Lilith Bibliography
The original version of this bibliography was put together
by Thomas R. W.
Longstaff (t_longst@COLBY.EDU), drawing partly from
responses to a query on
the ioudaios discussion group (ioudaios-l@lehigh.edu). I
have formatted it
for the Web. In addition to bibliography, some of the
original respondants
also sent comments and suggestions which I have included. I
have also merged
in Alejandro Gonzalez's bibliography. In addition to these
sources, I have
added a good deal of material myself over the last year or
so. If you don't
see something that you think should be here, please bring
it to my
attention.[AH]
Abarbanel, Nitzah. Eve and Lilith [*Havah ve-Lilit*],
Bene-Brak: Bar-Ilan
University Press. 1994. comment
Ahrens, W. Hebräische Amulette mit magischen
Zahlenquadraten. Berlin, 1916.
Bacher, Wilhelm. "Lilith, Königin von Smargad",
Monatschrift für Geschichte
und Wissenschaft des Judenstums 19 (1870): 187-189.
Breslau.
Bailey, Lloyd R. Biblical Perspectives on Death. Overtures
to Biblical
Theology, 5, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979. comment
Baring, Anne & Cashford, Jules. The Myth of the
Goddess: evolution of an
image. London: New York, N.Y., Arkana, 1993.
Baumgarten, Joseph M. Revue de Qumran (1992): comment
Boyle, Darl MacLeod, Where Lilith Dances. New Haven:Yale,
1971 (1921)
Bril, Jacques. Lilith, ou, La Mère Obscure. Paris: Payot,
1981.
Bitton, Michele. "Le mythe juif de Lilith [microform]: de
la feminite
demoniaque au feminisme." Doctoral dissertation (Universite
de Provence, Aix
en Provence), 1988.
Budge, E.A. Wallis. Amulets and Superstitions, Oxford:
Oxford University
Press, 1930. [pp. 212-238, 283-4.]
Cantor, Aviva. "The Lilith Question." Lilith 1 (1976):
(Also: In On Being a
Jewish Feminist: A Reader, ed. Susannah Heschel. New York:
Schocken Books,
1983.)
Cavendish, Richard. The Powers of Evil in Western Religion,
Magic, and Folk
Belief. New York: Putnam, 1975.
Chadourne, Marc. Dieu crea d'abord Lilith. Paris: Fayard,
1938.
Colonna, M. T.. Lilith e la luna nera e l'eros rifutato,
Florence, 1980.
Colonna, M.T. "Lilith, or the Black Moon." Journal of
Analytical Psychology,
Oct 1980: 325-50.
Corelli, Marie. The Soul of Lilith. New York: Lovell,
Coryell & Co., 1892.
Couchaux, Brigitte. "Lilith." In Brunel, Pierre,
Dictionnaire des Myths
Littéraires. Paris: Éditions du Rocher, 1988.
[English tr.: Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes and
Archetypes, London and
New York: Routledge, 1992].
Creuzer. Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker,
besonders der Griechen,
Leipzig and Darmstad, 1840/1. (reprinted: Hildesheim,
Zürich and New York,
1990.)
Dan, Joseph. The Hebrew Story in the Middle Ages.
Jerusalem, 1974.
---. "Samael, Lillith and the Concept of Evil in the Early
Kabbalah".
AJSreview 5 (1980): 17-40.
Dan, Joseph and Kiener, Ronald. "Treatise on the Left
Emanation (by Isaac b.
Jacob ha-Kohen". In The Early Kabbalah. New York: Paulist
Press, 1986:
165-182.
Dijkstra, Bram. Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine
Evil in
Fin-de-JSiecle Culture. New York: Oxford U. Press, 1986.
Edwardes, Allen. The Jewel in the Lotus: A Historical
Survey of the Sexual
Culture of the East. New York: Julian Press, 1962.
Eisenstadt, J. D., ed. Ozar Midrashim. Israel, n.d.
"Lilith". Encyclopaedia Biblica eds. Cheyne &
Sutherland, London, 1902.
Farber, Walter, ed. Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf!
Mesopatamische
Baby-Beschwörungen und -Rituale. Mesopotamian
Civilizations, 2. Winona Lake,
IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989.
Farrar, Janet & Stewart. The Witches' Goddess: the
feminine principle of
divinity. London: Robert Hale, 1995.
Frankfort, Henri. "The Burney Relief." AfO 12 (1937). Pp.
128-35.
Gaster, Moses. "Beiträge zur vergleichende Sagen- und
Märchenkunde. X.
Lilith und die drei Angel", Monatschrift für Geschichte und
Wissenschaft des
Judenstum 29 (1880): 553-565. Breslau.
---. "Two Thousand Years of a Charm against the
Child-Stealing Witch."
Folk-Lore 11 (1900): 129-161.
---. Ma'aseh Book 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1934.
Gaster, Theodor Herzl. "A Canaanite Magical Text."
Orientalia, 11. Rome:
Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1942. Pp. 41-79.
---. The Dead Sea Scriptures, in English Translation.
Garden City, NY:
Anchor Press, 1976. Pp. 371-373, 504.
Geller, Markham J. "Eight Incantation Bowls." Orientalia
lovaniensia
periodica, 17. Leuven, Instituut voor Orientalistiek, 1986.
Pp. 101-17.
Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. Translated by
Henrietta Szold,
Paul Radin and Boaz Cohen. Philadelphia: The Jewish
Publication Society of
America, 1909-1938. [I: 65; V: 87 ss, 147-8; VI: 289]
(also: New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1956.)
Gonzalo Rubio, Concepción. La angeología en la literatura
ab ínica y
sefardí, Barcelona: Ameller, 1977. [Pp. 25, 50-52, 54-55.]
Gordon, Cyrus H. "Aramaic Magical Bowls in the Istanbul and
Bahgdad
Museums." Archiv Orientální, 6 (1934): 319-34. Praha.
Gottleib, Rabbi Lynn. "The First Tale." In Taking the
Fruit: Modern Women's
Tales of the East, ed. Janes Sprague Zones. 17-21. San
Diego: Woman's
Institute for Continuing Jewish Education, 1989.
Gourmont, Remy de. Lilith suivi de Theodat. Paris: Societe
du Mercure de
France, 1906.
Gravelaine, Joelle de. Le retour de Lilith: la lune noire.
Paris: L'Espace
bleu/Hachette, 1985.
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. New York: Penguin Books,
1960.
Graves, Robert and Raphael Patai. Hebrew Myths: The Book of
Genesis. Garden
City: Doubleday, 1964.
[Spanish tr.: Los mitos hebreos. Tr. y Luis Echávarri.
Madrid: Alianza,
1986.]
Gustafson, Fred. The Black Madonna. Boston: Sigo Press,
1990.
Handy, Lowell K. "Lilith". Anchor Bible Dictionary. New
York: Doubleday,
1992. Vol. 4, p. 324f.
Heschel, Susannah, ed. On Being a Jewish Feminist: A
Reader. New York:
Schocken Books, 1983.
Hufford, David. The terror that comes in the night : an
experience-centered
study of supernatural assault traditions. Philadelphia :
University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1982. comment
Hurwitz, Siegmund. Lilith, die erste Eva: eine Studie uber
dunkle Aspekte
des Wieblichen. Zurich: Daimon Verlag, 1980, 1993.
[English tr.: Lilith, the First Eve: Historical and
Psychological Aspects of
the Dark Feminine. Translated by Gela Jacobson. Einsiedeln,
Switzerland:
Daimon Verlag, 1992.] [ISBN: 3-85630-545-9]
Isbell, Charles D. Corpus of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls.
SBL Dissertation
Series, No. 17, Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975. comment
Killen, A. M. "La légende de Lilith", Revue de littérature
comparée 12
(1932): 277-311.
Koltuv, Barbara Black. The Book of Lilith. York Beach, ME:
Nicolas-Hays,
1986.
Kraeling, Emil Gottlieb Heinrich. "A Unique Babylonian
Relief." BASOR, 67
(1937). Pp. 16-18.
Krämer, K. "Babylonisches Gut in syrischen Zaubertexten."
Mitteilungen der
Altorientalischen Gesellschaft 4 (1928/9): 110-4. comment
Kramer, Samuel Noah. "Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree: A
reconstructed
Sumerian Text." Assyriological Studies of the Oriental
Institute of the
University of Chicago 10. Chicago: 1938.
Krappe, A. H. "The Birth of Eve." In Occident and Orient:
Gaster Anniversary
Volume, ed. B. Schindler. 312-322. London: Taylor's Foreign
Press, 1936.
Lacks, Roslyn. Women and Judaism: myth, history, and
struggle. Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980.
Lambert, W. L. (G.?). "Inscribed Pazuzu Heads from
Babylon." Forschungen und
Berichte 10. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1958. Pp. 41-47
Lassner, Jacob. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba. Boundaries
of Gender and
Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam,
Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1993.
Levi, Israel. "Lilit et Lilin." REJ, 68 (1914):15-21.
Levi, Primo. Lilit e altri racconti, Turín, 1981.
[Spanish tr.: Lilit y otros relatos, Barcelona: Península,
1989]
Martinez, Florentino Garcia. The Dead Sea Scrolls
Translated. 1996.
Matt, Daniel Chanan. Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment. New
York: Paulist
Press, 1983.
Meissner, Bruno. Babylonien und Assyrien. Heidelberg, C.
Winter, 1920-25.
Milgrom, J. "Some Second Thoughts About Adam's First Wife."
In Genesis 1-3
in the History of Exegesis, ed. G. Robbins. Lewiston, ME:
Edwin Mellen,
1988.
Montgomery, James Alan. Aramaic incantation texts from
Nippur. University of
Pennsylvania. The Museum. Publications of the Babylonian
section, vol. 3.
Philadelphia, University museum, 1913. comment
---. "Some Early Amulets from Palestine." JOAS, 31 (1911):
272-81.
Naveh, Joseph and Paul Shaked. Amulets and Magic Bowls:
Aramaic Incantations
of Late Antiquity. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985. comment
Nitzan, Bilhah. Qumran prayer and religious poetry. Leiden:
E. J. Brill,
1994. comment
Opitz, Dietrich. "Ausgrabungen und Forschungsreisen: Ur."
AfO 8 (1932). Pp.
328-31.
Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from
Nefertiti to Emily
Dickinson. New York: Vintage, 1991.
Patai, Raphael. Adam ve-Adama [Man and Earth]. Jerusalem:
The Hebrew Press
Association, 1941-1942.
---. Gates to the Old City. Detroit: Wayne State Universtiy
Press, 1981.
---. The Hebrew Goddess. Third Enlarged edition. New York:
KTAV Publishing
House, 1978. (Also: Wayne State University Press, 1990.)
comment
Pirani, Alix, ed. The Absent Mother: Restoring the Goddess
to Judaism and
Christianity. comment
Plaskow, Judith. "The Coming of Lilith: Toward a Feminist
Theology." In
Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, ed.
Judith Plaskow and
Carol Christ. New York: Harper and Row, 1979a.
Pritchard, James B., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts
Relating to the Old
Testament. Princeton, New Jersy: Princeton Universit5y
Press, 1969. P. 658.
Rappoport, Angelo S. Myth and Legend of Ancient Israel,
with an Introduction
and Additional Notes by Raphael Patai, 3 vols. New York:
Ktav, 1966.
(Reprinted: London: Senate, 1995, 2 vols; I: 77-79.)
Redgrove, Peter. The Black Goddess and the Sixth Sense.
Bloomsbury, 1987.
(Also Paladin, 1989.)
Ribichini, Sergio. "Lilith nell-albero Huluppu." Atti del
l· Convegno
Italiano sul Vicino Oriente Antico (Roma, 22-24 Aprile
1976). Orientis
Antiqvi Collectio 13. Rome. Pp. 25-33.
Rigney, Barbara Hill. Lilith's Daughters: Women and
Religion in Contemporary
Fiction. Madison: U of Wisconsin, 1982.
Schäfer, P. "Jewish Magic in Late Antiquity and the Middle
Ages." Journal of
Semitic Studies 41 (1990): 75-91.
Scholem, Gershom. Kabbalah. Jerusalem, 1974.
[Spanish tr.: Grandes temas y personalidades de la Cábala,
Barcelona:
Riopiedras, 1994.]
---. "Lilith." In Encyclopedia Judaica. Jerusalem, 1972.
Pp. 245-249.
Schrire, Theodore. Hebrew Amulets, London: Routledge &
K. Paul, 1966.
Schorr, O.H. "Malachim, Shedim Umazzikim." HeXaluz, 7
(1865): 16-22. (8
(1869): 3-16) Frankfort.
Schwartz, Howard. Lillith's Cave: Jewish Tales of the
Supernatural. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1989.
---. "Mermaid and Siren: The Polar Roles of Lilith and Eve
in Jewish Lore".
The Sagarin Review, Vol. 2, 1992, pp. 105-116.
Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. New York: Da
Capo Press, 1971.
Schaafsma, Karen. "The Demon Lover: Lilith and the Hero in
Modern Fantasy."
Exrapolation Spring 1987 Vol. 28, No. 1.
Selbie, John A. "Lilith." In Dictionary of the Bible, ed.
James Hasting and
John A. Selbie. Edinborough/New York: Scribners & sons,
1909.
Starck, Marcia & Stern, Gynne. The Dark Goddess:
dancing with the shadow.
Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1993.
Stern, David and Mirsky, Mark Jay. Rabbinic Fantasies:
Imaginative
Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature. Philadelphia,
Jewish
Publication Society, 1990. Pp. 183-184. comment
Torczyner, H. "A Hebrew Incantation against Night-Demons
from Biblical
Times." JNES 6 (1947). Pp. 18-29.
Trachtenberg, Joshua. Jewish Magic and Superstition: A
Study of Folk
Religion. New York: Atheneum, 1982. (Also: New York:
Meridia Books, 1961.)
Orig. published 1939.
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Holy Kabbalah : A Study Of The
Secret Tradition In
Israel As Unfolded By Sons Of The Doctrine For The Benefit
And Consolation
Of The Elect Dispersed Through The Lands And Ages Of The
Greater Exile.
Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1976.
Wolkstein, Diane and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna: Queen of
Heaven and Earth.
Harper & Row, NY, 1983.
Yassif, Eli. "Pseudo Ben Sira and the 'Wisdom Questions':
Tradition in the
Middle Ages." Fabula 23 (1982): 48-63.
---. Sippurey ben Sira be-yame ha Binayyim [The Tales of
Ben Sira in the
Middle Ages]. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984.
Zoller, Israel. Lilith. Rome, 1926. (Reprinnt from Revista
di Antropologia
27).
---. "Lilith." Filologische Schriften, 3 (1929): 121-42.
Fiction, Poetry and Art based on Lilith
Or in which she plays a major role
Anthony, Piers. Incarnations of Immortality. A series of
novels which
include: On a Pale Horse, Bearing an Hourglass, With a
Tangled Skein,
Weilding a Red Sword, Being a Green Mother, For the Love of
Evil, ... And
Eternity. comment
Dame, Enid. Lilith and Her Demons. Merrick, NY:
Cross-Cultural
Communications, 1986.
Gourmont, Remy de. Lilith. Paris, 1892.
[E.t.: Heard, John, tr, Lilith, a Play. Boston: John W.
Luce Co., 1945.]
Heeley, David Anthony (1971-). Lilith. First of Darkness
and Light trilogy.
St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1996.
Le Compte, Eduard. I, Eve. New York: Atheneum, 1988.
McDonald, George. Visionary Novels: Lilith, Phantasies. New
York: Noonday
Press, 1954.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. "Lilith. For a Picture", in Poems,
London: Dent,
Everyman's Library, 1961.
Shaw, Bernard, (1856-1950). Back to Methuselah. A
metabiological pentateuch.
London: Constable and company ltd., 1927.
Simpson, Elizabeth Leonie. I, Lilith. Brooklyn, N.Y.: The
Smith, 1991.
Sterling, George. Lilith. 1926.
Williams, Charles (1886-1945). Descent into Hell. Grand
Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1993, 1949.
movie. Blood Ties. Richard and Esther Shapiro
Entertainment, Inc., 1991.
movie. Bordello of Blood. Tales from the Crypt. Universal,
1996.
various. The dybbuk of delight: an anthology of Jewish
women's poetry.
Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications in association with
the European Jewish
Publications Society, 1995. [ISBN: 0907123570]
Bibliographic Comments:
David Armstrong, York University writes:
In his book Biblical Perspectives on Death, Bailey 1979
notes that
incubus/succubus spirits could cause disease, kill small
children (perhaps
an early ref to "crib death"), and have more than just
social intercourse
with adults. These demons were called lili (female) and
lilu (male) [page
10-11, I think].
Joseph M. Baumgarten writes:
On Llit (Lilit), it just so happens that she is metioned in
a $Q 4Q text,
which led me to re-evaluate the possibly demonic nature of
the seductress in
4Q184 in a paper just published in Revue de Qumran. I refer
there to the
long history of this demoness, Lilit.
According ot Marc Bregman (Hebrew Union College,
Jerusalem):
The Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, Friday 22/4/1994
carries a brief
review of [Nitzah Abarbanel, Eve and Lilith [*Havah
ve-Lilit*]] The author
analyses the emergence of these two feminine types in
patriarchal culture
using both Freudian and Jungian theories.
Daniel Cohen:
The Absent Mother: restoring the goddess to Judaism and
Christianity edited
by Alix Pirani (published in England by a branch of
Harper-Collins, so
should be easy to get) contains a historical article by
Asphodel Long with
some original insights on Lilith (the book also has some
modern poetry on
themes relating to Lilith).
Asphodel Long has also written her own book In
a Chariot Drawn by Lions
(with both a British and a US publisher - Women's Press and
Crossing Press,
respectively). It's a fine book, by a scholar for a general
audience. It's
mainly concerned with Wisdom as the female face of God in
Judaism, but
drawing connections with Wisdom aspects of goddesses of the
ancient Near
East; not so much on Lilith, though.
Marsha B. Cohen comments (in a note to Robert Kraft):
Discussion of [11QPsAp a and 4Q510-511] in Bilhah Nitzan's
Qumran prayer and
religious poetry. Chapter 8 on "Magical Poetry," p. 227+.
LeGrand Cinq-Mars comments:
Rather ancillary at best, but not irrelevant, is [David
Hufford's]
ethnographic or folkloristic study of a certain kind of
quasi-dream
experience known in Newfoundland as "hagging", that is,
being beset by a
"hag".
Alejandro Gonzalez writes:
On Kramer, "Babylonisches Gut...": sobre supervivencia de
Lilitu en Lilith.
On Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts...: Editions of
various amulets
against Lilith, in Aramaic.
Rebecca Lesses writes:
One little known source of information on Lilith that I
would suggest would
be the Babylonian incantation bowls, which frequently
mention both "lilita"
and "lilin" (i.e., male and female liliths) -- not just a
single lilith. You
could look at Isbell's "Corpus of the Aramaic Incantation
Bowls" and Naveh
and Shaked's two books on Aramaic Incantations of late
antiquity (both
published by Magnes Press).
Michael Swartz writes:
On Lilith, as you can see, there is an extensive
literature, including a few
important articles by Scholem. There is also R. Patai's,
The Hebrew Goddess.
A "classic" source is also the Alphabet of ben Sira, edited
by Yasif and
translated in Stern and Mirsky's, Rabbinic Fantasies, and
discussed by J.
Dan in Ha-Sippur ha-`Ivri. See also the magical bowls from
Nippur in
Montgomery, AIT.
Daniel Wing writes:
I just thought you'd like to know (If you don't already.)
That Lillith plays
a fairly large part in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of
Immortality series of
novels. She is especially involved in the Fourth, Sixth,
and Seventh books.
Additional Comments:
Herb Basser calls attention to the following materials:
sab 151b,eruv 18b and 100b bab bat 73b , nida 24b, num r
16:16, buber's
tanh. shelach, and places like zohar 2:267b and 3:119a.
and adds:
Of course Isaiah 34:14 is a good place to begin
to start thinking about
lilith. She also exists in the plural-- lilia-- liliths.
lilith aka igra-- inhabiter of roofs and other
joints made strong
appearances in incantantation bowls until joshua ben
perachia divorced her
with a get. she and her 18000 cohorts ride around tractate
pesahim and some
parallels in with night shades pulled down having made it
out of gen r. but
actually she comes in a number of varieties being a true
princess of the
night. But why is she a succubus rather than a succuba or
even a scuba? She
can be warded off if you know the right psalms.
Abbreviations
AfO Archiv für Orientforschung. Graz: Ernst Weidner, 1923-.
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental
Research. Cambridge,
MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1919-.
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies. Chicago : University
of Chicago
Press, 1942-.
JOAS Journal of the American Orietal Society.
REJ Revue des Etudes Juives.