s gaps and mysteries are not always compatible with each other. That’s fine for us, because we Jews have always understood that scripture is meant to be open to multiple interpretations so that we can always continue to grow in our understanding of it in a personally meaningful way. G!d may know the whole Truth, but as people we each have our own little true bit to contribute.

Nicole, the books you named are sometimes called the Apocrypha; they are not part of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Patricia, the article Annie linked to here is a good starting place.

The Jewish (or Hebrew) Bible is part of yours. You don’t remember Lilith from it because she’s not in it.

Just the fact that there are different versions of genesis should tell you that it is not really true. It is mythology, no different than zeus, odin, or quetzalcoatl. Most of christianity accepts that adam & eve are allegorical and did not really exist.

LOL! Right, like every time you tell a story from your life, it always comes out the same as every other time you tell it. So tell me, which book about the history of the Roman Empire is the only good one, since only one version can be true?

Myth and allegory are ways of being true - much like a novel can often be a truer and deeper account of reality than a factual journalistic account.

TrentH, Yes, when I tell a story from my life it does come out pretty much the same every time I tell it. At least the basic facts surrounding the event. I might tell it slightly different, but the facts would be the facts. I wouldn’t tell someone my grandfather had a first wife named Lilith when I know his only wife was Eve. I am sure there are some books about the history of Rome that are better and possibly more accurate than others, but that has nothing to do with what I said. History books all should have the same basic facts, regardless of how it is presented.

wow i never heard of this b4..there are so many stories i keep hearing about. this is amazing. i always wondered y it said in the bioble man and woman were created nd then eve was created… now i see. there are probly lots more stories uncovered

Jimahl, first thing is I’m sorry for the mocking tone of my previous response to you. I should have waited out my laughter at your post and given it more thought before replying. Back to topic… I doubt you’d feel obligated to discuss early girlfriend Lilith every time you told a story about grandpa and his wife Eve. And no history book tells, or even tries to tell, all the facts. One of the foundations of writing (or interpreting) history is the art of deciding which facts matter to the story. That choice depends on the story-teller’s purpose. You may think the basic facts should remain the same if you like, but the basic fact is that they don’t. If, in the search for truth, you ask, “Which is the one true telling that makes all the others false?” the nature of the question assures that the answer will be a dogmatic one. I prefer to ask what truth might be found in each of the multiple tellings, and by holding those multiple truths (or aspects of truth, if you prefer) together despite their dissonances, to reach for a larger, more encompassing view of what is true. Not that I don’t suffer from the same delusion as everyone else, that my perspective on the world is the right one. I do. I just try to remember not to take it too seriously.

Yes, I might not feel obligated to tell someone about Grandpas first wife, but if I was giving an account of his life, it would be incomplete if I left it out. I absolutely agree that no history book tells all the facts, and that the best method is to read many sources and try and make an informed decision on what is true. But that concept only reinforces my original point. The fact that the chrisitan bible omits the story of lilith certainly means that one of the stories is not accurate.

The overall story the Hebrew Bible tells is not about anyone’s life. It is about the relationship between G!d and the people called Israel. There are big gaps in the life story of every single character in it. That’s one of the purposes of “midrash” - the non-Biblical stories that fill in and explain those gaps, like the Lilith and androgyne stories. Obviously, at least one of those two explanations (maybe both!) is not accurate in a historical sense, because they explain the same gap in two contradictory ways. But their purpose is interpretive, not historical, and they each have something to teach us about ourselves.

I have no problems with any interpretation anyone has about the bible. But I do have a problem when people claim it to be historically accurate. Particularly the story of genesis.

I don’t know how I could tell if a story about G!d creating the world and the first humans were accurate or not, since I was not there at the time (or if I was, I don’t recall). To me, the whole argument about whether it’s accurate or not is a distraction from its truth.

Well I know for a fact that god did not create the world and humans 6000 years ago, and I know that the human race did not start from just 2 people. I didn’t need to have been there to see the evidence that disproves these two things. The only way you can deny that is if you just dismiss everything we currently know about the physical universe we live in.

And what truth exactly are you talking about?

the book of Adam never mentions anything about Lilith. It talks about Adam and Eve and their life during and after the garden. Basically it talks about things that aren’t in the Bible and after reading it I found there is nothing on a woman named Lilith