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Summary
- Genesis does not say how long Adam was alone before Eve was made.
- Genesis 1:27 puts the making of man, “male and female”, on the sixth day.
- Genesis 2 gives the order: Adam is formed, put in the garden, given the command about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and names the animals, and then Eve is made from his rib.
- “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18) is the first thing in creation God calls not good, and he answers it himself.
- A teaching in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 38b) has Eve paired with Adam in the seventh hour of the sixth day, about six hours after his dust was gathered and three after he received a soul.
- Genesis Rabbah 8:1 records rabbis who taught that Adam was made male and female in one body and later separated, so he was never alone; the Book of Jubilees has Eve shown to him about a week after he was made.
- Genesis never gives Adam’s age; he was made a grown man.
- The story of Lilith as Adam’s first wife comes from the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a Hebrew work of the eighth century AD, not from the Bible.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- King James Version: Genesis 1:26–31; 2:7–25; Isaiah 34:14; 1 Timothy 2:13, BibleGateway.
- Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 38b, The William Davidson Talmud, Sefaria.
- The Book of Jubilees 2 and 3, tr. R. H. Charles (1913), chapter 2 and chapter 3, pseudepigrapha.com.
- Crawford Howell Toy and Kaufmann Kohler, “Jubilees, Book of”, The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), JewishEncyclopedia.com.
- Rebecca Lesses, “Lilith”, Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women (2009), Jewish Women’s Archive.
- Emil G. Hirsch, Solomon Schechter and Ludwig Blau, “Lilith”, The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), JewishEncyclopedia.com.
- Genesis Rabbah 14:7, The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah (2022), Sefaria.
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