Camp Gagnon - Adam's First Wife Was NOT Eve

Episode Date: January 4, 2026

Today, we explore the story of Lilith, the alleged first wife of Adam. We’ll see her connection to powerful Mesopotamian demons like Lilitu and Lamashtu, her rebellious confrontation with Adam in th...e Garden of Eden as told in Rabbinical texts, and the dramatic, powerful role she would eventually come to play in the mystical traditions of Jewish Kabbalah... Welcome to Religion Camp! 🏕️✝️☪️✡️🕉️☦️ Religion Camp Merch: https://camp-rd.com🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com🏕️ Get Today In History Email Here (Free): https://www.dailytodayinhistory.com Timestamps:0:00 Christos YAPPIN1:35 Incantation Bowls of Lilith4:14 Lilith and Lilitu8:52 Lamashtu Demon10:30 Lilith In Rabbinical Texts16:10 Adam Rejects Lilith In Eden20:22 Rise of Jewish Kabbalah25:06 The Scholarly Thoughts#peace #podcast #history #religion #ancient #film #educational #knowledge #information

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You've probably heard of Adam and Eve, but have you heard of Adam and Lilith? Yes, Lilith. She's been called a demon, a baby killer, a seductress, a rebel, and a feminist icon. But almost everything that we know about this story comes from stories written thousands of years after Genesis. In fact, the Bible mentions Lilith one time and never in the Garden of Eden. So where does this legend come from? In order to find out, we're going back 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. We're talking buried incantation bulls meant to trap demons,
Starting point is 00:00:29 forgotten clay tablets, dead sea scrolls, medieval Jewish satire, and mystical texts that transform a class of spirits into a single terrifying demonic woman. By the end of this video, you will understand how Lilith evolved from ancient demonic folklore and how it became Adam's so-called first wife. And why her story is so strange and so fascinating, even to this day. If you're a fan of demonology and medieval Jewish folklore, well, this is the episode for you. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up people and welcome back to Religion Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single Sunday we explore the most interesting, fascinating,
Starting point is 00:01:15 controversial stories from every religion from around the world from all time forever. Yes, this is the place where it all happens. And I can't do it without you. Thank you so much for tuning in every single Sunday and being a part of the camp, being one of the campers. Now, of course, this show is not possible without my dear friend Christos. How are you, pal? Doing great.
Starting point is 00:01:31 All right, Chris, there's no time to jump into that because we're talking about Lilith. Yes, this is the she. demon that was doing tricks on it sideways in the Garden of Eden and had to be banished out. Now, a few things before we begin. Let me just say, the reason I do this show is because I want to know what everyone believes. Truly, I don't think you can understand the people without understanding the God they worship, and this is my attempt to understand who everyone believes, who everyone worships, and what are the core tenets of every faith that I can apply to my own life? Yes, that is why I'm here. And secondly, I also didn't grow up with a Jewish folklore background.
Starting point is 00:02:06 It's possible I get some things wrong in this episode. This episode specifically touches on a specific subset of lore that existed within the medieval period of rabbinical Judaism, specifically satire, which is a hilarious way to interpret the Torah in the Hebrew Bible. So I just want to give that preface. If I get anything wrong, please feel free to comment. I don't know if there's any rabbis watching for people that do a specific, you know, Kabbalistic interpretation or medieval folklore. But this is my attempt to give it a fair shake and just explain where these things come from.
Starting point is 00:02:36 So all of us can be less stupid. So in order to understand this door, we've got to go all the way back to Mesopotamia. Just imagine, all right, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine you're, you know, just digging around and, you know, some ancient ruins in Iraq. And you're digging with your shovel and it hits something beneath the doorway. Brush it away to see what it is. It's a clay bowl turned upside down, buried deliberately. You're like, oh, that's kind of weird.
Starting point is 00:02:58 You start to brush it off. You dig it up. You flip it over. What's on the inside? The inside, the surface of the internal part of this bowl is covered with writing. that spirals from the edge all the way towards the center. And in the center of this bull is a figure bound in chains. Okay?
Starting point is 00:03:12 What you've just discovered, congratulations, an incantation bowl, your curse forever, I think. I actually don't know the statute of limitations on ancient curses. But these are these bowls that were basically discovered in ancient Mesopotamia between like 500 and 700 AD. And there are hundreds of them that have been on earth or even finding them to this day. Now, these weren't just ordinary dishes. These are magical weapons created to fight. demons, okay? And the text on the inside was basically a spell, a prayer, carefully crafted to trap evil spirits and protect families. Now, ancient homeowners buried these bulls upside down at
Starting point is 00:03:47 specific locations under thresholds in corners, sometimes under like bedroom floors, and they believed that demons entered through the doorways and through these passageways in the home when they lurked in the shadows. So some wealthy people own multiple bulls. And this kind of suggests to archaeologists and researchers that these people felt vulnerable. And and they felt specifically vulnerable in these specific parts of their houses, specifically where babies or women were giving birth. Now, the spiraling text mirrors how ancient people imagined trapping evil forces, pulling them in, containing them, and then ultimately rendering them powerless.
Starting point is 00:04:21 At the center sits a drawing of a demon, wrapped in chains, and it wasn't decorative. It was literally meant to bind the demon in this reality of this prayer, of this type of incantation. Now, what's interesting is that many of these demons, demonic images show female characteristics. These bulls specifically targeted a girl demon. But who is this girl demon? What are they afraid of? Okay. Well, a lot of people might know Adam and Eve, right? This is the first couple, but far fewer people I've ever heard the other version from specifically medieval Jewish
Starting point is 00:04:54 communities. Now, this story is basically, you could, you could consider it as like Jewish folklore, right? And this account claims that before Eve was created from Adam's rib, there was another woman, a first attempt that went completely sideways, okay? And her name was Lilith. And she didn't just leave Eden. She was transformed into this dark, dangerous demon and was cast away. But who was Lilith? Where does this come from? Great question. I'm glad you asked. In order to unwrap this mystery, we've got to go back to Mesopotamia, literally means between two rivers and refers to this area in modern day Iraq and basically was humanity's first testing ground for civilization. Yes, this was the place where it all began, as they say. And this is also where people started to develop writing systems
Starting point is 00:05:39 and actually recorded their supernatural beliefs. So the Lilith begins not with a single demon, but with an entire category of spirits from roughly 4,000-ish years ago. Now, the name Lilith evolved from Lil, a Sumerian term meaning wind or spirit. And it connected to two Akkadian terms, Lelu and Lilitu, male and female demons. Now, these weren't individual names, but they were classifications like a ghost or like a vampire or something. Now, we know this because Mesopotamines wrote on these clay tablets that survived all the way up until now. And among these are medical texts revealing how they understood illness. Now, their medicine was pretty sophisticated for the time.
Starting point is 00:06:17 They knew hundreds of different medicinal plants and botany, and they could set bones, and in some cases even do some minor surgeries. They also believed that supernatural forces, is what caused you to be sick. Now, medical text would blame Lelu and Lilitu for these seizures and fevers and mysterious phantom pains. One pattern emerges repeatedly. These demons had gendered preferences.
Starting point is 00:06:40 So the male Lilu would attack women, while the female Lilitu would attack men. Now, one medical text actually describes symptoms. It basically says, if when a state of confusion comes over him, he rolls the whites of his eyes and blood flows from his nose, those. The diagnosis for a woman is Lilu and for a man, Lilitu. But where do these demons come from? Ancient texts reveal that they were believed to be these unhappy, restless spirits
Starting point is 00:07:07 of young people who died before marriage or before having children. So in the Mesopotamian worldview, marriage and parenthood were these fundamental duties. It was not like a choice. You couldn't just be like, I'll be kid free, you know? So those who died unfulfilled, supposedly wandered the earth consumed by jealousy and rage. One text actually describes, Ardat Lily slips in a man's window. Young girls not fated to be married, young women, and never impregnated, young women whose garments pin a good man never loosened. So this term, Ardat Lily, the maiden lilith,
Starting point is 00:07:39 was connected to sexual frustration in a way. This reference to slipping through windows identifies them as like a succubis or a female demon who just like seduces sleeping men. So there's a scholar named Gwen Eliza. And she basically argues that these demons embodied sexual envy, right? Bitter spirits of people who never experienced fulfillment. So the solution, a symbolic wedding. So priests would literally create a figurine of male and female lilith demons
Starting point is 00:08:10 and perform a marriage between them and then bury them together. And the idea was that you would give these spirits what they wanted, partners of their own in the demon world, so that they would leave humans alone. Now here's what's interesting about this. Throughout ancient Mesopotamia, we're discussing a category of demons. It's not a specific demon named Lilith.
Starting point is 00:08:28 She started as this generic type and then only gradually crystallized into an individual with her own story. What's up, people? We're going to take a break real quick because this episode is sponsored by me. Yes, Camp R&D. That is the merch. That is the threads that we'd be wearing around here at the campsite. And we got all sorts of cool stuff. My buddy Zach just cooked up a sick UFO collection.
Starting point is 00:08:48 You can go check it out there at Camp R&D. I really appreciate you guys. We have so many people that came through for the holidays and picked up their threads. It's awesome. We've got hats, hoodies, t-shirts, all that. And if you're still listening to this and you didn't skip through, congrats. You got a promo code, all right? What do we do, Chris? It was 5%.
Starting point is 00:09:03 More. How much? Five more. 10%. 10%. Final offer? You won't go higher. You tell me, what do we give them?
Starting point is 00:09:14 12%. All right, we're doing 12% off. Should we go more? Hey, it's your world. I'm just living in it. Let's round up. 10%. No, 15%.
Starting point is 00:09:25 If you use the promo code, Camp 15, you're going to be getting 15% off. Yes. I think we should also do Camp 10. Just if someone doesn't want to take too much. Camp 10 or Camp 15. Those are the only two that are available. And then maybe we send a little something extra to the ones that do 10. If you do Camp 10, maybe there's something extra, no promises.
Starting point is 00:09:45 But it's an interesting experiment. I just am curious to see what you guys do. Camp 10 or Camp 15 at Camp R&D when you check out. You're going to be getting those discounts. Thank you so much for rocking with us and wearing threads of key. the lights on, it keeps the fire burning. Anyway, let's get back to the show. Now, another important detail in order to understand how Lilith sort of became a part
Starting point is 00:10:04 of Jewish folklore, we have to understand another Mesopotamian demonic figure. And this is Lamashtu. This is the daughter of Anu, a sky god. And this divine parentage made her especially powerful. So Lamashtu specialized in attacking pregnant women and like women in labor and newborn babies. So archaeological excavations have actually uncovered dozens of protective amulets against her. Artists portray her with these disgusting hybrid features like a lion or like a bird's head and like covered in feathers and talons for feet and like holding snakes or
Starting point is 00:10:37 nursing like unclean animals. So there are even ancient Assyrian incantations that describe her and they say she is fierce, fearsome divine, the daughter of Anu, she is a she wolf, she intercepts the running youth, she utterly smashes the tiny ones. Not the best PR. So why did this terror exist amongst the people. Well, researcher Jonathan Volk estimated at the time that, you know, infant mortality was extremely high, 20 to 30 percent in pre-modern times. And maternal mortality was also extremely high. I mean, imagine an ancient family, right? A mother might have, you know, five, six pregnancies. And only three or four of these babies would actually survive to adulthood. Every pregnancy carried a risk. There was an implicit fear that went along with it. So
Starting point is 00:11:21 demons like, you know, the Lillu spirit or Lomash to, arose from these deep, fears about vulnerability and loss. So when Lilith develops in Jewish traditions, she combines Lamashu's baby-killing role with, you know, the Lilu spiritual sort of sexual predation. So the Hebrew people had extensive contact with the Mesopotamians. Abraham himself came from the city of Ure, a Mesopotamian city. Later, the Babylonian exile forced Jewish populations to live in Mesopotamia for decades. And large Jewish communities remained there for centuries and produced a lot of important texts like the Babylonian Talmud. Now, this created extensive opportunity for Mesopotamian demon belief to actually influence early Jewish folklore and thought.
Starting point is 00:12:05 Now, here's an interesting fact. The story of Lilith as Adam's first wife isn't anywhere in the Bible. This is not a Christian belief necessarily. It does appear, though, in the Bible in some way. The word Lilith appears once in Isaiah 3414. Now, Isaiah 34 describes God's judgment on Edom. transforming it into a wasteland, basically. And verse 14 states, and depending on your translation, verse 14 states that wild cats shall meet with hyenas. Goat demons shall call to each other. There also lilith shall repose and find a place to rest. And that's it. The text doesn't really explain who lilith is. Other translations will change out that lilith term and say, you know, like demons or things of that nature. And the author just kind of assumes that readers would know
Starting point is 00:12:52 what was meant. But experts disagree exactly what this translation means, right? Some argue that Lilith isn't the proper name, but refers to a type of demon. Others think that it's like a nocturnal creature, like an owl. Different Bible translations reflect this, right? So even the King James version says a screech owl. However, many ancient translators actually view this as supernatural. So the Greek septicent will use Ono centaur, basically like a type of centaur. And the Latin Vulgate will use Lamia, which is basically like a Greco-Roman baby-killing monster thing. Now, ancient interpreters definitely saw this as a mythological being in some way. But that single ambiguous verse didn't create Lilith and the elaborate mythology that exists around her.
Starting point is 00:13:36 So for that, we need to understand Jewish writings from the Second Temple Period and the Rabbinic Era. Now, when we say the Second Temple Period, we're typically referring to 516 BC to about 70 AD. and this was a crucial time period for Judaism's development. The Dead Sea Scrolls are from this era, discovered in 1947, and it really shows an unprecedented view into Jewish religious thought at that time. Now, in these scrolls, Lilith appears in an exorcistic hymn, and it says, And I, the sage, sound the majesty of his beauty to terrify and confound all the spirits of destroying angels
Starting point is 00:14:13 and the bastard spirits, the demons, and Lilith. Now, the bastard spirits, most likely, depending on which scholar you would speak with, would refer to Nephilim, the offspring of angels and humans described in the book of Enoch. Lilith appears alongside these evil spirits as something that would require some type of divine protection. Now, what's interesting is the great Isaiah scroll from Qumran uses the plural, liliot, so liliths in Isaiah 3414, which suggests a class of demons rather than just being a saint. demon. Now, Lilith becomes more prominent in rabbinic Judaism, which developed after Romans actually destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD. The Babylonian Talmud describes her as a humanoid female
Starting point is 00:14:58 demon with wings and long hair. One rabbi even suggests banning people from sleeping alone, warning that Lilith will seize anyone who is sleeping alone. Now, this brings us back to these incantation bowls that I described earlier. Most were written in Babylonian Jewish Aramaic, and they were found in modern-day Iraq, the same region where the Talmud was compiled. Now, the timeline here actually overlaps closely. The bulls date from around like 500 to 700 AD, around the period when the Babylonian Talmud effectively reached its final form. And the language of these bowls and kind of like the legal formulas around them suggest
Starting point is 00:15:33 influence from rabbinic culture. And it's debated whether or not the actual prayers or incantations were actually written by rabbis themselves or just people that borrowed that language. Now many bulls take on a form of symbolic divorce. So one reads, This is the deed of divorce of the lilith, Lilith and female lilith. You are stripped naked.
Starting point is 00:15:55 Your mother is the lilith. Palhas Haddad. Go out from the house and from the dwelling and from the body of this hormid's son of Ima and from his wife. Now, what does that mean? This Palis Hadad. This is a lilith with her own name, like how other demons have specific names, right?
Starting point is 00:16:13 Like Beelzebub is a specific demon. Now, the divorce document uses Jewish legal formulas to sever these spiritual bonds between demons and victims. Another bull actually states, this is an amulet against the Lilith that haunted the house of this Ephraim. Who do violence and trample and scourge and mutilate? Who appear to be humans to men in the likeness of women and to women in the likeness of men.
Starting point is 00:16:35 With the formula I've written against the evil lilith, whomever name be thine. Now this reveals, again, the shape-shifting ability that made these Liliths so terrifying to the people. They could appear as whatever they wanted and, you know, could be whatever would be most effective at catching targets off guard, right? Attractive women to men, handsome men to women, etc. So across 2,500 years from ancient Mesopotamia, all the way through early rabbinic Judaism,
Starting point is 00:17:02 we see this consistency. Lilith or these Liliths are demons associated with sexuality that are typically sent to, you know, threaten people through improper sexual contact or specifically to threaten mothers and children. But it seems like the first connection between Lilith and, you know, being Adam's first wife, actually comes a little later in the medieval period. So this story comes from the alphabet of Ben-sur-Rah, written between the 8th and 10th centuries AD. Now, the alphabet of Ben-Sarra is pretty interesting, filled with, you know, some crude humor and some sexual content and even like, you know, satirical, kind of like biblical stories. And scholars debate whether it was a serious instruction or an
Starting point is 00:17:44 entertaining sort of thing for people to read or just a parody outright. But the fact that the Lilith story first appears here tells us that this narrative emerged from broadly speaking popular storytelling rather than official religious doctrine. But according to this text, God creates Lilith from dust, the same method for creating Adam. And this makes them equal in origin. But they immediately clash over their sexual relationship. Basically, Lilith refuses to lie beneath Adam during intercourse, arguing that since they are both made from Earth, they should be equal partners. Now, this is hilarious.
Starting point is 00:18:21 Now, Adam refuses. Lilith speaks aloud the Tatrogrammaton. Now, if you don't know what this is, this is God's sacred four-letter name. You've probably seen it before. It's oftentimes interpreted as Yahweh, but because the ancient Hebrew didn't really have the vowels. it's just Y-H-W-H. Now, this was not supposed to be pronounced. So this was a massive transgression,
Starting point is 00:18:43 but it gave her some power. So as a result, she transforms, she grows wings, and she flies to the Red Sea. Now, God sees this and sends three angels. Sanoi, Sennon-S-S-N-S-N-O-O-W-E-W-Basly to go off, basically to go get her back. They threatened to drown her,
Starting point is 00:18:58 and her response is, leave me. I was created only to cause sickness to infants. Crazy, right? So the angels and Lilith reach a compromise. Wherever she sees their names or images, she'll have no power. So this becomes the basis for, you know, these protective amulets and charms and plaques and things like that. So according to legend, God curses Lilith. 100 of her demon children will die daily, and this gives her motivation for revenge to kill human children in retaliation.
Starting point is 00:19:26 Now, the alphabet of Ben-Sirah portrays Lilith as defiant and independent and just utterly opposed to motherhood. and so she kills human babies while birthing hundreds of demon children that also die. Now, where does this narrative come from? Like, what is the point of this, right? It builds on a lot of these earlier concepts, right? This, you know, Lamash 2 Mesopotamian baby-killing spirit and the Lilu spirits and, you know, sexuality and protective amulets and all that kind of stuff. But the specific idea of Lilith as Adam's first wife appears to come from an attempt to reconcile
Starting point is 00:19:59 a perceived contradiction in Genesis. So Genesis 1, 27 says, So God created humans in his image, male and female, he created them. So this suggests simultaneous creation of equals. But Genesis 2 says something a little different. It says God forms man from dust and later creates woman from Adam's rib as his helper. Now, medieval scholars notice that these are two subtly different creation accounts. So their solution is that they describe two different women.
Starting point is 00:20:29 Genesis 1 describes Lilith, made from dust. like Adam. Genesis 2 describes Eve made from Adam's rib after Lilith failed. You can see the difference, right? It says in Genesis 1, God created humans in his image male and female he created them. So when you are reading the ancient Torah, reading the ancient Bible, people would interpret this as like, oh, they're on the same level. But then a little later it says God forms man from dust and then later creates woman from Adam's rib. So that's how they squared this. They basically said the first one was Lilith, the second one, someone different. So this is ultimately where this idea of Lilith kind of came from, but again, it doesn't have a biblical basis necessarily.
Starting point is 00:21:08 What's up, people? We're going to take a break really quick because I have amazing news. I'm coming on the road. That's right, my very first headlining tour where I'm going to every city that will possibly allow me to go there. I'm going to Salt Lake City. I'm going to Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, North Carolina in February. Those tickets will be announced soon. You can get all the tickets at Mark Gagnon Live, and I'll see you guys there. Let's get back to the show. Now, as Jewish mysticism, also known as Kabbalah, developed in medieval Europe around the 12th and 13th centuries, Lilith gained more elaborate mythology. Now, broadly speaking, Kabbalah seeks hidden meaning in scripture, and it explores the nature of God through complex symbolic systems. So Kabbalists were interested in mystical experiences and secret knowledge, and they more or less believed that proper meditation could actually achieve a more immediate union with the divine.
Starting point is 00:21:57 Now, in Kabbalistic text, Lilith is paired with Samayel, an evil figure similar to Satan in Christianity. And according to this mythology, Samayel wasn't someone Lilith married after leaving Adam. He was her original primordial partner from the beginning of creation. So as scholar Joseph Dan explains, this created a parallelism between Adam and Eve and then Lilith and Samail. Now, this parallel structure is very central to Kabbalistic cosmology. So Adam and Eve represented the divine plan, this holy coupling to produce righteous offspring. And Lilith and Samel represented the demonic inversion, this unholy union that produces evil spirits. And they rule over Citra Akra.
Starting point is 00:22:42 This is the other side. And this is a shadowy realm filled with demons or something. It's almost like Hades, if you could imagine that. Now, this elevated Lilith from this kind of demon. that kills babies to this cosmic level, you know, force of evil, like the queen of demons, the bride of Satan, the bride of Semel, and really embodied, like, evil femininity under God's order. Now, for centuries, Lilith remained a figure of fear in Jewish folklore, a demon to protect against, and a cautionary tale of specifically female disobedience. Now, I just want to make clear this is
Starting point is 00:23:16 not a core teaching of Judaism. This is not something that is found in the Torah necessarily. This is something that comes up much later through sort of medieval rabbinical Jewish analysis. And does exist through Kabbalah and Kabbalistic practice, but is not something that is fundamental to the average Jewish person. Now, what's interesting is that despite Christianity inheriting the Hebrew Bible and being deeply influenced by Jewish thought, obviously, Lilith is virtually absent
Starting point is 00:23:45 from Christian scripture or theology or any type of Christian church folklore in general. And why is this? The story of Lilith as Adam's wife doesn't appear in Genesis, but again, in these later Jewish elaborations developed after Christianity is already established in its own sort of scriptural interpretation. So by the time that the alphabet of Ben-Sirah is written, Christianity and Judaism had already been separated for centuries. Early church fathers like Augustine and Jerome wrote extensive commentaries on Genesis, but never mentioned Lilith as Adam's wife. Isaiah 3414 was translated into Latin as Lamia, which again connected Lilith to Greco-Rae, which again, connected Lilith to Greco, Roman mythology. Medieval Christian demonology featured Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Asmodius, but never Lilith. Some modern occult movements will incorporate Lilith, but this was a much more modern development and not really ancient Christian tradition in any capacity. Also, we should mention Islam, despite coming from the same Abrahamic tree, also doesn't really mention Lilith. Lilith doesn't appear in the Quran. Islamic scripture mentions Adam receiving Hawa or Eve as a mate,
Starting point is 00:24:52 but no mention of a previous wife. It's interesting because Islamic tradition does develop an elaborate demonology, which features, you know, gin, which are these spiritual beings made from, you know, smokeless fire. And within Islamic folk tradition, specifically in Middle Eastern cultures, there are female gin or demons
Starting point is 00:25:09 who do attack pregnant women and newborns. In some Arab traditions, there are spirits called the Um al-Subian, which is the mother of children, and these sort of beings will strangle babies or cause miscarriage. And these may have potentially been influenced by the Jewish Lilith beliefs in regions with Jewish communities, but they're not called Lilith and they don't share that same Adam backstory.
Starting point is 00:25:33 Now, in recent decades, Lilith has appeared frequently in pop culture from, you know, TV shows and comic books, video games, usually as this powerful, dark female character. Shows like Supernatural or True Blood have featured this character in their shows. So there you have it. We've traveled across 4,000 years tracing this evolution. of Lilith from ancient Mesopotamia to medieval Jewish mythology to the modern reinterpretations. And it's really interesting. I mean, obviously we know that Lilith as Adam's first wife is not a biblical story. This doesn't appear in Christian folklore. It is this Jewish text that is, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:09 written a thousand years after the biblical books were actually created. And there you have it. That is the entire lore of Lilith. It's really interesting. I mean, I remember hearing about it, but I didn't know exactly how it fit in. The fact that it comes to, from the alphabet of Ben-sur-Rah is very funny to me. This is a hilarious text. And I think it's important to just underscore, like, this is not a text that is considered, you know, legitimate, like, rigorous, you know, religious scripture. This is not dogma. This is the musings of, you know, medieval Jews that were doing basically, like, analysis and use satire to kind of describe some stuff and kind of, like, send a message. But the whole book, again, I haven't read it,
Starting point is 00:26:48 but from the excerpts and the research I've done, it's very funny. I mean, the first fact that Lilith is cast out because she was trying to ride Cowgirl is hilarious to me. Like literally it was like missionary is what is what, you know, it's what Adam wanted. That's the way of God. And they were like, no, no, no, no. Lilith was not having it. She wanted to go crazy on that thing. But again, this is not like, you know, dogmatic, but it is just really funny.
Starting point is 00:27:15 And then there's other things apparently in one passage that Eve is created because Adam is so horny. Like literally, like, Adam, like, masturbates and then spills semen on the ground and then creates demons. And then God's like, yeah, we got to get you wiped up immediately. We got to get you a little shouty up in this spot, which is just hilarious to me. But, like, the text itself is literally using, like, crude language, I think, to, like, entertain the people. And in order to, like, make this kind of, like, you know, religious folklore. It seems like almost like fan fiction, I think. And, but what's interesting is that some people kind of believed it in the sense that they, like, made these.
Starting point is 00:27:52 amulets and like they would kind of like participate in the stuff because they were afraid of these like she demons so like they believed in the demonic nature of these lilith but they weren't they weren't reading this being like oh this is where it comes from but it's just a funny it's a hilarious book i mean ben sira actually insults king nebuchadnezzar to his face so nebuchadnezzar is basically asking ben cyr riddles and then ben cyr responds by mocking the king's intelligence and then give answers that are like technically correct but like really like humiliating and there's also like a ton of different proverbs in here that are just like hey dude it's better to you know be in hell than marry like a foolish wife it's like just
Starting point is 00:28:32 hilarious like it's just like yeah dude like these these girls be crazy but yeah that's kind of where it comes from it's mostly from ben sirrah but there is it's interesting how there is text going all the way to mesopotamia of like a way to like grapple with the fact that you know women are dying in childbirth and like the loss of a child they're like we need an explanation for this and they're like yes she did demons. It's just kind of funny to me. I don't know, Kreeces, you take anything away from this? Lillith is definitely not a pillow princess. Not at all. And I don't want to compare the two, and they're not the same thing. But there is like this divergence within the Talmud and then also
Starting point is 00:29:09 the, I forget what you called this, the Ben. The alphabet of Ben-Sirah. Yeah. Where it's like very divergent. Yeah, I think, I mean, the alphabet of Ben-Sirah, I think is developed much later than like the Talmud is kind of like actually formed. Right. So there's like, again, reference to this Lilith, but Ben Serra is like, well, I'm just going to make it funny. Right. So again, I need to do more research on Ben Serraud. I don't know if like, I think it was, based off everything I know, it's like it was intended to be kind of satirical and kind of parody, which is kind of fire that they're just like, maybe that's who I would have been. If I was a medieval Jew, I would have been like, you know what? I'm going to write a funny book about this. I would have been Lilith. Dude, you would have been wild, dude. You would have doing tricks on it. But that is the origins of Lilith. That is where she.
Starting point is 00:29:52 comes from and that is why she exists in movies you might have watched. If you ever see a crazy, fierce character named Lilith, you know where it comes from. And apparently more people are naming their kids Lilith. If you're a Lilith watching this, congrats. You're just, you're one of the goats. The throat goes. All right, guys, this has been another episode of Religion Camp. This one is a little nodder than normal, but it's after dark. You know what? We're having a fun time here in the tent. You guys can check out History Camp if you're interested in deep historical deep dives and all the craziest things and people have ever happening. You can also check out Camp Gagnon, where I do much of interviews with people much smarter than me that can actually explain
Starting point is 00:30:26 these complex topics. You can also come see me on the road. Maybe I'll throw some Lilith jokes in there for the good folks in the back. And as always, this is Religion Camp. You can join us here every single Sunday and I cannot wait to see it next time. You're always welcome in the tent. Thank you so much. I'll see you then. Peace be with you.

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