The Unscriptural Fallacy of “Pre-Adamite Man.”

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The Unscriptural Fallacy of “Pre-Adamite Man.” By Geoff Chapman

August 11, 2009

WHO was Adam? This seems a very straightforward question, and the obvious, and Biblical answer is surely “The first man.” Yet many Christian writers and Bible commentators have been so influenced by evolution and the popular view that homo sapiens has been on earth for 100,000 years or more, that they have resorted to various compromises to try to reconcile “science” with Scripture.1

SERIOUS PROBLEM

In so doing, they have seriously undermined both the unity of the human race and the Gospel itself. One of the most popular ideas is that Adam was a representative term for the Neolithic or “New Stone Age” people. However, since Biblical chronology places the creation of Adam around 6,000 years ago this view necessitates introducing the concept of “pre-Adamite” people. This creates a very serious problem in that, according to popular dating, the aborigines arrived in Australia about 50,000 years ago, and the native Americans are said to have crossed the Bering Strait 15,000–17,000 years ago

In a recent book,2 theistic evolutionist Dr Denis Alexander claims that Adam and Eve were Neolithic farmers on whom God bestowed His image. However, he admits this means that humans who lived earlier cannot be descendents of Adam. The Bible says that Eve was “the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3: 20), and that “From one man [God] made every nation of men” (Acts 17: 26).  To suggest that Australian aborigines and native Americans are not created in God’s image is deeply insulting.

RELATIONSHIP WITH ADAM

The New Testament teaches that death came to all humans through their relationship with Adam, and that salvation comes through a relationship with the “second Adam”, Jesus Christ. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15: 21). Denis Alexander wonders how God will deal with people who, according to his theory, are not descendants of Adam. However, the fact that thousands of aborigines and native Americans are Christians, having put their faith in Jesus, shows beyond doubt that they are descendants of Adam, so the “pre-Adamite” theory is totally unscriptural!

The assumptions and contradictions surrounding popular dating methods3 are beyond the scope of this article, but there are no compelling reasons for Christians to distort Scripture by trying to accommodate evolutionary suppositions. Such compromises are an assault on the unity of the human race, and also undermine the very basis of the Gospel.

 

1. e.g. The Christian View of Science and Scripture, Bernard Ramm, Eerdmans, 1954 & 1981. Who was Adam? E. K. Victor Pearce, Paternoster Press, 1976. The Genesis Question, Hugh Ross, Navipress, Colorado, 1998.
2. Creation or evolution: Do we have to choose? Monarch Books, Oxford, 2008.
3. See: www.icr.org/article/dating-gap