This, in and of itself, is great (and plays a large part in my own interpretation). However, this is not all there is to it. This interpretation totally ignores a large part of Her mythos—not the least of which being Her attacks on mothers and babies. The groups which put forth this view would also have us believe that Lilith was, in fact, a Great Goddess within Sumeria. The "proof" of this is the above mentioned plaque, and we have already seen how this is simply not so. It is even said that Lilith was a maiden, in service to Inanna, who stood without the Temples and invited men to enter and partake of the Sacred Sex with the Priestesses. For this, not one shred of archeological evidence has been offered of which I am aware.
Along with this, the myth in which Gilgamesh drives the demoness out of the Tree of Life is said to be symbolic of the Patriarchal God driving the Goddess away. This is, in my opinion, pure silliness. Anyone who puts the smallest study into Sumeria will find that there was hardly any feminine-bashing going on there. The exact same thing can be said for the Babylonians who followed, and even the earliest Hebrews themselves.
Unfortunately, there is a modern trend in which the "liberation" of any evil feminine mythological character is attempted. According to this view, there were no male Gods in the Ancient world to begin with. And, there were absolutely no evil female characters in any mythology. Once God-Worship had been invented by power-hungry war-mongers, that is when all the myths were re-written to show how evil the Goddesses were.
Examples of this are the Babylonian Tiamat; who does seem to be a version of the Sumerian Nammu; who indeed was a benevolent Mother Goddess. Another example is the Egyptian Seth; who was also primordially a benevolent Goddess (Seth literally translates as "Lady"). These are convincing examples. However, I must also remind the reader that there are also convincing examples of the existence of Atlantis, and of Alien intervention in the creation of humans. Such facts are taken from history, isolated, and held as proof of the silliest concepts imaginable. In my opinion, it is comparable to isolating Bible verses to prove correctness, and superiority, over others.
I want to make something clear here, however. I am not bashing feminism here. I do not ignore the damage done to women over the years—mostly thanks to the Deuteronomic School of the Hebrews, and the Church of the Christians. I am not speaking against interpreting Mythologies in new and different ways (as my own interpretation of the Lilith Mythos will show). That is, after all, what Mythology is all about. What I am speaking against here is shoddy scholarship. And, more than this, the attempt to push off personal opinions, half-truths, and even outright lies as actual history. I will interpret Myth for the modern world, but I will A) acknowledge the original interpretations, and B) make sure that my interpretation takes the older ones into account. Again, I point out that a God and its Mythology are inseparable. If I evoke Lilith, She is not just going to conform to what I wish Her to be. Yes, She will be affected by what I expect Her to be, and what my interpretation of Her is—but this is simply a slight bending of the Current, not a redefinition of it.
And with this I move on to my final goal: an interpretation of Lilith for the modern world. This is based not only on the scholarship above, but also on my own experience of this seductive beauty. And now, let us meet Lilith:
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