The Alphabet of Ben Sira

The Alphabet of Ben Sira is the primary text itself, an anonymous medieval Hebrew work, likely composed sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries, that survives as the earliest source naming Lilith as Adam's first wife who refused subordination and left Eden before Eve was created. Its strength is that it is the actual earliest known textual source for this specific Lilith narrative, giving a real documented origin point for a figure who appears only obliquely in earlier Jewish and Mesopotamian tradition, useful wherever the atlas needs the primary source rather than a secondhand paraphrase of where the story comes from. Its limit is that the work itself is satirical and irreverent in tone, filled with deliberately provocative retellings of biblical figures, so it was never accepted as authoritative scripture or serious theology by the tradition that produced it, and a claim treating its Lilith narrative as representing mainstream historical Jewish belief rather than one medieval author's provocative literary invention overstates the text's own standing.