A Century of Debate: How Early Is Man?

The 100-year-old controversy concerning the age of man has been stimulated in recent years by the very early dates (such as 1,750,000 years ago) assigned to the remains of Zinjanthropus, presumably a form of early man. Zinjanthropus was uncovered by Louis B. Leakey in Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika, in 1959.

Even after 1859, the date of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, discussion of an early age of man, stimulated by the discoveries of the Neanderthal finds in the late 1840s and the 1850s, was confined almost totally to limited academic circles. Darwin’s work made general evolution a public concern, but because he was silent about human origins the problem of man’s age as well as of his evolution was still not widely raised. It was not until the publication of The Antiquity of Man by Sir Charles Lyell in 1863 that this subject emerged into the limelight of popular discussion.

Although Lyell was reluctant to commit himself to definite dates, it was abundantly clear from his discussion that he envisioned a very considerable extension of the traditional biblical chronology, based largely on the work of Archbishop Ussher and found in the margins of many Bibles. Many Christians of conservative persuasion felt that Lyell’s views were an attack on the inerrancy and the historicity of Scripture. Other churchmen of more liberal persuasion did not view the disintegration of biblical chronology as a theological catastrophe. Thus a line, though not a sharp one, was drawn between conservative and liberal elements concerning an early date of man.

In the decades that followed the Antiquity of Man, archaeological and anthropological discoveries continued to give strong evidence for an earlier age of man than the traditional biblical chronology. A number of leading conservatives, men who without the slightest reservation stood for the inerrancy and the historicity of Scripture, accordingly reexamined biblical chronology. Such was the work of William Henry Green and B. B. Warfield, both of Princeton Theological Seminary.

Accommodating Scripture

Today Christians working in the fields of science have been often criticized for their constant willingness to accommodate Scripture to scientific discovery. In many respects perhaps this is a justified criticism. It must be recognized that accommodation to scientific discovery is not a valid reason for giving up traditionally-held beliefs and for reinterpreting Scripture, but it is not less true that scientific discovery can and should serve the valuable function of stimulating our thinking, demanding an investigation of our current interpretation and understanding. Is it in accord with a valid biblical exegesis? This was the desire of Green and Warfield, not merely to accommodate Scripture to scientific discovery, but to interpret biblical genealogies and chronology from the best principles of biblical interpretation. The first step in evaluating the age of man is thus to examine the biblical evidence.

Hebrew literature is characterized by a high degree of structuralization. This is particularly true of the sections which were memorized and where various mnemonic devices were used—the poetical sections (Psalms 107; 119, Lamentations, and so forth) and the genealogies (Genesis 5; 11; Ruth 4). A notable example of such structuralization is the genealogy of Matthew 1, which is arranged in three groups of 14 generations. That this genealogy is artificially structured is made obvious by the fact that four kings are omitted in the second group and that Jechonias is counted twice (at the end of the second group and at the beginning of the third) in order that each group might have 14 names. These three groupings are clearly an artificial structure used as a mnemonic device.

The second relevant characteristic is the frequent omissions in Hebrew genealogies. Again Matthew 1 serves to illustrate the point, in that the years from Abraham to Christ have been given in only three “generations.” These omissions can be seen in three ways: (1) By comparing genealogy with genealogy (1 Chron. 6:3–14 with Ezra 7:1–5, etc.). (2) By comparing the number of names in a given genealogy with the elapsed time between the first member of the genealogy and the last. For example, note the genealogy of Pharez in Ruth 4, where the ten names cannot cover the elapsed time. These years probably require from 14 to 18 generations. It should be noted that these ten names are included in the first section of the Matthew 1 genealogy, implying thereby that even in this section names are probably omitted. (The same phenomenon is noted in a comparison of 1 Chron. 24:24 with 1 Chron. 23:15, 16.) (3) By comparing elapsed time with chronologies established by archaeology. According to Ussher’s chronology, the time between the flood and the days of Abraham was only 292 years, but an unbroken archaeological sequence in Egypt extends back much more than 300 years before Abraham. Moreover, it would be impossible to consider the Egyptian culture of Abraham’s time as the result of a mere 300 years’ development.

A look at the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 will reveal that they have identical structures, consisting of ten generations, if one accepts the Septuagint rendering of Genesis 11:12. (This reading includes the name of Canaan, quoted in Luke 3:36, and has strong evidence of being in the earliest Hebrew manuscripts.) The number 10 is used as a structural device in other places in Mosaic writing—in the structure of the book of Genesis as a whole, the divisions being marked by ten toledoths (“and these are the generations of …”), and in the Decalogue. It is also used for the genealogy in Ruth 4, which can clearly be shown to have missing generations. Therefore, it may be reasoned that these genealogies do not imply the inclusion of all names and would not have been understood to do so by the Hebrews of that day. The thinking of Archbishop Ussher and later Christians is a product of our Western conceptions and of our basic literary frame of reference. The genealogies must be considered trustworthy for the purpose for which they were given, but this purpose was not that of supplying a comprehensive chronology.

Theology and Man’s Antiquity

The first full theological treatment of the interpreting of genealogies was by William Henry Green in the April, 1890, issue of Bibliotheca Sacra. This article set the tenor of conservative Christian thinking for quite some time. After an extensive consideration of biblical genealogies, Green drew the following conclusion: “… that the Scriptures furnish no data for a chronological computation prior to the life of Abraham.” In 1911, in an article published by the Princeton Theological Review, B. B. Warfield says that “the question of the antiquity of man has of itself no theological significance. It is to theology, as such, a matter of entire indifference how long man has existed on earth.” These are the conclusions of biblical scholars, whose convictions concerning the infallibility and accuracy of Scripture cannot be denied, and they are based entirely on sound exegesis. They are not the conclusions of scientists who were seeking to accommodate Scripture to scientific discovery. Therefore, with this as the background of the scriptural demands, it is possible to look at recent scientific discovery concerning the age of man.

What is man? Many of the reproductions of ancient man that are given in newspapers and popular periodicals are so far out of line with the picture Christians have of early man that their authenticity is immediately rejected. But Scripture teaches us nothing concerning the physical appearance of early men. Our basic definition of man, both from the standpoint of Scripture and of science, is functional rather than structural. That is, we define man in terms of what he can do rather than in terms of his appearance. A basic characteristic of man is his ability for conceptural thought. Theologically, this may be considered an aspect of the “image of God.” Anthropologically, this ability may be logically deduced by evidence of such cultural practices as toolmaking. Man’s ability to conceptualize also gives the psychological base for his use of language. It is largely for these reasons that the Australopithecines, represented to us by Zinjanthropus and more popularly known by the non-endearing terms of South African Ape-Men or Man-Apes, have recently been considered to be men.

Most recent interest in the dating of man was raised when the geological strata in which Zinjanthropus was found was dated by the potassium-argon method at 1,750,000 years.

The potassium-argon (K/A) dating is a radioactive method based upon the chemical decomposition of Potassium 40 to Argon 40. The assumptions underlying this method are the same as for all radioactive methods of dating, such as measuring the decomposition of uranium to lead and Carbon 14, and have been well verified by the general consistency of various radioactive methods and by other geological methods of dating, often aided by historical and archaeological means. The actual applications of the method have often encountered problems of contamination, applicability to certain types of material, and so forth, but these are practical problems which have not disproved the basic assumptions of the method. (There is a significant difference between the laboratory techniques used to measure decomposition in K/A age determination and other radioactive methods, and it is thought that these methods are much more exacting.) Without question, when it is sufficiently refined and capable of consistent and accurately reproducible results, this method promises to be a major advance toward the dating of human prehistory.

The results of K/A dating have been differentially received by various individuals—some being very receptive and others highly critical. Two of those most critical have been W. L. Straus and Charles B. Hunt of Johns Hopkins University. In Science (April 27, 1961) they concluded:

“Because some of the Olduvai Gorge dates are inconsistent, some must be inaccurate; they all may be. Until further tests determine which materials give dependable dates, we do not know which dates are accurate. Until this is learned, the indicated ages must be taken cum grano sails.”

Caution in accepting these precise dates at face value may be well warranted, but they do seem to suggest that the general magnitude of man’s age is very great. Nor does a date of man which is measured in terms of hundreds of thousands of years rest alone on the potassium-argon dating of the Olduvai Gorge. In Europe and Asia, as well as in Africa, fossil men can be given Middle Pleistocene dating by faunal association, stratigraphic position, and by correlation to glacial formations. Glacial chronology is so well established for Europe that fossil correlations must certainly place man’s age at several hundreds of thousands of years. So the problem of whether we accept an early date for the appearance of man does not rest only on the validity of the few uncertain K/A dates of Zinjanthropus which we have at present, but rather rests upon the entire construction of Pleistocene geology.

In conclusion, it may not be necessary as yet to think of the age of man in terms of millions of years, as some recent articles would have us believe. But it certainly is necessary to think of man’s origin in terms of tens of thousands of years and with very high probability in terms of hundreds of thousands. It is certainly not accurate to think in terms of the thousands of years which our traditional chronologies have taught us.

DONALD R. WILSON

Visiting Instructor

Calvin College

Grand Rapids, Michigan

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