Male and Female

So, Adam has been created in the Garden of Eden, and God has given him the responsibility to care for the garden. Great! But as the work continues, with Adam naming each of the animals, Adam realizes that he's still missing something. "As for Adam, there was not found an help meet for him" (Moses 3:20). So God took a rib from Adam and created one, the woman later named Eve.

Immediately upon seeing her, Adam recognizes her importance, that she was "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (Moses 3:23). He recognized, as the editor of Moses later commented, that "therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh" (Moses 3:24). Although God had created a distinct being that was different from Adam, Adam realized that the ultimate goal was to be unified with her. This was the beginning of social creation.

However, there were some things that weren't quite right yet. "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (Moses 3:25). They didn't yet have a sense of right and wrong. There was no knowledge of the laws that are used to create a society. For that, there was need for one more thing: they needed the knowledge of good and evil. But God had commanded them not to partake of the fruit that would give them that knowledge. So was that it? Had God failed in his efforts to have a social creation?

Far from it. God's plan was not yet fully in action. But there was one that seeked to overthrow the plan, one who had wanted to do so from the beginning. And it was his turn to make a move.