Someone recently argued that the narrative of Genesis 2 follows sequentially on Genesis 1. According to this person, the Hebrew reveals that some people were created on the sixth day, while Adam and Eve were created on the eighth day. Adam is not, on this view, the first human, but the first of his "race." The proponent of this theory claims that this interpretation accounts for diverse "races" of humanity and "where Cain got his wife." He insists that his theory is the only reasonable conclusion from the Hebrew in the Masoretic text of Genesis, e.g. that the man of Genesis 1 CANNOT be the same as the man of Genesis 2. (Based on my discussions with this person, I do not believe he has any firsthand knowledge of Hebrew, but makes creative use of certain biblical dictionaries.) How would you answer this? Are there any books or resources which deal with this interpretation?

Sorry for the delay – I had computer problems. The Hebrew text of Genesis, the very beginning of the book of Chronicles and the Talmudic tradition don't support that opinion. There was only one man created and that was Adam. Adam was created on the sixth day and so was Eve. The Torah just speaks about this creation in two different passages. The first mentions the fact that both were created and the second goes in more details to describe how. (Rashi Genesis 1; 27) The difference in races developed naturally in thousands of years of humanity.