On the basis of Scripture we maintain that Adam, created by God on the sixth day of the hexaemeron, was the first of all men and the parent of the entire human race throughout the whole world, 1 Cor. 15, 45. 47; Gen. 2, 5; Acts 17, 26; Rom. 5, 12. Hence we reject the error of Isaac Peyrere (1655), who taught that, while the Jews descended from Adam, Gen. 2, 7ff., the Gentiles came from preadamites, Gen. 1, 26ff., so that they date back to ages before the creation of the ancestor of the Jews. But the Mosaic narrative allows the assumption neither of preadamites nor of coadamites, since it teaches most emphatically that Adam is the parent of all men, Acts 17, 26. With this doctrine agree also the conclusions of outstanding anthropologists, who, on grounds apart from divine revelation, have affirmed the unity of the human race (Alexander von Humboldt).
While Adam was created first and independently, Gen. 2, 18, Eve was created dependently from Adam, a complete rational individual, taken from man according to soul and body, Gen. 2, 21-24. The rib from which God built (עֶרֶב) Eve, must not be understood as a mere rib, but as a living, vital substance, including everything of which she consisted essentially, Gen. 2, 23; Acts 17, 26. (Cp. Luther's explanation, St. L., I, 157. ) While Eve was Adam's equal in the enjoyment of the divine blessings, both temporal and spiritual, her social status was one of subordination to Adam, for whose sake she was created, Gen. 2, 18; 1 Cor. 14, 34-36; 1 Tim. 2,11-15.