Gender Speculation and Genesis

Most readers of the biblical account of the creation of people assume that the first human being created was male, but the Bible’s account of human is, in fact, frustratingly ambiguous. This ambiguity led to some fascinating midrashic interpretations of Genesis 1:26-27, which recounts God’s creation of humankind.

And God said, “Let us make man [adam] in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male [zakhar] and female [nekeivah] He created them.” (NJPS)

Since the word adam is not used previously in the Bible, there is no evidence that this word must denote a male. Indeed, the explanatory phrase, “male and female He created them,” could be read as clarifying what the nature of this adam actually was.
To this end, a number of rabbinic passages preserve what may have been a popular interpretation of this passage, which indicates that the first human actually comprised of both genders