The Creation of Adam and Chava
On the sixth day the human is formed from dust and filled with a living soul; from him the woman, Chava, "mother of all living", is separated.
The human being is created last and described twice. In chapter one he appears at once as male and female, "in the image of God", and is given charge of the earth. Chapter two comes closer: God forms him from dust, breathes life into his nostrils, places him in the garden "to work it and to guard it". Adam names the animals and, in naming them, discovers that none is a match for him; a deep sleep falls on him and the woman is built from his own body. He greets her: "This time—bone of my bones". The Torah immediately draws its law: a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife.
That day, 1 Tishrei, is the birthday of humanity—which is why Rosh Hashanah judges the whole world, and why the Jewish era counts from Adam. The double description, image and dust, frames everything the tradition later says about human beings.
How we know
Sources
Tanakh
- Bereishit 1:26–31 — the making of man “in the image” on the sixth day
- Bereishit 2:7–25 — the second account: dust, the breath of life, the garden, the making of woman
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bereishit Rabbah 8 — the counsel with the angels before man was made; the twofold first human
- Sanhedrin 38a–38b — dust gathered from every corner of the earth; the sixth day hour by hour
- Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 — “one who saves a single soul saves an entire world”: man was created alone
- Eruvin 18a — “male and female He created them” — the two faces
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.
People and places
Adam · Eve · Cain · Abel · Garden of Eden · Genesis · Rosh Hashanah · Tishrei