In Genesis 2:18, was Eve made during or after the 7 days?

Question

In Genesis 2:18, was Eve made during the same day as Adam, or after the 7 days of creation?

Gen 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Answer 1

In The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, Leon R. Kass looks at whether there really are two different accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. On pages 55-57, Kass discusses the main differences between chapter 1 and chapter 2, and concludes the second story is not just a magnified version of the human portions of the first. He says it is utterly distinct and independent, and once we recognise the independence of the two creation stories we are compelled to adopt a critical principle of reading if we mean to understand each story on its own terms.

Kass says we must scrupulously avoid reading into the second story any facts or notions taken from the first, and vice versa. Thus, in reading about the origin of mankind in the story of the Garden of Eden, we must not think in terms of a seven-day creation because this information does not form part of the second creation story.

In the first creation story, which most scholars attribute to the Priestly source, man, both male and female, was made on the sixth day:

Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

In the second story, which most scholars attribute to the Yahwist, God created a man (Adam) at the beginning of his creation - not the sixth day - and created a woman (Eve) at the end of his creation. We are not told how much later the creation of Eve was.

Answer 2

In the view of modern scholarship this question should be restated:

Was woman created on the same day as Adam?

“Eve” is a name given at the end of Genesis 3. It is not part of the Genesis 2 record, “woman” is. Also the author of Genesis 2 describes the creation of “Adam.” "Man" is found in Genesis 2:24 in the context of two being one flesh.

Setting aside any preconceptions about the amount of time the LORD God took to do His work of creation or His chronological sequence (found in Genesis 1), the the timeline of Genesis 2 is presented at the start of the account:

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, (Genesis 2:4 KJV)

This is the only reference of time in the account. Therefore according to the author of Genesis 2, Adam and woman (and all things described) were created on the same day.

In addition, the author would have the knowledge of day and night and the continuous cycle of light and dark. Whether these were understood as created may be unknown yet that does not change the experience of day and night which is shared by all those the LORD God created to live on the land.

Therefore, the Genesis 2 account which lacks any mention of darkness, depicts a record of events which take place during the “day.” Since the author does not place this day in the context of other events, the conclusion is that both Adam and woman were created by the LORD God on the same day during the day.

The answer to the question of whether that day was during or after the 7 days can be found by comparing the Genesis 1 account which also states both were created on the same day, which was the sixth day.

Answer 3

So obviously Adam was created first for Eve to be created from his rib. the Bible does not say when Eve was created. but we can assume by what Adam actually says "at last flesh of my flesh bone of my bone". Meaning that he had been craving company for some time. So one would say it's safe to assume that she was created much later. Adam's job was to name all the animals and take care of the garden. Doing so he would have been very busy. naming the animals was not an easy task. He would be studying them learning their habits and then giving them names, based on what he observes. After some time God then see that Adam is lonely for companionship and that is why she is created at that specific point in time. so one could say that it's safe to assume that it could have been many years later after the creation of Adam. Also too many people put emphasis on days being 24 hours. 2 Peter 3:8 says "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." With that said it is possible that God was not talking literally 24 hours for each day. But possibly thousands of years

Which brings me to my next topic most people would have a problem with what I just stated because they would say that Adam only lived 930 years. Therefore he couldn't have been around for thousands of years prior. When a child is born we do not say that they are 9 months old on the day of their birth. We count our age with the word aging what does that mean simply put one day closer to death our body gets older and therefore we age. Adam when created did not age he was created perfect with the intention to live forever in a perfect Paradise never growing old getting sick or dying. He did not start aging until he sinned. So we could say that he lived thousands of years prior to the point to where he sinned and then 930 years later he died. Also if you think that God the Almighty after working 6 days of human days needed a break because he was tired does not fly with me. But if you were to tell me that he worked for thousands of human years and only 6 days in God time. And that because he realized how much he had done or maybe even exhausted that mankind too should also rest on their seventh day. Why I try to put this in this perspective because it makes everything work. for the people that want to say that the Earth has been around for hundreds of thousands of years yes it's possible and the Bible would support that. Or for people to say lights from the Stars take thousands of years to get to the Earth how is it that we can see them now if the Earth was only created 6,000 years ago. because the Earth has actually been around for hundreds of thousands of years because our years are different from God's and our days are different from God's.