Talk:Pre-Adamite

Duncan, Mrs. Isabella (1860) — Pre-Adamite Man;
I saw a copy of this very rare book during a brief visit in September 2001 to the tiny Savings Bank Museum at Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire. DFH 19:20, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

For those who believe what they read in the Bible, their are several mentions on the Pre-Adamite world. Finnis Dake also has a large number of notes on the Pre-Adamite world as well. In the Bible there are references to the Pre-Adamite world such as: 2Peter 3:3-7; 2 Peter 2:4,5; Genesis 1:1; Jeremiah 4:23; Matthew 13:34,35; Psalms 104:1-5; Isaiah 45:18; Colossians 1:15-19; and Ecclesiastes 3:10,11.

This article is in error about Augustine
This article is in error about Augustine's opinions as expressed in the City of God and is confusing the issue of the age of the earth with the issue of whether humans existed before Adam in Christian theology.

In Chapter 10 of Book XII of the City of God Augustine states, "They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed." Augustine is not referring to the age of the earth, however, but to the extent of time in which man has existed on earth. "For some hold the same opinion regarding men that they hold regarding the world itself, that they have always been. Thus Apuleius says when he is describing our race, 'Individually they are mortal, but collectively, and as a race, they are immortal.'" Augustine is confronting the popular Greek opinion that human beings exist coeternally with an eternal earth, and human society waxes and wanes in eternal cycles. He is not confronting the modern idea that man existed millions of years on earth.

As to the age of earth before man existed Augustine is completely non-commital. "I own that I do not know what ages passed before the human race was created, yet I have no doubt that no created thing is co-eternal with the Creator." Book XII Chapter 16 City of God

Augustine has no problem with the idea of man coming into existence millions of years ago: "Consequently, if there had elapsed since the creation of man, I do not say five or six, but even sixty or six hundred thousand years, or sixty times as many, or six hundred or six hundred thousand times as many, or this sum multiplied until it could no longer be expressed in numbers, the same question could still be put, Why was he not made before?" Book XII Chapter 12

His only disagreement, as stated before, is with the idea that humanity has existed eternally on earth.

Mormonism & Pre-Adamites
I removed the section which stated that the notion that the Mark of Cain consisted of black skin originated in Europe "and was popularised in 19th century America by the founder of Mormonism Joseph Smith, Jr." If Joseph Smith in fact preached this doctrine then he likely had a minor effect in popularizing it, as the Mormons were only a minor fringe group at the time. Unless someone can come up with a good citation for this statement I believe it is not NPOV.

The LDS church doesn't believe that doctrine today and teaches that no human on earth today is descended from Pre-Adamites.--JBPostma 21:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Someone has reintroduced the section re. Mormonism and the "Mark of Cain." This assertion is not defendable. It is true that Mormonism did for a time preach the "Mark of Cain" theory, but Mormonism was always a fringe group. To suggest they had some sort of significant role in popularizing this theory is silly. My understanding was that it was already a popular theory among Southern Protestants and was used to justify slavery. As no justification for including this section was given here, I'll remove it once again. --SLCMormon (talk) 21:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to add content and it was just undone. What gives? How can things be added?Tapirrider (talk) 20:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Pre-Adamism a ridiculous term
There should be an alternate term used instead of Pre-Adamism, such as pre-Abrahamic humans, or something. The term is misleading and is ironic because, in Hebrew and Arabic: "Adam" or "Adham" simply means "human". Therefore, from this "mis-" logic, pre-Adamic humans would be humans before humans! But of course, ignorant Christians who do not know a Semitic language, or even have any connection to the Middle East would not know this. Le Anh-Huy 06:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Is there a way I can report this user for his bigotry-laden comment? 96.251.89.15 (talk) 02:46, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * It is an accepted academic term and is not really open to debate in the scope of this article. One could call people ignorant for using it, but that would make you look rather uninformed. Butlerblog (talk) 15:37, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Adam did mean "human" in ancient Hebrew, but it is also a name associated with the first human. The root now can contain either meaning. Pre-Abrahamic humans, of course, would include anyone who lived before Abraham, and are really a different class of mythic peoples. Pre-Adamite, therefore, is a reasonable term. I suppose you could go with with pre-Edenic or something, but if this is the established term, then we should stick to it. --Icowrich 01:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * What is the most common term in the literature? --Filll 18:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Pre-Adamism and evolution, today
The article has barely a mention of how this idea fits into modern ideas.

There are a fair number of people today who claim to believe in both Christianity and evolution. Are they Pre-Adamists, or what? They're presumably bound to believe that Adam and Eve never really existed and the Bible story is metaphor, or that Adam and Eve had parents like everyone else. It is not plausible to say that Adam and Eve would be human but their parents not. So if you believe in Adam and Eve, and also accept evolution, you would seem to meet the definition of a Pre-Adamist, yet the term seems mostly dead today at a time when it would seem more relevant than ever. Evercat (talk) 23:13, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you are confused. Almost everyone who is educated who supports evolution would profess to accept the existence of Mitochondrial Eve or Y Chromosomal Adam.--Filll (talk) 23:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I'm pretty tired of you addressing every comment to me with "I think you are confused". Nobody identifies Mitochondrial Eve or Y Chromosomal Adam with the Biblical Eve and Adam. Here's Dawkins: "Eve and Adam were not a couple. It would be a major coincidence if they ever met, and they could well have been separated by tens of thousands of years. As a subsidiary point, there are independent reasons to believe that Eve preceded Adam." -- The Ancestor's Tale, chapter on "Eve's Tale".


 * So. I think you are confused. Evercat (talk) 23:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You are free to believe whatever you like. However, I think that it is a bad idea to introduce nonsense and bias and bad English into these articles. Thanks.--Filll (talk) 23:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I note the complete lack of response on the actual issue of Adam and Eve. Because scientists gave 2 prehistoric humans the names "Adam" and "Eve" does not in any way connect them to the Bible.


 * Equating Mitochondrial Eve and Y Chromosomal Adam with the Biblical Eve and Adam is by far the most stupid thing you've said in all my dealings with you. You obviously know less about evolution than I gave you credit for. And to think you called me a cretin. Evercat (talk) 23:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Care to supply a diff? And you really want to get into a ridiculous argument where I tear every single post you have made apart and make you look silly? Please. Why do you want to fight? Just calm down. Give it a rest.--Filll (talk) 23:40, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Still no response on the issue. I suppose you're going to tell me that this was not aimed at me. Fine. Evercat (talk) 23:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I apologize if you are offended, but I did not claim you are a cretin. You even claim you are not a creationist, right?--Filll (talk) 00:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * That's correct, but at the time you clearly thought I was. Your post makes little sense otherwise - you thought that you could explain my edit on the grounds of my supposed creationism. "I had no idea he had removed it. It figures...the thing is, creationists are [etc]..."


 * Anyway. I'll accept that you didn't mean to insult me (though there are actual creationists around here, and you should probably try not to insult them) and that perhaps you didn't mean to be condescending every time you said I was confused. I'm afraid I just snapped when I thought I was being patronised once again.


 * Now. Maybe we should call it a night. Evercat (talk) 00:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Right. Now that we've all calmed down, the fact remains that even if you equate Mitochondrial Eve with the Biblical Eve - and lets call her mate Adam for the sake of argument - they certainly had parents, meaning there were humans before them. Which would make you a pre-Adamist, according to the definition given in this article. Evercat (talk) 11:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

First Human Being
(clarify who "Adam" is, to make the article more accessible to readers not from a Jewish/Christian/Islamic background.) - doesn't this edit contradict the whole article? Jeffrywith1e (talk) 20:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

John Rogers
"John Rogers", described as noting Pre-Adamism in Friesland in 1768, currently links through a redirect to John Rogers (c.1500–1555), which can't be correct as that John Rogers was obviously dead at the time. None of the John Rogers disambiguated here and here look particularly strong contenders, so I've unlinked the term completely for now.

JimmyGuano (talk) 09:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Jewish Pre-Adamism?
Should there be a section in this article about pre-Adamism from a Jewish perspective? It seems to concentrate on racism derived from such beliefs, but pre-Adamism exists in Judaism without racist connotations. There are numerous reference to the 974 generations that lived prior to Adam, as well as to his children and grandchildren seeking wives in other lands. Perhaps we should add something on this subject? Ruyn13 (talk) 06:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Could this stress theology?
This article is not clear from the outset that Pre-Adamism is a theological belief. I'm pretty sure the "theory that humans existed" 100,000 years ago or more is an accepted scientific theory that nobody outside of specific religious denominations refers to as "Pre-Adamism".

At the very least the article should refer to this as a theological belief, and perhaps differentiate between (for example) Protestants who simply believe in the timeline of evolution and view all of Genesis as allegorical, versus those who believe in literal Adam but also that other humans existed during that time. Right now I'm not sure which one this means--but there's no way it simply means "belief in evolution". 204.210.247.243 (talk) 17:16, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. Currently the article reads like a scientific one, but it's not very clear that the article's entire frame of reference is a religious one. It's almost implicit that the two choices are "God made Adam first" or "God made people before Adam", neither of which are in line with modern scientific understanding of human ancestry. FracV (talk) 22:36, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Unsourced claims, 1000 – 1700
The following paragraphs lack any source for their claims, and in view of previous spurious assertions about Muslim science really need proper sourcing, so I've moved them from the article:
 * The Kitab al Khazari (c. 1130–1140), a book by Judah ben Samuel Halevi, features a debate between the King of the Khazars and three theologians, a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim, in which the King attempts to find out which is the true religion. The King asks the Jew whether he is concerned that the Indians claim to have buildings and artifacts that are millions of years old. The rabbi dismisses these beliefs as unworthy ideas held by a dissolute and unreliable people with no fixed form of religion, or no book "concerning which multitude of people held the same opinion".
 * In this same work Halevi attacked a number of ideas that appeared in a book titled Nabatean Agriculture, written or translated by Ibn Wahshiyya in 904. The ideas, attributed to the Sabeans, were that people lived before Adam, that Adam had parents, and that he came from India. Halevi dismissed these notions simply by saying that these people did not know of the revelation contained in Scripture.
 * The claims in Nabatean Agriculture mentioned above were also discussed by Maimonides (1135–1204) in his Guide for the Perplexed. Through Maimonides, they became known to the 17th-century French Millenarian Isaac La Peyrère – This is cited to Almond, but a search of the volume in Google books finds no mention of Maimonides.

When reliable sourcing is shown, these can be reinstated. . . dave souza, talk 14:37, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Update: info reinstated, amended in line with cited sources. More work needed. . dave souza, talk 07:45, 18 June 2017 (UTC)