Questions: Why did G-d create a Garden of Eden if he had just created a whole world for Adam? Were Adam and Eve alone on Earth? What does it mean when it says G-d created man in His image?
Key Verses:
Genesis 1:26 And G-d said, let us make man in our image and likeness; let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the animals and the entire earth, and all the crawling things that crawl over the earth
1:27 And G-d created the man in His image, in the image of G-d He created him; male and female, He created them
2:7 The Lord G-d formed the man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed the soul of life into his nostrils; And the man became a living soul
2:8 The Lord G-d planted a garden in east Eden; there he put the man he created
2:15 The Lord G-d took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work and protect it
3:16 To the woman, He said: “I will multiply your pain and child labor, in pain you will birth children; and your desire will be to your husband and he will rule over you”
3:17 To man he said, because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree I had commanded you not to eat from, cursed will be the earth because of you, with pain shall you eat from it for the remainder of your life
3:18 Thorns and thistles will grow for you and you will eat from the herbs of the field
4:1 And the man knew Eve his wife, she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain and she said, “I acquired a man from G-d”
4:14 Behold, you have banished me today from the face of the land and from your face I will hide; I will be a nomad in the land and anyone who finds me will kill me
4:15 And G-d said to him, therefore, whoever will kill Cain, a sevenfold vengeance will be taken on him; G-d put a sign on Cain, lest anyone finding him slay him
4:17 Cain knew his wife and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch; And it was that he built a city and he called the name of the city after his son Enoch
Man is created in G-d’s image (1:26). What does this mean exactly? The text in Chapter One doesn’t give any clues. “And G-d created the man in His image, in the image of G-d He created him; male and female, He created them” (1:27). This account is retold a few verses later in Chapter 2. The verse there says, “The Lord G-d formed the man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed the soul of life into his nostrils; And the man became a living soul” (2:7). What is the image of G-d? It seems to be possessing a soul, not a physical resemblance, but a spiritual one. The key element in Adam’s creation is G-d’s imbuing him with a soul. Nowhere does it say anything about his eyes or nose resembling G-d’s – for G-d has no form. At the outset, with man’s creation, it’s about his resembling G-d on a spiritual level.
But is this the beginning of human history or not? The verses may have some important overlooked information within them as well.
If the creation of man in G-d’s image has to do with his receiving a soul, then one might assume there are other men and women on Earth without souls. But does the text support such a conclusion?
Upon reading the literal text, the Pshat, in Genesis (1:27), “And G-d created the man in His image, in the image of G-d He created him; male and female, He created them,” there is no leeway for anything other than male and female having been created at the same time. The text above is crystal clear. The chapter finishes a few verses later with G-d pleased with His work, “G-d saw everything He had made, and it was very good” (1:31). The Torah text leaves the rest of the line open, signifying the end of the segment. The creation phase is complete, “And the heavens and earth and all the hosts were finished” (2:1). The text discusses G-d’s establishing a day of rest (2:2-3), the Sabbath, and then leaves the rest of the line open again before turning to another new section.
Many commentators see the next section as a rehashing of the first chapter. This is problematic since the “facts” don’t match. In particular, the verses about the creation of man and woman are different. It’s a non-parallel account. Adam and Eve are created, but not simultaneously. For generations, people have been trying to juxtapose the two accounts, force them to match, like the final puzzle piece that isn’t in the correct place. It doesn’t work. However, if you read the text literally, it makes a lot more sense.
G-d created human beings and put them on earth, as told in 1:27. The verb used for this act is B-R-A, in Hebrew bara, which means to create, which fits in with the other creations of the first six days. What’s hard to comprehend is how these human beings resembled G-d. It doesn’t say in Chapter One. In Chapter Two, G-d is doing something else, not quite the same action. The word for creation (B-R-A) isn’t in the text and it shouldn’t be since the creation phase has already ended. The word is Y-Z-R, in Hebrew yatzar, or to fashion, to form, as an artist might. What’s going on here? An emphasis on the Pshat shows G-d involved in a different process. He forms a new man, but this time He gives him a soul (2:7) and then takes him, “this man that He had fashioned” (2:8) into the Garden of Eden. The difference between this man and the man and woman from Chapter One is that this person, Adam, has a soul. The others don’t. There are two stages of product launch, Regular Man (and Woman), and Soul Man. This is what the text is saying if you read it literally.
Man and woman were created on the sixth day of creation. Then the creation phase ended. Adam and Eve were formed – not created since G-d’s creation phase ended after the sixth day– at a later point in time. The word yatzardoesn’t appear during the first six days of creation. It isn’t a word associated with creation. When is this later point in time? The text doesn’t say, but it’s certain the events of Chapter 2 occur after G-d’s Day of Rest, the seventh day. Could this mean they were formed on an eighth day? Could this mean G-d fashioned Soul Man thousands of years later, after humankind had reached a certain stage of development, perhaps evolutionary development, when they were ready to have a soul implanted in them? It’s possible according to a literal reading of the text. Once one acknowledges the creation phase as complete and the formation of Adam as a separate event, as the Bible seems to be saying, then Adam’s formation could be done at any point after the seventh day, G-d’s day of rest.
What’s special about Adam and Eve is their spirituality (2:7), not their physical bodies. That there are other people living when they are created doesn’t mean anything, especially since what happens in the next verse.
The fact we are told nothing about the original male and female humans is to show us they existed, but had no importance because they had no souls. They were just human beings. Nothing special.
G-d removes Adam from the world and places him in the Garden of Eden (2:8), which He has created for him. It makes no sense to do this if Adam were the only human in the world. Didn’t G-d just create an entire world, building up to the penultimate creation, Man? What’s the point in having an entire world if all he needs is the Garden of Eden? G-d’s doing this for a reason; He wants to isolate Adam from the rest of humanity – but not the other living creatures – in order to develop a special relationship with him. He wants Adam to become the prototype of what Man should be, which is a “Tzelem Elokim,” or the image of G-d (1:26), or put another way, “Soul Man.”.[1]
In other words, all the other human beings, at whatever stages of evolutionary development, weren’t good enough, ready or willing, to become chosen by G-d. (Is this foreshadowing for the eventual world destruction by flood? Was no one in existence good enough leading G-d to create Man 2.0?) Adam was created for this specific reason. His purpose to being in the Garden of Eden is to become the “Tzelem Elokim” or one might say the Garden is his classroom for spiritual development. No one ever had a soul before him. He’s referred to as Adam Harishon, or the First Man, but this doesn’t have to do with his chronological appearance vis-à-vis other men. It has to do with his possessing a soul, which is what makes him a “real man” in the Bible’s definition, (which makes sense since this is a religious/spiritual document).
Thus, Adam needs special attention. He’s G-d’s prototype. As the spiritual prototypes, Adam and Eve will also need to be shown what kind of behavior is expected of them, and what isn’t. Can they separate their spirituality from their basic primitive wants and desires? The answer would be a resounding “No” if they were left outside of Eden with spiritless human beings. But as the reader learns from the example of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the answer is still a whopping “NO!”
If you think this isn’t the case, that Adam and Eve were alone in the world, the only two humans, then why does G-d issue an edict against anyone who will kill Cain? There’s no one else, right? “And G-d said to him, therefore, whoever will kill Cain, a sevenfold vengeance will be taken on him; G-d put a sign on Cain, lest anyone finding him slay him” (4:15). When Cain departs Eden, “He settled in the land of Nod” (2:16). The land of Nod likely had a name because other people were living there. Why else would Cain go there by himself? Cain then builds a family. Clearly there are other people in the Land of Nod. He marries one of them and they produce offspring (4:17). The creation of Adam and Eve was about their status amongst the humans. It wasn’t that they were the only humans. A pure reading of the Pshat, the literal text, leads to this conclusion.
In sum, the conventional wisdom is G-d created Adam and Eve as the first and only humans. The Pshat, the literal reading of the text, seems to indicate this isn’t the case. G-d creates Adam as a spiritual experiment, the first human being with a soul, placed into the Garden of Eden from the outside world. It’s the soul aspect of the story that bestows special status on Adam and Eve and allows for Adam to be known as “Adam the First” or “First Man.” Eve is never referred to as the first.
Once inside, he and Eve commit a sin by eating from the forbidden fruit and are banished with a punishment things will become much more difficult for them in the outside world.
This is a major disappointment for G-d – as well as the reader – to know the first experiment with Soul Man fails and he’s thrown out of Utopia. However, there’s another way of looking at it, which is Adam and Eve are removed from Eden with their souls still intact, to rejoin the rest of humanity, not as elitists who have been chosen by G-d, but as mere mortals, failures, who must work, suffer, endure pain, and experience the world as anyone else, its ups and downs, happiness and suffering. One might have expected their souls removed as their punishment. But that doesn’t happen.
The first thing the Torah records once they’ve left the Garden is they’ve started a family. Perhaps Adam and Eve failed as the spiritual prototypes or perhaps they used their experience to reenter the world and start contributing by working it, building it up and allowing it to continue. Once they see the entire world, rather than just Eden, through the prism of spirituality and having a relationship with the Divine, it changes their entire experience.
When one looks at this story from a macro point of view, it’s difficult not to come to the conclusion Adam and Eve had to fail and be evicted from Eden. Without this, there’s no Bible. More important than the failure is their creation, not as physical specimens resembling G-d, but as spiritual entities able to reach new heights. This is the prelude to the entire Torah, the ethical code, to tell the reader human beings are capable of achieving spirituality, of living life on a higher plane rather than simply feeding themselves and reproducing. Such people can and do exist among the greater population of those not spiritually inclined, as Adam and Eve did.
Were Adam and Eve alone in the world?
- The Pshat indicates there were three different acts, one that “created” people, the other that “formed” Adam and then later the “building” of Eve.
- Adam needed to be separated from the world’s population as a spiritual experiment, which is why he was placed in Eden.
- G-d’s edict against killing Cain, and
- Cain’s beginning a family
These four elements in the text show there were other people in the world.
Early humanity worshipped an assortment of deities, but the Bible starts off by centralizing worship towards a monotheistic G-d who has a specific and detailed ethical code. One might feel it’s all for naught, a waste of time because Adam and Eve failed, but that might be the point after all, that G-d accepts humanity with its failings and shortcomings. This might be the most powerful way of starting the Torah, with a message that human beings aren’t perfect, but have the capacity to have meaningful, spiritual lives because that was the precise purpose in creating Adam and Eve, G-d gave them spirituality. It’s not about the body. It’s all about the soul.
[1] The presence of animals inside and outside of Eden makes one wonder if the animals and birds passed from one domain to the other freely and if Adam and Eve could have left Eden of their own volition.