Adam's Deep Sleep

We read about Adam's "deep sleep" (KJV, Heb. tardemah) in Genesis chapter 2: see notes here on our Genesis 2:21-22 page.

To understand the range of possible meanings of this passage, we can consider other occurrences of the term, listed at Tardemah - תרדמה

A view that Genesis does not deal with the material origin of woman

“Adam’s sleep has prepared him for a visionary experience rather than for a surgical procedure. The description of himself being cut in half and the woman being built from the other half (Genesis 2:21-22) would refer not to something he physically experienced but to something that he saw in a vision. It would therefore not describe a material event but would give him an understanding of an important reality, which he expresses eloquently in Genesis 2:23. Consequently, we would then be able to conclude that the text does not describe the material origin of Eve. The vision would concern her identity as ontologically related to the man. The text would therefore have no claim to make about the material origin of woman.”

— John H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2—3 and the Human Origins Debate (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL), 2015, p. 80