You’ve probably seen the Geico commercial with the caveman. Do you ever wonder about them? Do you ever wonder if they really lived? Do they fit with what the Bible teaches? What if your friend asks you, “Hey, did cavemen really exist? What would you say as a Bible believing Christian? Well, here are some thoughts that may help you as you attempt to answer these questions.
To answer the question did cavemen exist - The answer is certainly YES. Not only did they exist, but they still Exist today
By definition a "caveman" is a man who lives in a cave. Even Elijah was, therefore, a caveman, David was a caveman for awhile and you could also make the case because of his birth in a "barn", Jesus was even a caveman. So, we need to first start by asking the right question.
The real question is probably one of these three.
1. How old is the earth?
2. Did people live long before Adam?
3. Were early people in Adam's time quite ignorant and have they developed through the 1000’s of years to become what we are today?
Although a brief article cannot due justice to answering any of these questions, let me just give you some thoughts regarding each one and hopefully it will encourage you to study this further on your own. (By the way, I love this kind of stuff.)
How we answer these questions will depend greatly on our presuppositions or biases. Everyone has them (yes, even scientists) and our presuppositions will determine how we look at the "data". For instance, if I believe that the earth is old, then I will find data that supports that idea.
So, fully recognizing that my presupposition is that the Bible is absolutely true, here are some things to consider.
1. The age of the earth is a really hot debate. Of course, traditional evolutionary scientists must have an old earth - billions of years. The driving forces to evolution are TIME and CHANCE. You need a whole lot of each in order for their theory to even be remotely plausible. Today, however, even ardent evolutionists are being faced with overwhelming facts that point to a young earth. Even among scientists who are Christians there is debate over this. I think this is extremely unfortunate and I believe it is because many Christians…. even genuine believers in Jesus…. have their view of the world so shaped by the thinking of this world that their presupposition is that the world must be old. So now let's figure out how it fits into the Bible.
I strongly disagree with the "old earth" view. The Bible flat out does not teach it, and science can easily support a young earth. The Bible seems to teach and science can support an earth that is about 6000 years old. A far cry from the 5 billion or so that some teach. How unfortunate when we try to fit the Bible into our worldview instead of having the Bible determine our worldview.
2. Did people live before Adam? This question is huge. According to the book of Genesis, particularly chapter 5, Adam lived less than 6000 years ago. Could there have been a pre-adamic race? Quite simply, that is a total false teaching. If people lived before Adam, then people also died before Adam. According to Romans 5:12 death entered the world because of sin. Therefore, there was NO DEATH before sin. This view is a major blow to Christians who want to believe evolution. Evolution requires a ton of death to have happened.
3. Were early people ignorant? I greatly disagree with this viewpoint. In fact, quite the opposite is true. I believe that the smartest man that ever lived was Adam. He was made in God's image and he had a perfect mind. Therefore, the further that we get from Adam, the more imperfect we get. So, because of the degeneration of sin, instead of each generation getting better, we are actually getting "worse".
Were there primitive people who were not so smart? Of course!! But they were not pre-adamic. Instead, they were Adam's/Noah's descendants. They were sinners, and they did not pass on the things that at one time were known.
A topic not mentioned was how pre-historic things are dated. Just a comment that all dating methods are based not on the past, but on the present. They are all based on assumptions that support a scientist’s presuppositions. This is worth further discussion.
So, next time you are watching tv and a caveman tries to sell you something, make sure you don’t buy the garbage that there were these primitive people before Adam that over the years turned out to be a pretty cool person like yourself.
You are a pretty cool person, but only because God made you that way.