A new doctrine has appeared in the Messianic Movement that basically claims Lilith was made on Day #6 of Creation but when this project failed, Yahweh made a second woman for Adam on Day #1 of the second week, essentially extending creation by a day. The argument offered is that there are two creation accounts in Genesis, the first Creation detailing the formation of Adam and Lilith, and the second, Eve from Adam. Using Talmudic myths to bolster this position, the writer then proceeds to use this to:

• 1. Justify patriarchy; and
• 2. Justify polygamy.

About the only thing we can say with any degree of certainty (and many dispute this) is that angels are capable of materialising and having intercourse with humans to produce hybrid progeny, the 'giants' or nephilim of Genesis (Gen.6:4). However, there is little or no mention of female demons in the Scriptures either. The only way that Lilith could have been Adam's wife and become a demoness is if she had originally been an angel, which would have resulted in the same kind of monstrous progency for Adam as for the watcher angels who rebelled and took human woman to wife. For this myth to have any basis in reality, Lilith would have had to have been a 'once off' special creation, quite unlike Eve. But then the author of this latest thesis also believes that Yah'shua (Jesus) had a special body made for him and was not human like ours, so perhaps that is what he had in mind.

Needless to say, no fictional character from the Garden of Eden is needed to justify principles already clearly stated in the Bible. The Bible is patriarchal from cover to cover and plural marriage is acknowledged as an acceptable lifestyle in addition to monogamy. We don't need fiction to depreciate the value of what Yahweh has already clearly revealed for those who wish to see it. Moreover, the author has used this fable to state that polygamy is superior to monogamy, and to imply that monogamy is in some way defective, neither of which are true. The Body of Messiah does not need another false doctrine to guilt some people, or justify others, into living a lifestyle they may not be called into. The marriage of Adam and Eve was designed to serve as a monogamous rôle model for the majority of people who enter the marriage estate, which would include the hoardes of unsaved, with the uniplural Mystical Marriage of Messiah serving as a rôle model for the saved of the first resurrection.

What troubles me the most about this new false doctrine is:

• 1. It implies Yahweh made a grand mistake, scratched the original project, and started again;
• 2. It contradicts the clear biblical statements that Yahweh did no more creating after Day #6 of creation week - thereafter it was all maintenance work;
• 3. It fosters an élitist mentality by implying that monogamous families are second rate to polygamous ones; and
• 3. It destroys the whole principle of Patriarchal Divine Tavnith (Pattern) that runs through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

That there is a personage or being called Lilith I do not doubt. We have encountered her as an actual demoness in deliverance ministry. As a one of several recognised consorts of Satan in occult circles, it is not difficult to speculate on how the stories about her arose and evolved over time. For just as Yahweh is represented as both one and many in Scripture (including the divine "us" in the creation narrative of Adam and Eve - Gen.1:26), so it is not inconceivable that the Serpent represented both Satan and his consorts in the Garden of Eden, tempting Eve, with Lilith becoming the umbrella name for all of the demonic consorts, trying to tempt Eve into following ungodly, matriarchal (anti-patriatrchal) patterns.

The 'Lilith-as-Adam's-first-wife' scenario totally destroys the fractal pattern of divine emet or truth found throughout the Scriptures. If Yahweh created Adam and Lilith in His (Their) image, how could He (They) at the same time create Adam and Eve in the same image? Impossible. You then end up with a schizophrenic god creating men and women in two different sets of images.

The story in Eden teaches us the truth that not only did Yahweh-Elohim create Adam and Eve in Their image but that men and women were created to reflect back an image of the Godhead for us to see and understand. That image shows us, amongst other things, that the Heavenly Mother (whether singular or plural, it does not matter) is submitted to the Heavenly Father in the same way that Eve is submitted to Adam (until her rebellion) and how a wife is supposed to be submitted to her husband. Had Yahweh created 'Lilith' in the manner described, He would have broken His own divine tavnith and created inconsistency and contradiction in the Universe.

The Adam-Lilith scenario also contradicts the New Testament teaching about the Greater and Lesser Branches and the way life is transmitted from Yahweh viâ Yah'shua to the human family of believers (Jn.15:5; Rom.11:16-24). There would be no need for a wife to return home to her husband in the same way that the husband is called to return home to Yah'shua. Indeed the Adam-Lilith model most precisely describes the neo-feminist doctrine of the majority of churches which views heaven as the abode of permanent singles, breaking up the divine tavnith of the family pattern in the eternities. It destroys the divine echad fractal, self-similarity or recursion which makes mankind theomorphic (though not gods), a reduced-size copy of the Elohim- or God-head. The Adam-Lilith model is one of ultimate sterility because coheadship and matriatrchy do not make for fruitfulness and multiplication, let alone stability and happiness.

The Lilith myths themselves should be enough to make one pause for thought. The promotion of amulets and talismans to ward off evil is symptomatic of occultism - of turning to magic instead of to Elohim.

What of the relationship of Messiah (Christ) to the Messianic Community (Church)? If Lilith is a co-head then Christ and the Church are equal partners - indeed Yah'shua has millions of co-heads in the form of saved believers and what you have is something akin to the early days of the Chinese Red Army where ordinary soldiers could question the orders of an officer to discuss the merits or demerits of his orders. Needless to say the chaos that resulted speedily caused a hierarchical system to be re-established. Heaven is not some mythical socialist paradise. Yah'shua is the Master and we are His servant-friends. We are supposed to reflect the Master and thus bring Him glory, finding our purpose and contentment in that, submitting graciously and in consequence being filled. No, the Bride is not equal to the Bridegroom when viewed as two separate entities but becomes the Bridegroom by submission and ingrafting - it is Eve returning to Adam to make both whole again.

Now I understand that the author of this new doctrine is by no means trying to promote what one might call 'Lilithism' - quite the opposite. He is maintaining an accurate biblical stance when it comes to patriarchy. But where he is wrong - and dangerously so - is in using a fable to prop up a truth when the truth itself is more than adequate, not to mention the implication that Yahweh messed up the first time round. To claim, as he does, that Yahweh allowed the first Lilithic arrangement to 'prove a patriarchal point' does not, in my view, hold much water. For one thing, few even know about this Lilithic legend, and the fact it never made its way into the canon ought to make us highly suspicious. Which leads me to another concern, and that is the implication that someone 'removed' the original story from Genesis, thus opening up a Mormon Pandora's Box in challenging the integrity and accuracy of Scripture, and so pave the way for the introduction of 'better' and 'historically more accurate' 'scriptures' (like the Book of Mormon).

Let us instead stick with the truth that Yahweh-Elohim created the universe to be a fractal, with Himself (and the Godhead, who reflects Him), being the base pattern. With the Fall, there was corruption of creation's base pattern, and being a fractal, the corrupted pattern was echad and reflected everything that was placed below Adam and Eve. Elohim's salvation of us and creation in Yah'shua is through being restored to right covenant relationship with Elohim, being restored to true base tavnith pattern as represented by the authentic Garden of Eden story of Adam and Eve's creation and their call to return home to Yahweh in the proper order.

We need no Lilith's to distort, deceive and mislead, whether the demon or the apocryphal fables about her.

Comments from Readers

"For those who may be wondering what a fractal is, or may never have heard of it before, a definition given here is that 'A fractal is "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole, a property called self-similarity.' ~ namely, where an object's pattern is as seen when you look at the whole thing, is echoed or 'replicated' in on of its parts... so that if you were to look at one of the parts, you would be able to know something of what the whole is like. If this may be challenging to visualise just with words, we can easily find examples in Creation (indeed, it's one of Yah's fingerprints throughout creation)...

"Some examples may be how if you look at a the branches of a tree, how a big branch with its little branches is a small 'replica' or echo of the pattern of what a Tree trunk with its branches look like. The same way, of the smaller 'parts' echoing the pattern or form of the whole is seen in things like ferns, the lightening, mountains, snowflakes, rivers, clouds, to name just a few...

"How then, has Elohim created a fractal with man? Man and woman were made to be a reflection of Elohim... namely, that if you looked at them in covenant relationship, that they would be an 'echo' after the pattern of Elohim who they are in covenant relationship with... So that when you look at them, you should also see a reflection of the bigger of how man's relationship with Elohim in covenant should be... a picture of the Church, the Bride, submitted to Yah'shua the Bridegroom in Yah's ordained pattern, and as Yah'shua was submitted to the Father in His ordained pattern.

"The fall of sin corrupted the base pattern, of female being submitted to male... So with the seperation of man from YHWH, it was echoed throughout creation that there was also come a seperation between man (bridgroom) and woman (bride), and between spirit and body ... that this broken pattern was echoed througout creation, that the individual parts would echo what had happened in the bigger picture.

"Elohim gave YHSH as the Lamb, the one to take our place, so His divine pattern may be restored... That man may be restored in covenant relation with Him, and that it may be echoed throughout creation ~ that bridegroom and bride may be restored, that spirit and body may be restored ~ yes even that the whole of creation may restored after the fall.

"May Yah grant and enable us to submit ourselves to Him in HIs pattern, to be obedient to Him, and enable us to cry out and trust and depend on Him to transform us!" (DP, South Africa, 7 December 2010)

"I have been aware of this myth for a while and have heard similar theology in Orthodox Jewish circles. While I agree with you that it is wrong to appeal to this story as "fact", I think it is also possible that post-Christ Jews invented this story in order to explain the existence of this being. They did not have the New Testament revelation we have today that explains the source of demons (they are rarely mentioned in the Tanach). The problem is that it eventually became a "fact" and thus integrated into their theology. Although it is also possible it could have been used to make other nations' gods look like demons, too. Paul somewhat holds to this stance. Its probably a combination of these two (or more) views" (DR, USA, 7 December 2010)