I’d like some more information about the views of the people who take Genesis 2-3 literally.
Question (i) : Why would Adam need to call his wife “woman” if there were women before Adam?
Question (ii) : And why does the text say afterwards that because of the fact that Eve was made from Adam’s side “a man and his wife will become one flesh” (upon marriage/union)? This implies that before Eve’s creation no sexual intimacy and reproduction existed and therefore no men (besides Adam) and women existed before her. How do you reconcile the text with science?
Question (iii) : Why did Adam need to name the animals?
A reminder: I talked about the possibility of Mesopotamian languages emerging or reemerging during historical Adam’s time. If you believe this, then Questions (i) and (iii) are pretty much answered.
The second question (Question (ii)) remains to be answered.
I don’t know if they’re literal or not. To understand the story you have to take it for what it is, which doesn’t include science. The point is the lessons drawn from the story, not whether it is historical or scientifically correct.
Easy – you don’t worry about science because the text doesn’t care about science. Trying to make it match science is like trying to reconcile your grandmother’s recipe for pumpkin pie with the idea that everything is made of four elements (air, earth, fire, water).
“Need”? I don’t think he needed to; naming is an exercise in sovereignty: by naming them Adam shows that he understands their nature and so is suited to be their custodian.
That was my very dense way of summarizing the differences between Genesis 2:23 and passages that actually give a name, such as Genesis 3:20.
Genesis 2:23 (NASB): “She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”
Genesis 3:20 (NASB): “Now the man called his wife’s name Eve…”
The first verse doesn’t include a full naming formula (with the two words “called” and “name”), which makes it vague. Not every use of “called” on its own is giving a name.
This first verse also doesn’t specify who will call her Woman, only that she will be called that, making it a calling by persons unstated. By identifying what she will be called, the man is recognizing her true nature, not giving a name.
And this first verse directly follows the narrator saying that God “fashioned into a woman” the side taken, meaning that the woman is already called a woman before the man’s declaration. This makes it a term already in use.
All this shows that the man is no more naming her “Woman” than he is naming himself “Man.” Instead, these terms identify what they both are, and use a play on words (the two terms sound even more alike in Hebrew than in English) to show their close connection.
Woman and Man aren’t names. They are general terms. The man only gives the woman a name, Eve, after they sin. When he does so, he doesn’t change her name from Woman to Eve, because Woman was never her name. She continues to be identified as “woman” even after she is named Eve (Genesis 4:25; although usually translated as “wife,” it’s the same Hebrew word as “woman”).