When were Adam and Eve created?
Scripture gives two answers to this question, and they sit at different scales: one places the making of Adam and Eve inside a specific day of the creation week, and the other tries to date that week in years before our own. Commentators handle the first with confidence and the second with caution.
The sixth day, and last of all
The creation account puts man at the end of the sequence, after the land animals, and marks the moment with a change in how God speaks.
W. W. FeredayMan was created on the sixth day — last of all the works of God. The work of the sixth day (as that of the third) was in two parts, first cattle and so on, then man (Gen. 1:24-31). In connection with the latter there was divine consultation. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." When lower creatures were required it was enough to say: "Let the waters bring forth … let birds fly," and the creatures required were at once alive on the scene.
Adam first, Eve afterwards
Genesis 1 says God made them male and female, but it does not say the two appeared at the same instant. That silence matters, because Genesis 2 fills in the order.
William KellyIt is not said in Genesis 1:27 that man and woman were created together; or that the woman was created directly, and not formed out of one of the man's ribs.
So there is a gap, however short, between the two — Adam already existed and was alone before his wife was given to him.
A. J. PollockEve could not have come into the garden with Adam, for the obvious reason that Adam was created before Eve came on the scene. Adam, we read, was put into a deep sleep by God, from his side a rib was taken, and from it a woman formed. Thus was Eve presented to Adam by God to be his "help meet."
Dating that day: the 4004 B.C. figure
The date printed in the margin of many older Bibles comes from adding up the ages of the patriarchs. Writers here treat it as a reasonable estimate, not as revelation.
A. J. PollockArchbishop Ussher, using the record in the Bible of the ages of the patriarchs and its subsequent history, has made a chronology, which fixes the creation of man at about 4004 B.C. But this chronology was not inspired. Ussher generally treated each son in the genealogy as the eldest, whereas this was not necessarily the case, as witness Seth, who was Adam's third son, and Solomon, who was far from being David's eldest son.
The honest conclusion is that no one can fix the year, and that the Bible never asked us to.
F. B. HoleAs to six thousand years; we speak of ourselves being separated from Adam by about that time, accepting Ussher's chronology as usually printed in our English Bibles. There is, however, no certainty about that. It is a question of calculations made from the ages of the patriarchs and other historical data. Many have done it and no two agree. A few make it a little less than Ussher and some a great deal more. Here, again, touching a matter of no real moment, the Bible is largely silent. We may make our calculations, but the fact is — we do not KNOW.
The age of man is not the age of the earth
Many of these writers separate the two questions completely. The first verse of Genesis dates the universe; the sixth day dates Adam.
A. J. PollockSo without straining a point we can say there may be millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Geologists claim that the earth is millions of years old, and this the Bible does not contradict. Man and the lower animals, as we know them, are not more than about six thousand years old; but the earth itself may be millions of years old.
Commentators differ here. An editorial note attached to one older work rejects the idea of a long era before the six days: "There is no scriptural reference to, or necessity of, such a pre-creation." (Samuel Ridout)
No room for long ages inside Eden
Whatever is made of the earth's age, the stretch between Adam's creation and his fall was short. The recorded lifespans rule out a vast era.
F. B. HoleAgain, man was made during the sixth day, and then came the seventh of rest, between his creation and the Fall. Was this a period running into thousands of years? How could it be? Adam was only one hundred and thirty years old when Seth was born, and his total years were nine hundred and thirty.
Summary
- Day — Adam and Eve were made on the sixth day, after the land animals, as the last of God's works.
- Order — Adam came first; Eve was formed from his side while he slept, so the text never claims the two appeared together.
- Date — Ussher's roughly 4004 B.C. is a human calculation from the patriarchs' ages, not an inspired figure.
- Doubt — No two chronologies agree; on this point the Bible is largely silent, and we simply do not know.
- Distance — The earth may be immensely old, but man is not; and between Adam's creation and his fall there was no room for long ages.