Curious Christian

I periodically get asked questions about Lilith, especially the claim that she was Adam’s first wife and somehow left out of the Bible.

That story doesn’t actually come from Scripture. It appeared much later, most clearly in the medieval Jewish text Alphabet of Ben Sira. This was long after the Old Testament was written and even Christianity had formally split with Judaism, which explains why many Christians are unaware of this Jewish legend.

In the Bible itself, there is one reference to a Lilith but it is brief. In Book of Isaiah 34:14, a Lilith appears as a night creature inhabiting a desolate landscape. There’s no backstory, no connection to Adam, and no developed mythology. This Lilith is more a class of being than a character. The image likely draws on older ideas from Mesopotamian mythology, where similar figures were associated with the dangers of the night and the wilderness.

Over time, that obscure figure is reshaped and expanded, eventually becoming a fully developed character in medieval storytelling. The shift isn’t from hidden biblical truth to modern rediscovery, but from a passing reference to creative interpretation.

It’s a reminder to read Scripture on its own terms. Not every later tradition carries the same weight, and not every compelling story belongs to the biblical text. At the same time, these traditions show how people have wrestled with the gaps in our understanding, sometimes carefully, sometimes more imaginatively.

Lilith, in the end, tells us less about Genesis and more about what later readers wanted to explore.