Lilith, The Demon Who Was Just a Woman: Re-reading the Myth Behind the Pop Culture Icon

A Soul That Refused to Return to Eden: How Lilith Became a Demon in Legend

Jolin Tsai’s concert at the Taipei Dome has concluded, but the discussion surrounding its visual language has continued well beyond the performance itself.

The serpent, the bull, the third eye—these highly charged symbols quickly became the focus of online interpretation. For some, they evoked discomfort and were read through the lens of secret societies or ritual imagery. Others fixated on a name that appeared repeatedly in these discussions: Lilith, almost immediately framed as a demonic or evil figure.

Before drawing conclusions about unfamiliar symbols, it is worth pausing to consider a more basic question: what, exactly, is being feared, and why?

When attention shifts away from speculation and back toward the origin of the figure itself, it becomes clear that what is often labeled as “evil” is frequently the result of distance, distance from historical context, and from the narrative processes through which certain figures come to be defined as threats.

The First Woman Who Disappeared from Canon

In the version most commonly known from biblical canon, Eve is the first woman, created from Adam’s rib. Medieval Jewish folklore, however—most notably The Alphabet of Ben Sira—preserves a different account.

In that tradition, Lilith is the first woman.

The story does not begin with transgression. It begins with symmetry. Adam is formed from dust, and Lilith is created in the same way, from the same material. They live together in Eden. There is no temptation, no fall, no initial moral failure.

The conflict that follows is neither cosmic nor abstract. It arises from a concrete and familiar question: authority within intimacy. Adam insists on occupying the dominant position. Lilith refuses. Her reasoning is direct. If both originate from the same source, hierarchy is not self-evident, nor is submission inevitable.

Departure as a Decision

The disagreement is never resolved. Adam rejects the demand for equality; Lilith does not withdraw it.

At this point, the narrative turns. Lilith speaks the hidden name of God and leaves Eden. This moment is often flattened in later retellings, but its nature is specific: she is not expelled as punishment. She leaves because remaining would require acceptance of an unequal position.

Adam then appeals to God. Three angels are sent to pursue Lilith and confront her by the Red Sea. What they deliver is not negotiation but instruction: return, resume your place. The instruction is reinforced by a threat—if she refuses, one hundred of her children will die each day.

Lilith refuses to return.

How a Demon Is Produced by Retelling

From this refusal onward, Lilith’s position in the story changes.

As the narrative circulates over time, emphasis shifts. The original conflict—the demand for equality—recedes. The conditions under which the threat is issued receive little attention. What remains is outcome. If she does not return, then the narrative requires her to be wrong.

Lilith is no longer remembered as the first woman. She becomes a child-killing demon, a seducer, the origin of witches.

Her actions are reframed. Equality becomes envy. Departure becomes betrayal. Resistance under coercion becomes alliance with evil. Even her suffering is later cited as evidence of inherent danger.

Sequence gives way to conclusion. Context is compressed. What survives is a stable, portable judgment: Lilith is a demon.

Reading the Label, Not the Myth

Seen in full, Lilith does not become a demon because of a particular crime. She becomes one because of how the story is told. A figure who refuses to return to an assigned position is transformed into a container for fear and consequence.

In this sense, Lilith’s appearance as a stage image does not inherently signal theology, provocation, or hidden doctrine. She functions as a long-circulated figure whose meaning has been simplified through repetition, detached from its initial conditions.

This is also why the name continues to provoke unease. Not because the symbol possesses intrinsic power, but because its conclusion has already been supplied by centuries of retelling.

The question, then, is not what a performance intends to express. It is whether, when encountering a figure marked as evil, there is room to ask how that designation was produced, and what was removed in the process.

Read from beginning to end, Lilith’s actions are limited. She does not kill. She does not deceive. She does not conspire. She refuses, once, to accept a position she does not recognize as legitimate.

Understanding this story is not an attempt at rehabilitation. It is a reminder to be cautious with inherited conclusions—and with labels that arrive already complete.