Barb argues that in essence the Sumerian Abzu is the 'grandmother' of the Christian Devil. The word also appears in the Christian New Testament, occurring six times in the Book of Revelation, where it is conventionally translated not as 'the deep' but as 'the bottomless pit' of Hell. Abyssos is equivalent in meaning to Abzu as the dark chaotic sea before Creation. In the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, the word Abyssos is treated as a noun of feminine grammatical gender, even though Greek nouns ending in -os are typically masculine.

In ancient Greek religion, female sea monsters that combine allure and deadliness may also derive from this tradition, including the Gorgons (who were daughters of the old sea god Phorcys), sirens, harpies, and even water nymphs and Nereids. The female demons, among whom Lilith is the best-known, are often said to have come from the primeval sea. The primeval sea was originally an androgyne or asexual, later dividing into the male Abzu ( fresh water) and the female Tiamat ( seawater, appearing as the Tehom in the Book of Genesis). Barb argued that although the name 'Abyzou' appears to be a corrupted form of the Greek ἄβυσσος ábyssos 'abyss', the Greek itself was borrowed from Akkadian Apsu or Sumerian Abzu. Barb connected Abyzou and similar female demons to the story of the primeval sea, Abzu, in ancient Mesopotamian religion. Her fullest literary depiction is the compendium of demonology known as the Testament of Solomon, dated variously by scholars from as early as the 1st century AD to as late as the 4th.

Ībyzou (also spelled Abizou, Obizu, Obizuth, Obyzouth, Byzou etc.) is pictured on amulets with fish- or serpent-like attributes.

In the Coptic Egypt she is identified with Alabasandria, and in Byzantine culture with Gylou, but in various texts surviving from the syncretic magical practice of antiquity and the early medieval era she is said to have many or virtually innumerable names. Abyzou was blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality and was said to be motivated by envy ( Greek: φθόνος phthonos), as she herself was infertile. In the myth and folklore of the Near East and Europe, Abyzou is the name of a female demon.

Into the abyss demons of astlan