Week 3 Story: Eve & Lilith

"... And God sculptured Adam "in God's image".

- "Is he the first man in the earth, Grandma ? He must be so lonely."

- "He was the first man. But Darling, Adam will have his companion very soon."

- "I know it. I know it. Her name is Eve. I told you, i have learned this story at school already." The little girl runs her mouth pretty fast, and raises herself up in bed.

- "Sh...! Don't shout. You don't want to wake up everybody, do you?."

She gently claps the shoulder of her granddaughter and pushes her lay down again.

- "Before Eve, God had created Lilith, to be Adam's first wife."

- "That's weird. I thought Eve was the first woman and Adam's first wife."

- "God afraid that living alone with the animals would make Adam become wild and felt himself desolate. God formed Lilith from dust like Adam. Lilith appeared so pretty, more beautiful than every living creature that Adam had known. And she quickly grabbed Adam's attention".

Lady Lilith of Dante Grabriel Rossetti (1868). Soure: Rossettiarchieve

A small pause and Granny continues.
- " They were very happy together. They enjoyed walking around the garden of Eden, stopped by to admired the beautiful flowers in the daytime, and fondled the animals. They chattered with the moon and the stars in night time. However, their relationship gradually became strained and may even crack".

- "What's happen, Grandma?" the little girl looks curious.

- "Adam believed that he had great power over others because he was the image of God. He was burly and brawny. He was strong. He was intelligent. He was the ideal man that God created. Therefore, Adam was haughty, fury and full of pride. He always saw himself right and rarely listen to anyone, including Lilith. Lilith advised him and humbled him at first but he never listened".

- "Adam and Lilith both were formed from the dust. Therefore, Lilith was strong and incisive just like Adam. She thought she should received respect and equality from Adam. When she felt she couldn't withstand him, she told him she wanted to leave. Adam looked dagger at Lilith and wakenned God. He couldn't sustained a woman that had strong minded like her at all."

- " God manifested himself that He made a mistake when created Lilith, she shouldn't be created using the same material like Adam's. God made Lilith to evanesce before Adam's eyes and made Adam fall asleep. Then, He took out one of Adam's rib to make another woman. God named her Eve."

-" Eve was an image of Lilith, inherited a strong-minded, honest, and intelligence from Lilith, but more graceful, more sweet, more patient, and also more complicated. Lilith and Eve looked exactly the same. Because Eve was part of Adam's body, which God said, Eve would be Adam's destiny woman."

Granny stops and looks at her little girl. The little girl has been asleep since then.

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Author's Note: Based on the story of Adam and Eve, I transformed to a bedtime story in which a grandma tells her granddaughter about the first woman on earth. However, the characters, Adam, Eve and Lilith got changed a little bit as well as their background and context. In the original version, Adam is not self-important. Lilith flees out of Eden garden herself because she likes to enjoy the same equality as Adam. Lastly, Eve is not an image of Lilith.

I combined the personalities of Lilith and Eve because it is exactly what a modern woman has today: dependent, consistent but emotional, etc. This person may be Wu Zetian, an Empress Consort Wu of China during Tang dynasty or Hillary Clinton, an American politician who was known as the First Lady of the United States.

I knew there are many different versions about the story of Lilith after leaving Eden, Lilith became evil. However, I made Lilith disappeared because i want to keep the pretty image of women in the world. 

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Bibliography: The Creation, King James Bible (1611). Genesis 1-2

                       Lilith, Louis Ginzberg (1909). The Legends of Jews