The First Eve and Lilith

Some have argued that in the beginning God created a man Adam and a women Lilith and that Eve was created later.  This idea has been interpreted in many different ways.  The Alphabet of Ben Sira says that Lilith was made from the ground like Adam.  They fought immediately and argued about who should 'lie down', which I have heard means be on the bottom during sex, maybe I'm wrong. When no resolution could be reached Lilith uttered the Holy name and flew away.  God sent three angels after her and they caught up to her, threatening to drown her in the Dead Sea (near where the Egyptians pursuing the Israelites were destined to die).  She said that she knew God's only purpose for her was to give 8 day old male babies and 12 day old female babies fatal diseases.  The angels didn't leave her alone until she swore not to possess a baby if she saw the angels or their names in her amulet.  This story seems to serve as an etiology for an evil spirit that causes infant deaths.  He also seems to be trying to reconcile the creation story in Genesis 1 and the story in Genesis 2-3.

In"The Coming of Lilith: Toward a Feminist Theology", Judith Plaskow believes that the heroine of the Lilith story is sisterhood.  She reinterprets the story by telling "a new story within the framework of an old one".  Her interpretation is this:

Adam and Lilith were both made from ground and were completely equal.  Adam didn't like this situation and sought to change it.  He order Lilith to wait on him and often left her to do her daily tasks in the garden, but she wouldn't stand for it.  She uttered God's name and flew away.  God sent angels after Lilith but she refused to return and so God made another women for Adam.  Adam and Eve had a good thing going, Adam was happy and Eve was content in her role as wife and helper of Adam (she sensed some capacities within herself that remained undeveloped).  She was disturbed by Adam and God's closeness ('both being men').  After a while this made God uncomfortable too.  He was unsettled about the power Adam had gotten after Lilith left.  Lilith was alone and attempted to rejoin the couple in the garden.  Adam built walls around the garden and even got Eve to help.  He told her stories about the demon Lilith who threatens women in child birth and steal children from their cradles.  Lilith stormed the gate of the garden, battled Adam and lost.  She got away but Eve got a glimpse of her and saw she was a woman like her.  Afterwards Eve began to think about the limits of her own life and after a few months she left the garden.  She founds Lilith and they begin talking.  They began to meet regularly to talk and a bond of sisterhood grew between them.  Adam got worried and suspicious and so did God.  They both became afraid of the possibilities of Eve and Lilith's sisterhood.  Here the story ends and I suppose it goes on with Genesis 3.

Both of these interpretations completely leave out Genesis 3.  They both go above and beyond the real text and attempt to fill in the blanks left in it.  They also seem to be trying to get meanings from the text that are not there.