Unmasking Lilith: The Sumerian Spirit That Infiltrated the Bible

Before Eve, there was Lilith, and she refused to submit.
This is the 5,000-year true story of the demon queen who became a feminist icon.

In 1997, Sarah McLachlan named her all-female music festival after a demon. The Lilith Fair became the highest-grossing touring festival of that summer, raising seven million dollars for women's charities. The name came from medieval Jewish legend: Adam's first wife, who demanded equality and flew from Eden rather than lie beneath her husband.

But Lilith's story begins three thousand years before that concert stage. In the wind-swept ziggurats of ancient Babylon, families buried clay bowls beneath their thresholds, traps for malevolent spirits, with a wild-haired demon drawn at the center. Her name was Lilith. And she was coming for the children.

This documentary traces Lilith through five millennia of human fear and desire. We examine the archaeological evidence of incantation bowls and protective amulets. We explore the medieval texts that turned a nameless demon into Adam's rebellious first wife. We witness her coronation as queen of darkness in Kabbalah, her transformation into Victorian femme fatale, and her stunning reclamation by feminist theologians who saw in her ancient defiance a message for modern women.

No figure in mythology has been more completely transformed. She has been screech owl and night hag, seductress and child-thief, cosmic evil and feminist inspiration. Tonight, we discover why.

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