Why was Adam created alone?

Question

When God created the living creatures and animals it seems they were created in pairs for multiplication purposes

KJV Genesis 1:21-22

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. ²² And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

But later when he created human beings it seems he first created Adam then later Eve

KJV Genesis 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.

Why were human beings created separately?

Answer 1

Adam is 'the figure of him that was to come', Romans 5:14, and the coming one is expressly revealed to be 'the seed of the woman', Genesis 3:15.

The creation of humanity is the expression of God, the Creator, and he creates that which is according to his own will, his own purpose, his own desires and his own person.

That which was created was a figure of the coming Christ and that he created male and female is an expression of the 'mystery of Christ and the Church', Ephesians 5:32.

Thus the man alone is a figure of the υιον αρρενα, the huios arrhen (the so-called, but poorly translated, 'man-child' of Revelation 12:5) the better translation - to emphasise the potential of the person to marriage - being 'son-batchelor'.

Answer 2

Paradoxically, Adam was created alone (but not for long) and first to emphasize the fundamental importance of the gregarious nature of humans. Creating Adam alone (for a short time) was a means to emphasize man's incompleteness - God could say that "it is not good that man should be alone".

Note the literary contrast in the creation narrative of Gen 1 & 2

• Gen 1:3 - ... was good
• Gen 1:10 - ... was good
• Gen 1:12 - ... was good
• Gen 1:17 - ... was good
• Gen 1:21 - ... was good
• Gen 1:25 - ... was good
• Gen 1:31 - ... was very good
• Gen 2:18 - ... not good

This becomes the literary mechanism to show the importance of both women and men to each other. Benson Observes:

(Gen 2:18) It is not good: it was neither for man’s comfort, who was formed for society, and not for solitude nor for the accomplishment of God’s purpose in the increase of mankind. A help meet for him — כנגדו, chenegdo, a most significant phrase; one as before him, or correspondent to him, his counterpart, suitable to his nature and his need, one like himself in shape, constitution, and disposition, a second self: one to be at hand, or near to him, to converse familiarly with him, to be always ready to succour and comfort him, and whose care and business it should be to please and help him.

UPDATE:

There may well be another component to this story as well. We are told that mankind was created in the image of God (Gen 1:26, 27). One of the ways in which this is true is given in 1 John 4:8, 16 - "God is love". This famous phrase, "God is love" means that God at His very core, at His most basic level, is love.

Jesus emphasized this when He told the disciples:

John 13:34, 35 - A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”

See also John 15:12, 1 John 4:11, 19, Eph 5:1, 2. Thus, God was never a single person but always a mutuality else He could not love because love is fundamentally other-centered. It is in this respect that man was created in the image of God to be other-centered and thus the story of Genesis creation about Adam being incomplete without Eve.

Answer 3

Riffing off of @NigelJ's answer, the man, Adam, is the Christ figure, and the woman, Eve, who co-ruled with Adam (Gen 1:27-28), is the figure of the church, who will co-rule with the Christ (2 Tim 2:11-12).

As Adam was the first to enter into the creation with Eve to follow, Christ was the first to enter into the New Creation through his resurrection, with the church to follow (Col 1:18, 1 Cor 15:20,23).

And just as our exaltation to God's ideal new creation kingdom depends exclusively on the righteousness of Christ and not the Church since Christ is the pioneering and imaging ruler of the new creation (Heb 12:2), so too did our fall from God's ideal Genesis 1 creation kingdom depend exclusively on the sin of Adam, and not Eve since Adam was the pioneering and imaging ruler of the Genesis 1 creation kingdom (Rom 5:17-19).

Answer 4

There is a tradition of interpretation starting from Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus Confessor in the East and John Scotus Eriugena in the West that says that the divine idea on human being is one and it does not entail division of sexes. This one man (not in the sense of sex/gender) was created to love and stick up towards God and grow in Him infinitely; but since Adam could not contain this and God saw that, He created a companion to him giving this companion an opposite sex; since God pre-knew their fall, He granted fallen men and women unable to love Him directly and immediately to love each other and so to study back love towards Him.

In Christ it is already possible for humans to be happy in God without sex, which was impossible before Christ, - how many thousands of happy Holy anchorets, like St Anthony, were there after Christ, living alone in cave all their lives and happier than Romeo in his first date with Juliet. To say in passing, the Protestant reaction against monasticism in 16th-18th centuries was fundamentally wrong and against glorious freedom provided by Christ (Matthew 19:11).

Thus, such exceptional humans already in this earthly life, and all humans in eschatological future that has no end, will overcome sexual divisions and be like angels who have no sex. Still this stage will be better than that of Adam, for now the glorified saints will be both in full communion with God and also each other, and sexual differences will be no more.

Answer 5

Interesting! Genesis 1:27 states that God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. However, God first created a child (Gen 2:7) because, I suppose, He wants us to see that all children have to begin their lives and learn.

Adam had a learning curve for sure! But he had a Father and a Caregiver (the Holy Spirit) to provide and care for him. I understand that Jesus was in the Garden of Eden, which we know as the Tree of Life.

God shows us part of who He is with His creation as a child. When the child aged enough to begin understanding the world around him, God separated His image into two perfect parts - male and female.

So first, God provides us with His image as that of a child, and then, He shows us His image as a creation of male and female that together can reproduce. In this way with the birth of each new child God's image is carried forward. In the beginning God shows us His image as a family - a family of three.

Jesus referred to God as Father. Jesus, is His Son. My studies shows me that God's Spirit is described in the NT as what I understand is a loving caregiver. The three are one which agrees with Deuteronomy 6:4 which says "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Throughout the bible the unit of family is described with strength, and love.

Today, every one of us that chooses life through Jesus Christ becomes a child of God and our family relationship is that of three - a Father, a Caregiver, and a Child. In the eyes and understanding of a child in a loving family, we experience our parents love and provisions. Every loving mother and father can unconditionally love each of their children. For each child, the relationship is three.

So, in my understanding, God first shows us His image as a child so that we are able to understand our relationship with Him.

Answer 6

Op asked why Adam was created alone.

Adam lived alone with the animals for a while and saw that there were two of each of them. He probably enjoyed the animals but felt like something was missing for him. One would think he would desire someone to be along his side just like the animals each had a partner.

God took Eve out of Adams own body so he would know that she was part of him. She came from his body, how could he not love her since she was a part of him.

He knew what it was like to live alone and probably would rather die than live with without her and be alone again. So he dies with her.

God always knew it was not good for Adam to be alone but the Father is always such a great teacher that He would have Adam discover that himself.

The story mirrors Christ and His body that was chosen in him long before time even came about.
Ephesians 1:4

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and nurtures it, as also the LORD—the Assembly, because we are members of His body, [[of His flesh, and of His bones.]] "For this cause will a man leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife, and the two will be into one flesh”; this secret is great, and I speak in regard to Christ and to the assembly. Ephesians 5:32