On the subject of Adam, Eve, Eden, and prehistoric humans

(This post has been moved here from my opinions blog. It was originally published on May 10, 2020)

The anthropological and fossil evidence of modern humans existing for many tens of thousands of years is overwhelming. It doesn't seem right to me that all those ancient humans who lived and died more than six thousand years ago would not be considered children of God. How do you reconcile the story of Adam in the scriptures with the anthropological record of prehistoric humans?

Jeffrey R. Holland said "...there was an actual Adam and Eve who fell from an actual Eden, with all he consequences that fall carried with it. I do not know the details of what happened on this planet before that, but I do know these two were created under the divine hand of God, that for a time they lived alone in a paradisiacal setting where there was neither human death nor future family, and that through a sequence of choices they transgressed a commandment of God which required that they leave their garden setting but which allowed them to have children before facing physical death." This is basically what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints teaches about Adam and Eve.

In the secular world, some have speculated that the story of the fall of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from Eden was derived from a distant memory of ancestral human tribes transitioning from a hunter-gatherer existence to an agricultural civilization. According to this idea, they began wearing the simplest clothing- loincloths (described in Genesis as "aprons") and developed a concept of morality at the same time they changed their way of life. Some have even speculated that Eden represented the Sahara when it was habitable during the African Humid Period, a climate oscillation that occurred from 11,000-5,000 years ago. Note that it is not impossible that such a cultural memory could persist for so long in oral tradition, as Aboriginal Australians have preserved details of Australia's ancient climate that go back tens of thousands of years.

While people assume that secular ideas such as these are contradictory to and mutually exclusive with what is written in Genesis and other revealed scripture, that might not necessarily be so. What if both were true?

Elder Holland testified that Adam and Eve were real. So we know that's a fact.  He also said he "didn't know" the details of what happened before that.  In my mind, this leaves open many possibilities.

If the Atonement of Jesus Christ was a vicarious act that was effective retroactively for all of Heavenly Father's children who had ever lived on this Earth, then what if the Fall of Adam could be understood in the same way-- at least when applied to the spiritual condition of all people who ever lived-- as a vicarious act that was also effective retroactively for all mankind?

And what if the fall of Adam was both a literal event and also a symbolic event?  Literal because of what happened to Adam and Eve as actual people, and symbolic of the gradual process of all of prehistoric humankind developing a concept of right and wrong and becoming accountable for their actions according to their intelligence.

From what I have read, there is a distinction in anthropology between "anatomically modern" humans and "behaviorally modern" humans.  One might say the dividing line between these two could also correspond with the development of sufficient mental capability to have a concept of right and wrong and thus moral accountability.  So the fall of Adam would be symbolic of this process in anthropological history. The expulsion from Eden would be symbolic of the aforementioned switch from hunter gatherer existence to agriculture.

An actual Eden, located on the American continent as taught by Joseph Smith, and an actual Adam and Eve who started out as innocent immortal beings who became mortal and accountable a certain number of generations before Christ in the scriptures, may not necessarily contradict the existence of modern humans and civilizations all over the world before that time.  If Adam's Fall was a retroactive and vicarious act like the Atonement of Christ, then that would make it appropriate for the existing "Pre-Adamite" populations to be "judged according to God in the flesh," so to speak. It might even be that when Adam and Eve came to earth, they were required to experience what all of humanity had experienced collectively, but in a compressed and fast-forwarded fashion, in order to serve as sort of symbolic spiritual progenitors of all people, whose mortal descendants would then become integrated as a literal part of the human population.

Since God is a perfect, all-knowing judge, only He can determine who among these prehistoric people for how many generations back were truly accountable for their actions. I believe the answer to the question of whether or not the Neanderthal and Denisovan populations, and the Mid-Pleistocene hominins who preceded them, are considered children of God who are accountable to Him, is known only to God, and is not for us to decide.

A symbolic Eden would have been anywhere in the world where ancient humans developed a concept of right and wrong, at the time they became "behaviorally modern." Africa before the expansion of modern humans out into the world could be interpreted as this symbolic Eden.

The brethren of the Church debated the concept of "Pre-Adamites" in the past, with many strong opinions on either side, and were unable to come to a conclusion. I believe this is because God was not ready to reveal this knowledge to them at that time, and He may not be ready to reveal this knowledge to us at this time either.

Therefore, these ideas that I have discussed remain pure speculation and opinion, and are not meant to represent any teaching or doctrine. I do not wish to mix the scriptures with the philosophies of men, I only want to speculate on how the truths evident in both science and religion might be able to come together as more knowledge is revealed to us in the future.

Some links related to this subject:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/04/where-justice-love-and-mercy-meet?lang=eng

http://scottwoodward.org/pre-adamites_noofficialposition.html

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/green-sahara-african-humid-periods-paced-by-82884405/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/homo-heidelbergensis-the-answer-to-a-mysterious-period-in-human-history

Image credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer%2C_Adam_and_Eve%2C_1504%2C_NGA_6610.jpg