Lilith. Lilith is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been banished from the Garden of Eden for not complying with and obeying Adam. She is thought to be mentioned in Biblical Hebrew in the Book of Isaiah, and in Late Antiquity in Mandaean mythology and Jewish mythology sources from 500 CE onward. Lilith appears in historiolas in various concepts and localities that give partial descriptions of her. She is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud, in the Book of Adam and Eve as Adam's first wife, and in the Zohar Leviticus 19a as a hot fiery female who first cohabited with man. Many traditional rabbinic authorities, including Maimonides and Menachem Meiri, reject the existence of Lilith. The name Lilith stems from lilû, lilîtu. The Akkadian word lilu is related to the Hebrew word lilith in Isaiah 34:14, which is thought to be a night bird by some modern scholars such as Judit M. Blair. In the Ancient Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia Lilith signifies a spirit or demon. Lilith continues to serve as source material in today's popular culture, Western culture, literature, occultism, fantasy, and horror. In some Jewish folklore, such as the satirical Alphabet of Sirach, Lilith appears as Adam's first wife, who was created at the same time and from the same clay as Adam. The legend of Lilith developed extensively during the Middle Ages, in the tradition of Aggadah, the Zohar, and Jewish mysticism. For example, in the 13th-century writings of 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 had coupled with the archangel Samael. Interpretations of Lilith found in later Jewish materials are plentiful, but little information has survived relating to the Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian view of this class of demons. While researchers almost universally agree that a connection exists, recent scholarship has disputed the relevance of two sources previously used to connect the Jewish lilith to an Akkadian lilītu – the Gilgamesh appendix and the Arslan Tash amulets. In contrast, some scholars, such as Lowell K. Handy, hold the view that though Lilith derives from Mesopotamian demonology, evidence of the Hebrew Lilith being present in the sources frequently cited - the Sumerian Gilgamesh fragment and the Sumerian incantation from Arshlan-Tash being two - is scant, if present at all. In Hebrew-language texts, the term lilith or lilit first occurs in a list of animals in Isaiah 34. The Isaiah 34:14 Lilith reference does not appear in most common Bible translations such as KJV and NIV. Commentators and interpreters often envision the figure of Lilith as a dangerous demon of the night, who is sexually wanton, and who steals babies in the darkness. In the Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q510-511, the term first occurs in a list of monsters. Jewish magical inscriptions on bowls and amulets from the 6th century AD onward identify Lilith as a female demon and provide the first visual depictions of her. In the Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, the terms lili and līlītu mean spirits. Some uses of līlītu are listed in the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, in Wolfram von Soden's Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, and Reallexikon der Assyriologie. The Sumerian female demons lili have no etymological relation to Akkadian lilu, evening. Samuel Noah Kramer translated ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith in Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh dated c. 600 BC. Tablet XII is not part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but is a later Assyrian Akkadian translation of the latter part of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. The ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is associated with a serpent and a zu bird. In Gilgamesh, Enkidu, 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 killed 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 the ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith is stated in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. According to a new source from late antiquity, Lilith appears in a Mandaean 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 Liliths. Suggested translations for the Tablet XII spirit in the tree include ki-sikil as sacred place, lil as spirit, and lil-la-ke as water spirit, but also simply owl, given that the lil is building a home in the trunk of the tree. A connection between the Gilgamesh ki-sikil-lil-la-ke and the Jewish Lilith was rejected on textual grounds by Sergio Ribichini.