DID ADAM HAVE A WIFE BEFORE EVE? ~ A Christian brother recently
asked me that question and to such questions our response should never be one of jest
nor derision, for many folks have been led by non-believers and
Liberal Theology teachings to question, even doubt, the Bible.
There are many who believe Adam had a wife named Lilith before
Eve.
And in the same level of misdirection, there are many folks today who still believe the earth is flat. No, I am not joking. Go to Facebook and search for Flat Earth. You will find a number of Flat Earth groups there, with possibly thousands of followers who have been caught in that slippery slope.
My Friend posted on Facebook Messenger, April 11, 2020: "Bro. Bill, I was watching the History Channel on TV about the Bible, and they told that Eve was Not Adam's first wife, but Lilith was, that she also was from the dust, and that she and Adam had children."
That form of misdirection is very common in online discussions and forums. During the seven years I was posting on the TimesDaily Religion Forum, at one time or another, I heard it all. There were the Flat Earth proponents. Others who said they believed that Jesus Christ was just another name for the Roman god, Zeus.
There was one fellow who adamantly preached The Urantia Book which he claimed is a spiritual, philosophical, and religious book equivalent to our Bible. And just as there is an active Flat Earth Society worldwide, there is also a large number of people who are members of the Urantia Book Society - begun in the 1950s when, supposedly, aliens from outer space gave the Urantia Book to a medical doctor in Chicago - and from that he formed the society which is still very active today.
A Christian Friend has asked me many times, "Bill, why do you bother debating with those people?" And I assured him that it is not with the hope that I will convert such non-believers, even though I would love to see it happen. The people for whom I am writing are those who will read what those people have written - and ask questions, like my Friend who asked about Adam and Lilith. I am sure he did not buy into that story completely, otherwise he would not have asked me the question.
And for such Truth Seekers, unless I, or someone like me, will intelligently and Biblically refute what the false teachers have written, or said in a video, or produced in a television documentary like on the History Channel - many who are less mature in Christ, many who are new believers and seeking to understand God's Word, and even many who are on the verge of believing - may be led astray.
On the TimesDaily Religion Forum, a near real-time tally of people on the forums at any time was shown each day. Typically I would see 5, 10, 25 members online reading and possibly posting at any given time - but I would often see hundreds, at times thousands, of non-member Readers online, folks who were not posting members - but who came on the Religion Forum only to read what we members were posting.
If an atheist, agnostic, vanilla-flavored non-believer, or worse yet, a New Age Religion proponent such as the Urantia Book followers, and let's not forget the Wicca Witch religion followers - were allowed to post their religious views with no Conservative Christian to refute them - just imagine how many trusting souls could be led astray. And I cannot forget my Liberal Theology and Legalistic Christian friends on the forum - who, quite often, were more abusive toward our Conservative Christian faith than all the others.
And that is why I take the question about Adam having another wife before Eve very seriously and why I will make an honest effort to give my Christian brother a solid, Biblical answer.
He gave me the link to the History Channel video on YouTube and many folks who are not strongly grounded in their knowledge of God's Word, the Bible, can be easily mislead by such network shows. Producers of those so-called documentaries will gather a select group of supposed experts in the field of Christianity and the Bible to interview. They do that in an effort to make their presentation seem to be the absolute, unquestionable authority.
But what the show producers have done is gather a group of scholars, theologians, etc., from Liberal Institutions such as Duke, Harvard, and other schools of divinity which are extreme liberal left in their theology. And they believe they strengthen their position by adding similar experts from institutions in England - all sounding very scholarly and authoritative. But that would be like gathering a group of Liberal Democrats to discuss how to make the Republican Party stronger.
Let me ask this question. If a poll taker wanted to get the latest input on how people in America view the homosexual lifestyle - would a survey taken in West Hollywood, San Francisco, and among the so-called Hollywood Actor experts - be believable? That would be like interviewing a group of Auburn fans to see which football team, Auburn or Alabama, is best.
First we must realize that the History Channel does not view the Bible the same as we in the Conservative Christian faith. If anything, the History Channel would lean toward its primary religion - Science - which of course has it more accepting of Evolution and a Liberal Theology view of the Bible.
At this point let's define the two views of the Bible: Those in the Liberal Theology camp - many whose primary religion is Science, then Christianity, as long as their Christianity does not dispute their higher authority, Science - view the Bible as a book of symbolisms, metaphors, myths, and short stories meant to encourage and possibly inspired folks, to guide believers in their Christian walk, but, in their view, the Bible is NOT the Inerrant, Literal Written Word of God.
While we who walk in the Conservative Christian faith know that the Bible "IS" the Inspired, Inerrant, Literal, and Authoritative Written Word of God.
The full Bible, all 66 books, is the Written Word of God. It is a supernaturally inspired revelation from God - and is His full plan for mankind and His full revelation to mankind. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, literal, and authoritative Written Word of God. The Bible is the sole authority for our Christian faith and Christian life, God's full revelation to man. (2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21)
We believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture and that all 66 books of the Bible are without error in the original manuscripts. "Verbal" meaning that every word of Scripture is God given and inspired. "Plenary" means that all parts of the Bible are equally authoritative. "Inspiration" means that every word in the Bible is divinely inspired, yet not dictated.
Rather than reinventing the wheel on Adam and Lilith, let me share with you excerpts from two trusted Christian apologetic web sites and support that with Scripture passages found in Genesis.
First from GotQuestions dot org:
In the Hebrew language, the transliterated word liyliyth in Strong's Concordance means: "Lilith is the name of a mythical female goddess known as a night demon who haunts the desolate places of Edom, or it might be a nocturnal animal that inhabits desolate places."
In differing Bible translations liyliyth is interpreted as: The screech owl (kjv, web) - night creature (nkjv, nlt, niv) - night bird (esv, csb) - night monster (nasb, asv) - nocturnal animals (net) - night hag (rsv) - night owl (ylt) - lilith (dby, nrsv, hnv). None of these seem like the woman God created to be a helpmate for Adam. Let's look at what Scripture has to say about Adam and his wife, Eve:
I believe you can see that the person or animal, real or mythical, translated as Lilith could in no way be a part of God's creation, nor in any way be associated with His created humans, Adam and Eve. For if any such creature existed with Adam - there is no way that God could consider that to be VERY GOOD.
At this point the reader must decide how YOU will view the Bible. Is it the inspired, inerrant, literal, and authoritative Written Word of God as Conservative Theology Christians read it?
Or is it a book of symbolisms, metaphors, myths, and short stories meant only to be a good guidebook for the Christian believers as the Liberal Theology Christians want to read it?
If the Creation account found in Genesis 1 and 2 are not true - then how can YOU believe the rest of the Bible? If you cannot believe and trust the Bible - on what do you put your faith and how do you know you have eternal life? Think about that - then pick up your Bible and read it the way God intended, exegetically reading from the Bible what God has caused to be written into it.
Another excerpt comes from CompellingTruth dot org, an apologetic outreach ministry of GotQuestions dot org:
In viewing the History Channel videos my Friend watched, in the very first 1-2 minutes of "History Channel Banned From the Bible 1 of 2" the narrator makes it clear that if he is a Christian believer - he is most certainly in the Liberal Far Left side of our faith. He makes it clear that, in his opinion, all the early writings, even those God has had canonized as part of His Written Word - were the product of wandering nomadic men who wrote of their beliefs, not necessarily what God has authored.
And he uses as his reasoning, that the Bible should be viewed as a Liberal book of myths and not the Written Word of God. Part of his reasoning is that some very good books written by men of old - were not included in the Bible because men did not want them included.
I have long written, and I stand by my position - that since God chose and inspired 40 men, living in different geographical locations, over a period of 1600 years - to write what He has inspired them to write - and since that collection of 66 books which He had canonized have one central and unified theme: the salvation of mankind, offered to all who will believe and receive His gift of forgiveness and eternal life. That UNITY is found in no other religious book of any world religion.
And since our God is so all knowing (Omniscient), all powerful (Omnipotent) and all places present (Omnipresent) such that He could inspire those 40 men to create the book, His Bible, as He desired - that same God is Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent enough to also inspire and guide the men who were chosen to select, i.e., canonize the books He wanted in His Bible.
To believe otherwise, is to believe that God was big enough to inspire those men to write His inspired books - but that once they were written, God was not big enough to guide the copyists, translators, and those chosen to canonize the right 66 books He wanted in His Bible. If that is your belief, what caused God to lose His power?
We have to realize that the same God who inspired those 40 men, also was there to guide the document copyists, He has been there to guide those translating His Bible into differing languages - and He was most certainly there when the 66 books of our Bible were chosen, i.e., canonized, to be our Bible - the Inspired, Inerrant, Literal, Authoritative Written Word of God.
If you want to view the videos referred to on the History Channel, just open YouTube and search for: "History Channel Banned From the Bible 1 of 2" and "Banned From The Bible 2."
I realize this blog is somewhat long, but I did not want to short-change my Friend who asked the question. Nothing is worse when asked a question about our Christian faith, than us responding with, "No, that is not true" and walking away. If we say it is not true, let's support that from Scripture. Otherwise we are just spitting in the wind and causing a fellow traveler to possible go astray. May I never be accused of that.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
And in the same level of misdirection, there are many folks today who still believe the earth is flat. No, I am not joking. Go to Facebook and search for Flat Earth. You will find a number of Flat Earth groups there, with possibly thousands of followers who have been caught in that slippery slope.
My Friend posted on Facebook Messenger, April 11, 2020: "Bro. Bill, I was watching the History Channel on TV about the Bible, and they told that Eve was Not Adam's first wife, but Lilith was, that she also was from the dust, and that she and Adam had children."
That form of misdirection is very common in online discussions and forums. During the seven years I was posting on the TimesDaily Religion Forum, at one time or another, I heard it all. There were the Flat Earth proponents. Others who said they believed that Jesus Christ was just another name for the Roman god, Zeus.
There was one fellow who adamantly preached The Urantia Book which he claimed is a spiritual, philosophical, and religious book equivalent to our Bible. And just as there is an active Flat Earth Society worldwide, there is also a large number of people who are members of the Urantia Book Society - begun in the 1950s when, supposedly, aliens from outer space gave the Urantia Book to a medical doctor in Chicago - and from that he formed the society which is still very active today.
A Christian Friend has asked me many times, "Bill, why do you bother debating with those people?" And I assured him that it is not with the hope that I will convert such non-believers, even though I would love to see it happen. The people for whom I am writing are those who will read what those people have written - and ask questions, like my Friend who asked about Adam and Lilith. I am sure he did not buy into that story completely, otherwise he would not have asked me the question.
And for such Truth Seekers, unless I, or someone like me, will intelligently and Biblically refute what the false teachers have written, or said in a video, or produced in a television documentary like on the History Channel - many who are less mature in Christ, many who are new believers and seeking to understand God's Word, and even many who are on the verge of believing - may be led astray.
On the TimesDaily Religion Forum, a near real-time tally of people on the forums at any time was shown each day. Typically I would see 5, 10, 25 members online reading and possibly posting at any given time - but I would often see hundreds, at times thousands, of non-member Readers online, folks who were not posting members - but who came on the Religion Forum only to read what we members were posting.
If an atheist, agnostic, vanilla-flavored non-believer, or worse yet, a New Age Religion proponent such as the Urantia Book followers, and let's not forget the Wicca Witch religion followers - were allowed to post their religious views with no Conservative Christian to refute them - just imagine how many trusting souls could be led astray. And I cannot forget my Liberal Theology and Legalistic Christian friends on the forum - who, quite often, were more abusive toward our Conservative Christian faith than all the others.
And that is why I take the question about Adam having another wife before Eve very seriously and why I will make an honest effort to give my Christian brother a solid, Biblical answer.
He gave me the link to the History Channel video on YouTube and many folks who are not strongly grounded in their knowledge of God's Word, the Bible, can be easily mislead by such network shows. Producers of those so-called documentaries will gather a select group of supposed experts in the field of Christianity and the Bible to interview. They do that in an effort to make their presentation seem to be the absolute, unquestionable authority.
But what the show producers have done is gather a group of scholars, theologians, etc., from Liberal Institutions such as Duke, Harvard, and other schools of divinity which are extreme liberal left in their theology. And they believe they strengthen their position by adding similar experts from institutions in England - all sounding very scholarly and authoritative. But that would be like gathering a group of Liberal Democrats to discuss how to make the Republican Party stronger.
Let me ask this question. If a poll taker wanted to get the latest input on how people in America view the homosexual lifestyle - would a survey taken in West Hollywood, San Francisco, and among the so-called Hollywood Actor experts - be believable? That would be like interviewing a group of Auburn fans to see which football team, Auburn or Alabama, is best.
First we must realize that the History Channel does not view the Bible the same as we in the Conservative Christian faith. If anything, the History Channel would lean toward its primary religion - Science - which of course has it more accepting of Evolution and a Liberal Theology view of the Bible.
At this point let's define the two views of the Bible: Those in the Liberal Theology camp - many whose primary religion is Science, then Christianity, as long as their Christianity does not dispute their higher authority, Science - view the Bible as a book of symbolisms, metaphors, myths, and short stories meant to encourage and possibly inspired folks, to guide believers in their Christian walk, but, in their view, the Bible is NOT the Inerrant, Literal Written Word of God.
While we who walk in the Conservative Christian faith know that the Bible "IS" the Inspired, Inerrant, Literal, and Authoritative Written Word of God.
The full Bible, all 66 books, is the Written Word of God. It is a supernaturally inspired revelation from God - and is His full plan for mankind and His full revelation to mankind. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, literal, and authoritative Written Word of God. The Bible is the sole authority for our Christian faith and Christian life, God's full revelation to man. (2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21)
We believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture and that all 66 books of the Bible are without error in the original manuscripts. "Verbal" meaning that every word of Scripture is God given and inspired. "Plenary" means that all parts of the Bible are equally authoritative. "Inspiration" means that every word in the Bible is divinely inspired, yet not dictated.
Rather than reinventing the wheel on Adam and Lilith, let me share with you excerpts from two trusted Christian apologetic web sites and support that with Scripture passages found in Genesis.
First from GotQuestions dot org:
Question: "Who was Lilith? Does the Bible say anything about Adam having another wife before Eve?"
Answer: There are legends that Adam had a wife before Eve who was named Lilith, but this is not found in the Bible. The legends vary significantly, but they all essentially agree that Lilith left Adam because she did not want to submit to him. According to the legends, Lilith was an evil, wicked woman who committed adultery with Satan and produced a race of evil creatures. None of this is true. There is no biblical basis whatsoever for these concepts. There is no one in the Bible named Lilith.
The passage most often pointed to as evidence for Lilith is Isaiah 34:14, which in the NRSV reads, "there too Lilith shall repose." This is a poor translation. Every other major translation of the Bible reads something to the effect of "night creature" or "screech owl" instead of Lilith. Even if "demon monster named Lilith" was the proper translation of the Hebrew word, Adam is nowhere even hinted at in this passage nor in its context. Whatever the "Lilith" was, it is not given any connection whatsoever to Adam or Creation.
Another commonly used support for Lilith is the differing Creation accounts in Genesis chapters 1-2. Some claim that the woman in Genesis 1 was Lilith, with the woman in Genesis 2 being Eve. This is completely ludicrous. Rather, Genesis chapter 2 is a "closer look" at the creation of Adam and Eve as recorded in Genesis chapter 1.
The Bible specifically says that Adam and Eve were the first human beings ever created (Genesis 1:26-28; 2:18-25). This "Lilith" myth is popular in some radical feminist movements because Lilith is an example of a woman refusing to submit to male headship. While there are myths outside of the Word of God regarding Lilith, her complete absence from Scripture demonstrates that she is nothing more than a myth.
In the Hebrew language, the transliterated word liyliyth in Strong's Concordance means: "Lilith is the name of a mythical female goddess known as a night demon who haunts the desolate places of Edom, or it might be a nocturnal animal that inhabits desolate places."
In differing Bible translations liyliyth is interpreted as: The screech owl (kjv, web) - night creature (nkjv, nlt, niv) - night bird (esv, csb) - night monster (nasb, asv) - nocturnal animals (net) - night hag (rsv) - night owl (ylt) - lilith (dby, nrsv, hnv). None of these seem like the woman God created to be a helpmate for Adam. Let's look at what Scripture has to say about Adam and his wife, Eve:
Genesis 1:26-28, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' "
Genesis 2:7, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."
Gen 2:15-18, "Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.' And the LORD God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.' "
Genesis 2:20-25, "So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: 'This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.' Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."
Genesis 1:31, "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day."
I believe you can see that the person or animal, real or mythical, translated as Lilith could in no way be a part of God's creation, nor in any way be associated with His created humans, Adam and Eve. For if any such creature existed with Adam - there is no way that God could consider that to be VERY GOOD.
At this point the reader must decide how YOU will view the Bible. Is it the inspired, inerrant, literal, and authoritative Written Word of God as Conservative Theology Christians read it?
Or is it a book of symbolisms, metaphors, myths, and short stories meant only to be a good guidebook for the Christian believers as the Liberal Theology Christians want to read it?
If the Creation account found in Genesis 1 and 2 are not true - then how can YOU believe the rest of the Bible? If you cannot believe and trust the Bible - on what do you put your faith and how do you know you have eternal life? Think about that - then pick up your Bible and read it the way God intended, exegetically reading from the Bible what God has caused to be written into it.
Another excerpt comes from CompellingTruth dot org, an apologetic outreach ministry of GotQuestions dot org:
More recently, feminists and New Agers have claimed Lilith as a role model. They praise her independence and sexual freedom and use her as an example when refusing to submit to their husbands. She has loaned her name to "Lilith Fair," a touring concert of female singers and female-led bands - and Lilith Magazine, a Jewish feminist magazine.
The only verified part of all this is that Lilith was a character in ancient Sumerian/Akkadian folk lore. Any "evidence" found in the Bible is easily dismissed. The bulk of literature defining her role in history comes from Kabbalah - a Jewish-based cult. In short, Lilith was a figure of ancient mythology who has since been used to represent death to innocents, sexual predation on men, and feminist independence. She was never real, and she certainly was never married to Adam.
In viewing the History Channel videos my Friend watched, in the very first 1-2 minutes of "History Channel Banned From the Bible 1 of 2" the narrator makes it clear that if he is a Christian believer - he is most certainly in the Liberal Far Left side of our faith. He makes it clear that, in his opinion, all the early writings, even those God has had canonized as part of His Written Word - were the product of wandering nomadic men who wrote of their beliefs, not necessarily what God has authored.
And he uses as his reasoning, that the Bible should be viewed as a Liberal book of myths and not the Written Word of God. Part of his reasoning is that some very good books written by men of old - were not included in the Bible because men did not want them included.
I have long written, and I stand by my position - that since God chose and inspired 40 men, living in different geographical locations, over a period of 1600 years - to write what He has inspired them to write - and since that collection of 66 books which He had canonized have one central and unified theme: the salvation of mankind, offered to all who will believe and receive His gift of forgiveness and eternal life. That UNITY is found in no other religious book of any world religion.
And since our God is so all knowing (Omniscient), all powerful (Omnipotent) and all places present (Omnipresent) such that He could inspire those 40 men to create the book, His Bible, as He desired - that same God is Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent enough to also inspire and guide the men who were chosen to select, i.e., canonize the books He wanted in His Bible.
To believe otherwise, is to believe that God was big enough to inspire those men to write His inspired books - but that once they were written, God was not big enough to guide the copyists, translators, and those chosen to canonize the right 66 books He wanted in His Bible. If that is your belief, what caused God to lose His power?
We have to realize that the same God who inspired those 40 men, also was there to guide the document copyists, He has been there to guide those translating His Bible into differing languages - and He was most certainly there when the 66 books of our Bible were chosen, i.e., canonized, to be our Bible - the Inspired, Inerrant, Literal, Authoritative Written Word of God.
If you want to view the videos referred to on the History Channel, just open YouTube and search for: "History Channel Banned From the Bible 1 of 2" and "Banned From The Bible 2."
I realize this blog is somewhat long, but I did not want to short-change my Friend who asked the question. Nothing is worse when asked a question about our Christian faith, than us responding with, "No, that is not true" and walking away. If we say it is not true, let's support that from Scripture. Otherwise we are just spitting in the wind and causing a fellow traveler to possible go astray. May I never be accused of that.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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