Who Created Adam and Eve and Where Did They Live?

In this article, we will find answers to the following questions:

• Who created Adam and Eve?
• Where did they live?

But first, let’s get to know them.

Who Were Adam and Eve?

Adam and Eve were the first humans who have ever lived on earth (Genesis 1–2). Being the first married couple, they are our forerunners or “first parents”¹²³.

Now, let’s look into the origin of their names.

Adam is a Hebrew name that means “man.” In cunieform texts, it is spelled Adamu⁴⁵.

On the other hand, Eve comes from the Hebrew name Chawwah, interpreted as “ancestress,” “mother,” “the living one,” or “the one who gives birth.” 

She, however, got this name after the Fall since Adam first named her ‘ishshah,’ meaning “woman.”

As you can see, the name Adam denotes a masculine gender while Eve expresses the feminine one.

Who Created Them?

The answer from the Bible

In Genesis 1:26 (NIV), God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, in Our likeness.”

Based on this, it is obviously God Who created Adam and Eve. But why “Us”? Is there more than one God?

Well, there is one God. But it is a family comprising three Members—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We refer to Them altogether as the Godhead or Trinity⁶⁷.

One of the biblical instances where They were all mentioned was when Jesus commissioned His disciples to preach the gospel.

He said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19, NIV).

Why did God create them?

God created Adam and Eve “so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground” (Genesis 1:26, NIV).

So, basically, they were caretakers or stewards of everything that God created.

In verse 28 (NIV), God blessed them to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

Simply put, they were to procreate and dominate the earth with living beings of their own kind. This is why mankind exists in this world.

How did He create them?

Going back in Genesis 1:26 (NIV), we read, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, in Our likeness,” which implies that Adam and Eve’s nature was patterned according to that of God. And so is ours.

How did God do it?

He “formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7, NIV). And He named him Adam (verse 20).

But God realized that it was not good for this man to be alone. So, He decided to “make a helper suitable for him” (verse 18, NIV).

One day, while Adam was asleep, God took one of his ribs and closed it up with flesh. Then, out of that rib, He made a woman and brought her to him (verse 21).

As you can see, God created Adam and Eve as full-grown adults. They didn’t go through biological conception—being born of a woman and living as infants.

What did Adam and Eve look like?

Since Adam and Eve weren’t born of a woman, they surely didn’t have umbilical cords and navels. Makes sense, right?

But, for sure, being created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), they had a body structure like all human beings have—a head, face, and body with a pair of arms, hands, legs, and feet.

Where Did Adam and Eve Live?

The answer from the Bible

When God created Adam, He planted a garden in the east of Eden (Genesis 2:8). It was in this garden that Adam and Eve lived.

It was not just any garden. It was a beautiful one for “God is a lover of the beautiful”⁸.

This garden is more commonly known as the Garden of Eden.

What does the name Eden mean?

Eden is derived from the Akkadian word edinu, borrowed from the Sumerian word eden, which means “plain” or “flatland”².

Spelled Eaden, Eadin, Edenia, or Edinia in Hebrew, Eden means a “delight,” a “paradise,” or a “place of pleasure”⁹¹⁰.

In the book of Genesis, Eden is interpreted as “the garden of the Lord.” In the book of Ezekiel, it is understood as “the garden of God”².

Based on these definitions, we can picture Eden as a land where everything was perfect and where God’s presence could be felt.

Where was it located?

As described in Genesis 2:10-14, there was a river watering Garden of Eden. From there, it separated into 4 headwaters.

The first river was named Pishon, which flowed around the land of Havilah. The second one was called Gihon, which flowed around the land of Cush. The third was Tigris, which flowed east of Assyria. And the fourth was Euphrates.

Based on modern interpretations, Eden is located at the head of the Persian Gulf in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq), where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into the sea¹¹.

Some scholars also suggest it is situated at the Armenian Highlands or Armenian Plateau. It can also possibly be in Iran and in the vicinity of Tabriz, as per British archaeologist David Rohl. It can even be in Jerusalem, according to some religious groups.

So, does this mean that Eden still exists?

Does it still exist?

The Garden of Eden “remained upon the earth” long after Adam and Eve were banished. And their descendants “were long permitted to gaze upon the home of innocence, their entrance barred only by the watching angels”¹².

Unfortunately, when the world became so wicked that God needed to destroy it with a flood in Noah’s time, “the hand that had planted Eden withdrew it from the earth.”

From then on, the influence of sin “was felt in the Garden of Eden, as in any other place on earth”¹¹.

And since “major geographical changes took place between [the eras] of Adam and Moses,” the location of the Gihon and Pishon rivers, which should supposedly hint at where Eden is situated today, can no longer be identified.

So, it’s fair enough to say that Eden might not be existing anymore, at least based on how far archaeology can uncover.

But there’s definitely hope for it in the future. “In the final restitution, when there shall be ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ [Eden] is to be restored more gloriously adorned than at the beginning” (Revelation 21:1, NIV)¹².

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1. Creation Ministries International [↩]
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica [↩] [↩] [↩]
3. Ellen White, The Adventist Home, 25.1 [↩]
4. New World Encyclopedia [↩]
5. Siegfried Horn, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary, 1979, 16-17 [↩]
6. Christianity [↩]
7. Siegfried Horn, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary, 1979, 426 [↩]
8. Ellen White, Adventist Home, 27.1 [↩]
9. Siegfried Horn, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary, 1979, 302-3 [↩]
10. Verywell Family [↩]
11. History of Yesterday [↩] [↩]
12. Ellen White, Heaven, 77.1 [↩] [↩]