How We Homo sapiens Got Here, For Christians
Was it an instantaneous poof, a straight line, or a mass of squiggles? Blending common sense, science, and theology provides a solid answer.
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.”
We are designed. You could metaphorically say that King David was planned on a drawing board, put together in a secret vault, and came forth with a manual. We are a magnificent, brilliant reflection of God’s engineering genius and of His eternal character. With our efficient bodies, our intellect, and our free will, we cover the whole spectrum from destructive fallen evildoers to the angelic fruits of the Holy Spirit. Our journey here was challenging and fraught with failures. Our path was definitely squiggles. We got here like the latest Porsche or Cadillac, whose ancestors are the Model T and Model A. That Caddy didn’t drop down from heaven.
One of my favorite shows is Expedition Unknown with Josh Gates as the adventuring explorer. Sometimes his quest is for treasure, sometimes for understanding. In S8 E3 & E4, 2022, Gates pursues enlightenment about when and where the first hominins began to seem more human than ape. He started with a guided observation of chimpanzees in the wild. We share 98% of our DNA with chimps. They are actually more like us than they are like gorillas, but chimps have always been the same, with little change after millions of years. They can be gentle, but also aggressive and territorial. According to Gates’s expert, their life is about eating, dominance, sex, and procreation. They can also be very tribal, leading to wars among clans that last for years.
Gates’s guide agreed with him that chimps and gorillas seem to have “plateaued.” The expert offered several reasons why the 21 (or 27) species of hominins, the ancestors of modern humans, broke through the developmental brick wall.
A Bipedalism—walking upright.
B Tool making—It began with chipping rocks or
obsidian into arrow heads or sharp instruments that could cut and shape animal
meat and hides.
C Learning—With chimps, all learned behavior is
by observation. It can take a chimp 8 years to learn to do something new. Humans
learn from the past and add to what they know, teaching the younger generations
new things.
D Adaptation—When the last ice age hit hominins
had to adapt in how they dressed, ate, hunted, and traveled.
Once those four basic advances are locked in to
the various species, some of whom lived contemporaneously with each other, the
next big advantage would be greater cognition—brain power. Even so, the
emerging human species would still act very much like chimps…sex, dominance,
tribalism, territorial jealousy, eating, sleeping, procreating, and warring on
other groups. We see a hint of that in the Genesis story where Cain is afraid
to leave the family compound lest he be killed by whoever finds him.
Somewhere along the various hominin lines, God added spirituality. There’s no sense speculating when, but when I get over there, I can’t wait to ask Him. And of course, all the accoutrements of civilization would be added from there. The last two species standing were Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. They were not only contemporary neighbors, they did a certain amount of interbreeding, causing many humans today to have about 2% Neanderthal DNA in our genes.
We know that intelligent hominins used caves. We don’t know if they lived in them. Some drew beautiful pictures of the animals of their ice age world. Sorry Evangelicals, no dinosaurs on their cave walls. Of course, they found fossil bones just like we do, and those discoveries would lead to myths and legends of dragons and giants.
Neanderthals were by no means stupid, but their brain capacity was less than Homo sapiens. They were stockier, shorter, had heavier muscles, and more of a protruding eyebrow. It would seem that heft in the gray matter was more advantageous than strong muscles, because Homo sapiens was the last of the hominin to survive. We were the Cadillac, the Porsche, the Maserati.
Now the big question. And I can only give you my opinion. If chimpanzees and gorillas are at the end of their develop capacity, how did the first bi-pedal hominin pop up? And as humans lost body hair and gained skin rather than hide, how did they survive during the transition? And how long did such a transition take? My humble theological and non-scientific opinion is that there was no natural transition any more than the Model T decided to become the Model A. That first rendition of hominin was designed.
Whenever that first step was made, it wasn’t Adam and Eve. Archaeologically, a literal historical Adam and Eve would fit into the era we call the Age of Copper, which was succeeded by the Bronze Age. According to the Bible numbers, they would have lived on the cusp of farming, animal husbandry, mining, art, writing, and large cities like Ur, looooong after the last mammoth was felled by men in animal skins. Which is why I interpret the Genesis creation stories as theological metaphor rather than infallible history or science.
How many scientists have been locked out of the church because the most dedicated Christians lack a broad education? We put our hand over our ears like children. Nyah, nyah, can hear you! My eyes are shut. I refuse to look at those ancient skulls. Would we not be better Christian witnesses in the world if we could let the biblical text breathe a little?
This story can also be seen at https://theologylighthouse.substack.com/p/how-we-homo-sapiens-got-here-for and at https://medium.com/@janetkatherineapplebysmith/how-we-homo-sapiens-got-here-for-christians-eb2188c9c4e9.
Check out my website www.janetksmithpersonal.com where you can read my memoir for free. The Legacy: A Memoir of Personal Guidance and Korean War Sabotage.
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