Q: What about the first woman. In Gen 1: 27 it states that “male and female he created them” –both of them. Yet the first woman Eve doesn’t really show up until much later in 2: 22?
A: Gen. 1 gives us the summary and the general order of creation while chapter 2 goes back and has a more detailed account of life in the Garden. Gen 1: 27 merely states that man- both male and female were created. Gen 2: 21-25 fills in the details of the creation of Eve—the first woman.
Some believe that their spirits (and the spirits of all of humanity) were created in Genesis 1:27; and later their spirits were ‘breathed’ into their natural physical bodies in Genesis 2.